MD sighed. He was ready to talk. “Give me two months,” he finally said, his eyes looking everywhere but at me.“Two months?” I retorted.
“Is that not too long for a small family introduction? No, MD, that is not acceptable,” I said to him.“Come on, Anita, two months is only a few weeks away,” he explained. “Remember, I need to plan this carefully. And besides, we are going to travel, aren’t we? Your parents are not here and I may have to take one or two people with me.
It is not quite as small as you think it is, it still requires planning.”“So, you can’t give me a date now?” I demanded, my face plastered with desperation.“No, dear, not now,” MD answered. “I need to look at my business schedules in the office, look at my free dates where I have no serious business engagements and then pick a date from one of them.”
“Okay, MD, I heard you, and I hope you will keep to your word because it won’t be funny if I inform my family that you’re coming and then you end up not showing up and asking to reschedule the visit again, I will be very mad. And do not blame me then for whatever action I take,” I let out a subtle threat.“There you go again, still threatening to do something stupid,”
MD returned, rubbing his hand on my face and trying to get me to smile.“Something stupid, you say?” I returned, looking at him with a glint of anger in my eyes. “I swear, MD, you won’t find it amusing any more if you continue to treat me the way you’re doing. I am not a girl you picked on the street, for crying out loud, I am the mother of your child, your only child for that matter.
And I guess I have to keep reminding you of that fact.”MD smiled. He drew me closer. “You have nothing to worry about, my dear, I have assured you countless times. And you do not need to remind me, I know you’re the mother of my child, my ONLY child for that matter,” he whispered in my ears, emphasising ONLY the way I emphasise it when I said the same words to him.“Then treat me like one, MD, treat me like I mean something to you…Put a ring on my finger, or is that too much to ask for? Two months, MD, two months and not a day more, otherwise, it is over between us!”
MD was silent. He was speechless. He just sat there, watching me, a cold look on his face. No doubt about it, he didn’t find it amusing that I was putting my foot down with him, he didn’t like it all.“I have heard you, Anita but I have said it before and I will say it again, stop threatening me, I do not appreciate it!” he shot at me. “I have assured you I will handle this matter and make sure things go according to plan. But you won’t listen to me, you keep threatening me, you keep threatening to take my son away from me…is that what you really want to do?”
I shook my head, looking him straight in the eye. “I am not planning to do such thing yet, MD, all I am saying is that I need you to do the needful so that I am not pushed to do something you won’t like.”He was gazing at me, listening to me as I talked. “This is not about threatening you, MD, it’s about looking out for myself and for my son,” I continued, some measure of anger in my voice. “You and I know we have been on this issue for a while now, yet you keep making promises. You have not said anything to guarantee me that this time, those promises you made will be kept.
They have been nothing but empty promises all this time. So, if now, I am ‘threatening,’ as you put it, to walk away with my child and look for a better future for us, can you blame me for doing so?”MD beamed me a wry smile. Then he said: “Let me ask you, Anita, do you actually think you can live the kind of comfortable life you’re living right now without me in your life?” MD fired. “Do you think because you’re a young and beautiful lady, every man out there would want to marry you along with my son and take care of him like me, the father, would do?
How many men do you even think will be ready to settle down with a single mom, if you choose to walk away from me and live alone all by yourself along with my child? Do you think life is as rosy out there as you think?”He may be right. Things may not go as smoothly as I think they would go if I leave him. Definitely, I would have to go through some rough patches without MD in my life. I know all of these and I was willing to take the risk.
But, more than anything else, I could also see what the man was doing. He was trying to scare me. He was trying to put great fear of the unknown into me. Knowing I wouldn’t know for certain what could come out of taking such decisive step, he was trying to create doubts in my mind so that the uncertainties of walking away from him and living alone would make me begin to have second thought. But more than anything else, what it also means is that MD was not really being sincere with me about his intention for us to get married.“MD, if I can read your mind correctly, going by what you just said, it is like you have no sincere intention to do the wedding!
You are just taking me on a wild goose chase that you know will lead to nowhere! Is that what this is about? This is all a lie, right? You have such plans to make me your legally married wife, right?”MD opened his mouth to speak but, at first, no word came forth. He was shocked by my outburst.“Anita, why would you say something like that?” he asked, looking bewildered. And I wondered why.
The man must be a good actor himself . I looked at him coldly in the eyes and said to him: “Because, with what you just told me now, it is very obvious that I am wasting my life with you!”His eyes bulged out of their sockets with shock. I had hit him hard below the belt. It was a cold, harsh thing to say, but I did not regret it one bit. I needed to say the truth to his face. He was not treating me fairly and who else could tell him the truth but me.“Anita, oh, my God!” he exclaimed.
“But why would you say a thing like that? Are you being fair here at all?” He paused, looked at me intensely and shook his head in a manner that suggested he was terribly disappointed. “So, you think you are wasting your life with me? Is that really what you think this is?”“Until you put a ring on my finger, yes, that’s what I think it is,” I returned very coldly, not minding the fact that he appeared disturbed.“If you actually had the sincere intention to go ahead with our wedding, you will not say what you just said, threatening me that I won’t find life easy if I walk away, when what you should be saying is that I will never have any reason to walk away,” I’d continued.
“I may be way younger than you in age, but I think I deserve to be fairly treated, MD. I have emotions too, you know. You need to consider my own feelings when you say these things to me.”MD just sat down there on the couch quietly, staring at me and then looking up at the ceiling. Then, he rose to his feet. “I need to leave, Anita, I can see that if I stay a minute longer, chances are that you could make me react in a way I might regret.”I wasn’t expecting that from him. I thought he would still beg me and reassure me of his sincere intentions to do the needful.
What have I said now that he is angry with me? Is that enough reason for him to get up and tell me he’s leaving? And when I tell him he no longer cares about my emotions, he gets upset, has he not proved me right, now?…
To Be Continued
