Love Me Again

Travel Plans

Chapter 1

Travel Plans

“Dad please! Please try to understand where I’m coming from!”

“Amara I have thought this through. I think this is the best thing for you. Please so this for me.”

“Dad I don’t know a thing about him! How can I marry him?” I asked in disbelief.

“Amara your mother and I had an arranged marriage and our marriage turned out wonderful.” He answered.

“But Dad times have changed. I can’t do this.” I was desperate to get him to understand.

“But that was why I had wanted you to meet Jay a few times before the wedding.”

“And I’m telling you it wasn’t enough.”

“Amara, honey trust me. I need your future secure and I know Jay is the right man for you. You both will learn to love each other over time.”

I sighed. My father wasn’t understanding the situation.

“Dad he loves someone else!” I yelled out in frustration.

My father was silent for a moment before he turned and faced me again.

“I know.”

I was shocked. “You know? And you want me to marry a man who’s heart belongs to some other woman.”

“It won’t be a problem.” I voice said from behind me.

I looked behind me and saw Jay standing there. I was shocked to see him. The first time I had met Jay I had been mesmerized and impressed with how much he cared for my father. I had thought I would say yes when my father asked me about him again but then Jay’s brother informed me about how Jay was being forced to give up the love of his life to marry me. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Amara please. I need you to marry Jay for my sake. You know my condition and you know that I can’t be at peace unless I know your going to be alright. Your sister chose her future when she ran away from home with that-“

My father started to cough. And I got up to get him a glass of water but Jay beat me to it.

“Dad please lets not talk about Esha.” I told him, taking the water from Jay and passing it to my father.

“Fine. Amara, please do this. As a dying man last wish for a secure future for his daughter?”

“Dad-

“Amara, the woman your discussing is my past and she will stay there. I’ve already told my parents yes.”

“Amara what do you say?” My father asked me.

I was stuck, but I knew what I would get up doing. What I had always done. Sacrifice for family, again. While Esha ran around the world with the love of her life I would marry a man that loved another woman.

“Yes.”

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“How bad is it?” I asked through the phone.

“We are going to try an experimental treatment but the chances of the treatment providing full remission are to low.”

“I don’t understand. My father made a full recovery last time.”

“He did but this a different more aggressive type of cancer.”

“All right, so start the treatment Ariz.”

“I would if he would agree to it Amara, but he refuses to listen to anything I have to say and I’m his doctor. He wants to talk to you. Can you please try and talk him into it?”

“Fine put him on.”

“Amara?”

“Hi dad.”  I hadn’t talked to my father in maybe 6 or 7 months. I think the last time he had called was around Christmas.

“How are you?” He asked me.

“I’m good. How are you doing? Ariz told me your refusing treatment. How is that a good decision? You should listen to Ariz, he’s your doctor.”

“I don’t need the treatment. It’s my time. I just have one wish I need you to fulfill for me.”

“Dad please be reasonable. You need this treatment.”

“Please Amara. I know you don’t want to but please I need you to do this one last thing for me. Think of it as a dying man’s last wish.”

It broke my heart to hear the desperation in his voice. I had no choice but to fulfill his wish, no matter what it was. I hadn’t been there for him at all in the last 6 years. This was the least I could do.

“What is it?” I asked.

I would be fine in doing anything he asked as long as it meant I wouldn’t be going back home.

“Please come home.”

Those words shocked me more than anything else. How could my father ask me to….I couldn’t….could I?

“Dad…”

“Please Amara. Let me have the chance to see you one last time. Give me the opportunity to spend some time with my grandchildren. I haven’t had the chance to do anything for them. Let me have one more chance to be there for them and let them know their grandpa. Let me pass on your childhood stories and the last bit of memories I have.”

I was in tears.

How could I deny my father the little wish he had. I had no choice.

“Alright dad. I’ll bring the kids and we’ll come back. But this isn’t permanent. I have a life here in LA and I will be coming back to it. But you have to promise me that you’ll still start the treatment Ariz wants you to.”

“I understand honey and I will.”

“Also, dad, I don’t think I will but I need you to promise me that I wont see HIM.”

 “I, yes, well I need to go now, I’ll see you soon?”

“Yes very soon. Love you.”

“I love you too.”

I ended the call and leaned back against the couch, closing my eyes.

How was I going to do this? How could I go back there?

I had barely made it through after I left the last time. And the circumstances were different this time. It wasn’t only about me I had to worry about. I had my kids to think about.

But the chances of running into him had to slim to none, right?

I couldn’t imagine my father having any connection with that man after what he did to me. It wouldn’t make any sense.

I tried to comfort myself but all I accomplished was more of a panic attack.

I needed to get a grip on myself and not loose focus.

I hugged my legs and dropped my head.

My father was sick and he needed me. He needed to see the kids and I would make it happen… if I could muster up the strength.

“Momma!”

“Momma!”

I lifted my head to see Zian and Tej looking at me. Arya was holding Tej’s hand but she was busy looking at the stuffed toy in her hands.

I cleared my head and focused back on my children. Zian and Tej were 5-year-old geniuses. They were so smart it shook me sometimes. I could barely keep up with them. Zian looked more like his father in a way. He had black hair and light hazel eyes. Tej had taken after me, with his lighter brown hair but he shared the same eyes as his brother.  

Arya was a 3-year-old bundle of joy. She had beautiful brown locks and forest green eyes. I may not have given birth to her but she was my daughter through and through.

“What is it honey?” I asked them.

“Uncle Naveen is asking if it’s time for cookies?” Zian asked.

“Cookies!” Arya shouted excitedly. She dropped her stuffed toy but I watched Tej pick it up and give it back to her.

“Cookies, huh?”

“I think before anyone can have any cookies, your toys need to be cleaned up, don’t you?” I asked the twins.

They nodded their head vigorously.

“Alright, mommy will go make the cookies while you guys clean up.”

Zian ran off to clean up as fast as possible as soon as I uttered the words. Tej on the other had nodded silently and then turned to Arya, who was still holding his hand.

“Come on Arya, I’ll help you clean up first. Okay?”

Arya nodded her head and followed her brother’s instructions and they went off to do as they were told.

I, myself forced myself to get up off the couch and change my mood. So, I decided to go find Naveen and see what mess he was getting into.

I found him in the kitchen, trying to pull out ingredients to bake cookies, at least that was what I assumed.

“Hey.”

“Hey, how was the phone call. It sounded intense.” He said pouring sugar into a bowl.

“You know you have to measure it out, right?” I said pointing to the measuring cup beside the mixing bowl.

He waved me off. “It’s fine”

“Ya, you’re not the one that’s going to have children hoped up on sugar after.” I whispered under my breath while taking a seat on one of the stools.

“I heard that!”

“You were meant to.”

“So back to the question you ignored. How’s your father?” Naveen asked.

I sighed. “I talked to Ariz and it turns out he’s not doing well… My father asked me to bring the kids and come visit him.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“No, I don’t. But as my father put it, it’s his dying wish and I can’t say no to that. He wants to see the twins and Arya. How can I deny him that wish?” I asked him.

Naveen mixed the contents of the bowl. “That bad?”

“Ya. Ariz said the cancer is back and it’s more aggressive than before.”

“Then you should go.”

“How can I go back there? With everything that happened…and the promise I made to myself. I told my father that I would come but how can I go through with it?” I asked him, shutting my eyes and dropping my head in my heads again.

“Amara your stronger than you know. Just look at you. You gave birth and raised two amazing boys and built your business from the ground up. You even adopted Arya! You’ve ben by yourself for so long that you don’t realize it. What you’ve done by yourself most people struggle to do it even with a partner.”

I lifted my head and smiled at Naveen. “Thank you. But you, Tisha and Leia have been there for me on more than one occasion. I don’t think I could have gotten through the first year with the twins without you.”

Naveen smiled at me.

“But even the thought that I might see Jay and his wife there…it tears at my heart and fills me with this pain. It’s been years yet I’m stuck in the same position I was when I left.”

“I doubt you’ll see them. You think Jay will be anywhere near your family after what he did?”

I thought about it, “I guess not.”

“What he did was wrong and it would cause anyone pain and give anyone a hard time to get over. Even if you saw him again it wont matter, you’ve moved on in your life just like he has.

I didn’t know how to respond to that but I didn’t need to.

“Mom!”

“Mom! You did it!”

“No, I did not!”

I heard the twins arguing and took that as a que to abandon the topic.

“Be right back.” I said as I got up to find out what the boys were fighting about this time.

“I’ll book the tickets.” Naveen shouted from behind me.

“Thanks!” I replied. “London here I come…I guess.”