TORN PETALS

SARAH sighed with a satisfied smile as she wrapped up the afternoon session with high school students.
She was part of a team of Army personnel assisting in a week-long tour of selected schools for career
discussions. It was an initiative launched by the Ministry of Education for all ten regions and she was
assigned to region four.

The one-on-one talks were a way to guide and help students build their self-confidence, and self-belief and to note areas of concern where further assistance can be taken into consideration. She was

impressed and sometimes touched by some students’ passion for success, their ambitions, and dreams
and others with doubts and fear of failure.

As a young female rank in the army, she exuded confidence, courage and a calm personality that had a
positive impact on the female students. Her talks with them helped to dissipate their nervous and
uncertain thoughts about their choice of careers. That was one of the satisfying aspects for Sarah in her
profession as a soldier that she could inspire other young people to pursue their goals and a hands-on
approach to help.

She too had needed help as a traumatised fifteen-year-old whose eyes could have only seen a bleak
future. A God-sent intervention had, step-by-step repaired her damaged self-esteem and built her self-confidence to make her the strong, assertive woman she was today.
“Thank you, dear Lord,” she whispered as she had done every night since then to now and closed
her eyes to sleep.
Tomorrow she and her team would be at schools on the East Coast for another long day.

It was another successful day with students and listening to their ambitions and concerns that, once again,
helped to break down the barriers of uncertainty and open communication. It was just after lunch
and as Sarah prepared to begin the afternoon session, a young male student took his seat at her desk.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.”
“Good afternoon,” she responded, looking up at him and drawing in her breath a little sharply.

He had a close resemblance to someone from the dark memories of her past and a strange feeling
pulsed through her being.
“What is this?” she wondered and shrugged the feeling off to begin her session.
“Your name?”
“Aryan Malhotra.”
The pen froze in her hand at his surname, a name that had driven fear in her mind as a young girl but
then more than one person could have that name, so taking a deep breath, she continued.

“Your address?”
As he read it out, she wrote, her fingers trembling a little for it was a place she knew and by the time she had written the father and mother’s names, her face had become pale. The boy noticed the change in her
expression and he asked a little concern, “Are you okay?”
She got up and said, “Excuse me a minute, please.”

Sarah went to the girl’s washroom, washed her face, and leaned over the sink taking deep breaths.
“Oh, god this can’t be happening.”
It took her a good while to compose herself, then she returned and sat down, her expression calm though
there was turmoil in her mind.
The boy was still waiting, and he asked, “Are you fine now?”
“Yes, sorry about that.”

She continued the discussion by listening to his brilliant idea for a career as a scientist so he could help find
cures for killer diseases. She could somehow feel his passion for his career choice, but there was
something else he seemed to have on his mind that he didn’t talk about.
She had noticed the flicker of worry and she asked gently, “Is there anything else you would like to talk
about?”

He looked at her, then looked away for a long moment, seeming to be battling with his thoughts then
looking at her he said, “I don’t think it has anything to do with my career.”
“You never know, it might be related and could affect you in the future.”
He sighed and then said, “I am an only child and I have everything in life I could want yet deep inside
I feel like I am missing something.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, not sure what to tell him but she knew she had to say something.
“It’s something you will understand as you grow older, so you shouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“Thanks,” he said with a schoolboy’s charming smile, “It was great talking to you.”
“You’re most welcome.”

He got up and left and as she watched him go tears filled her eyes.
She left the sessions early, her mind too disturbed to continue her work and standing under the shower in
her hotel room she cried as she had done years ago. Later that night after she had calmed down,
memories of that horrible and painful period in her life that she had tried to bury came back slowly.
“I never thought I would have ever seen him,” she said quietly, trembling in her voice.
The baby that had been taken away from her just after birth, the baby only whose cries she heard.
She saw him today and now she understood that strange feeling that entered her being though she didn’t
know him.

She had been fifteen when he was born.
The pain and trauma of giving birth at such a young age had driven a deep fear in her heart for no one
was there for her. Her mother, a poor, tired woman with three younger children to provide for alone, had taken money from the rich abuser to say nothing of her daughter’s pregnancy. The powerful, arrogant
man wanted the baby for his wife could not have children.

They had taken Sarah to one of the houses they owned on the East Bank and when she went into labour
a midwife was brought and paid big money to deliver the baby. They wanted no one to know of its birth
because of her age nor to have to answer any questions on who the father was. They had a well-set plan
on how the baby could legally belong to them with hardly any care for the poor young mother.
One week later they had given her some money and sent her to a faraway place, telling her to never
come back.

Sarah got up and walked to the window, staring out into the night, not seeing anything then she smiled
and said quietly, “Karma can be such a …”
She turned, walked into the bathroom, and looked at herself in the mirror, a determined glint in her eyes.
“I am not a frightened little girl anymore. I am a soldier, brave and strong and I will make them pay for
what they did to me.’

To be continued…

 

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