SARAH was not sure how she would get justice and if her son should know the truth. Her abusers were the mother and father in his life from birth so she had to think of a good plan to expose them.

The Malhotras came from a long line of successful business people and she had nothing comparable to offer her son except the truth that she knew could come at a heavy price, but it could also bring inner peace and closure. The past she had kept buried in the depths of her mind but seeing her son brought it back to life.

“What’s the reason for this?” she questioned herself, “New chapters of my life?”

The old chapters she had ripped up in her mind and thrown away after she became Sarah. Those pages were filled with tears, pain, and suffering for a young girl named Reshma, who just wanted to live a simple, beautiful life.

“Dreams that never found me,” she expressed, a pain in her heart.

Her family had lived in the throes of poverty and with her alcoholic father in and out of their lives, she had been forced to leave school at twelve years old. She worked different small jobs as a maid to help supplement her home with three other siblings. Then she got a lucky break at thirteen to work for a wealthy family where the pay was good.

The mistress, a beautiful, classy woman, seemed kind, letting her do light work that increased gradually but no one’s life is perfect. There were days when the mistress spoke to workers with harsh tones and days when she got angry at something or the other.

“It’s because ah deboss,” one of the maids whispered to Sarah one day.

“Why?” she asked innocently.

“He has girlfriends.”

“Oh,” she had responded surprised, “But the mistress is so beautiful.”

The woman had looked at her and smiled shaking her head.

“Yuh too young tuh undastan these things.”

Sarah had learned to adapt to the mistress change of moods, until one year later when the boss started looking at her with interest. It had happened when she had to work late one afternoon because two maids had been absent that day and the mistress had gone to a social.

“You are growing up quite nicely,” he had said with a smile, that made her tremble a little inwardly. She had heard workers speak of his arrogance and womanizing lifestyle. She had seen the wicked intent in his eyes whenever he was home and fear had started to grow within her. She wasn’t sure she could have spoken to anyone there so she told her mother. It shocked her that the mother did not see it the way she did, interested more in the money her daughter earned.

“This is what it means to be poor?” she questioned, heartbroken over her mother’s response.

Sarah continued to work wary of the boss’s advances. He was getting closer and she wanted to talk to someone but the maid she had built a nice relationship with had left the job and two others were dismissed in just a few weeks. New people were working in the house now, and with the mistress in and out at socials, it didn’t make things easier for Sarah in avoiding the boss.

The horror in her young life began just two months after her fourteenth birthday when the mistress was on vacation overseas. It continued on days when she was out until Sarah started to feel sick. She did not go back to work, helpless, not knowing what to do. Her mother, who had not been working for a while due to an accident on her leg berated Sarah.

“Wah we can do now, eh? Starve and die?”

Sarah had stayed in the house crying, unaware her mother had met with the boss and took payments to stay silent about her daughter’s pregnancy. She was still a child at fourteen, confused and scared about all that was happening in her life. Then things took a twist when the mistress sent for her. Sarah had trembled at the dark anger on her face and the insulting words that felt like stab wounds. She had no words to defend herself from the husband who abused her and the wife who blamed her.

The wealthy and childless couple soon decided to keep the baby as their own, given Sarah was too young and poor to care for a child. She could now not return home but lived with them until the baby was born. It was like living in hell for the mistress now hated her and abused her verbally and physically.

“Those were the days when I wanted to die.”

Sarah closed her eyes and inhaled deeply to stop the dark memories.

The next day after wrapping up the sessions at schools further down the East Coast, Sarah and her team returned to the hotel late in the afternoon. The receptionist informed her that someone was waiting in the lounge for her. She was surprised to see it was Aryan.

“Hey, why are you here?”

“I–I needed to see you before you go back.”

She smiled to put him at ease and sat down, “Are you here alone?”

“Yes, my driver is waiting for me.”

She felt a surge of happiness seeing him again and asked, “Why do you need to see me?”

“I—I don’t know, I just had the strange feeling that I need to see you and tell you the deep interest you showed during the discussion kind of impacted my mind.”

His words gave rise to an emotional feeling within her and she swallowed a little before responding to him, “I’m happy it meant that much to you.”

He handed her a book, “I also wanted you to have this, it’s a book of poems I wrote.”

“That’s wonderful, thank you.”

“After you read it, maybe you can give me a review.”

“I definitely will.”

He handed her his card, “Looking forward to that.”

She watched him leave and said to herself with a confident smile, “And this is how it starts for me to get justice, through my son.”

To be continued…