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Book - 1 - Draft 2
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The island is connected to the mainland from one end, but only by a single lane bridge.
One car can pass through at a time.
It’s a beautiful scenery.
Sea on both sides and an island covered in forest vegetation not too dense to see the shape of the hills on itself.
The girl beings to settle down in her head.
She’s going home. To her relatives and her bother.
She resists the temptation to stay at the island a bit longer.
It would be cruel to her relatives to keep them waiting.
They hadn’t ever been mean or bad to her since her father's death.
They had comforted her and kept her company all these years.
They were, in fact, better company than her father as she could remember the time she had spent with him after her mother’s death.
Without her mother, he seemed to have become a silent and more crass individual.
He loved her deeply but kept her out of harm's way in his own way.
His death too had been unannounced, a silent stroke took him one night.
She hadn’t grieved it very much.
For her, he had passed on a few weeks after her mother’s death.
As if he had lost interest in family life and socialising after she passed.
He kept himself busy with his work.
Running an entire spice empire by himself.
In fact, his death had been so unannounced that the inheritance papers had also not been altered and reissued.
It still meant that her now retarded brother would inherit 60% of the family business which she would become a second minority stakeholder after her mother.
She had a knack for business but relatives kept her out of it.
They said it was no place for a girl to work among men.
She wouldn’t be taken seriously.
She doubted that it would have been the case or what her father and mother would have wanted had they still been alive, healthy and living a good life.
But she didn’t intend to push them.
They were narrow-minded people yes, but honest as they came.
They always respected her father and without much interference in the companies profits taken on the business as one of their own.
She had the luxury to spend on what she may please.
Jewels, real estate or another business.
But she had so far kept out of it.
It was a simple loving family she craved.
A sense of Home and belongingness.
And they gave that to her.
She lived simple and hoped to live out her dreams once she was married.
Though with age she wanted to do something of her own, taking this trip had been her idea.
To step out of her shell again and live her life.
It so coincidentally happens that this young boy, his bother and aunt came only a few weeks before she had to leave.
It was a promise her father had given 15 - 16 years ago to his childhood friend that he would marry his daughter into their house and convert the friendship into a blood relationship.
At first, when he showed up, she didn’t know what to expect.
She didn’t know of the promise.
But her relatives knew of this.
Haven’t ever met the father's friend themselves, they had often heard of him mentioning it to them.
It’s why he didn’t worry too much about his daughter.
He knew in their house she would settle right in.
The status of the families matched so to say.
Something a father hopes, before giving his daughter away in the end.
So when the boy came, her father must have been smiling from heaven in peace she thought to herself.
He had immediately become part of the family.
Both brothers were good looking, outgoing and well mannered.
Dressed well and showed no interest in the wealth of her family.
They had come for her.
A promise had to be fulfilled.
The more they got along with the rest of the family, the more at ease she herself felt with them.
The aunt had struck her as off from the first time she met her.
But relatives can be nosy or overbearing.
She had seen those of her friends during her graduation days.
But she was happy.
The aunt wouldn’t have much say after the marriage anyway. She caught herself thinking in past tense, that must have been a sign.
The first time she set her eyes on the boy, she felt a connection.
She wanted to know him.
And he seemed to have wanted to know her.
During their days at her house.
They would talk endlessly about the world around them, their travels and the future ahead.
She felt her self-come undone when he would ask her to tell him more about herself.
It was indeed a dream come true.
His family had been in the business of sugar and cocoa.
'What a match made in heaven' she thought to her self.
Sugar and spice did indeed come with all things nice!
He was a few years elder to her, but the age brought with it experience and patience it seemed.
Their parents too had passed away, just two years ago.
A lovely couple who were avid travellers and adventurers themselves, who were taken in a plane crash.
A year the boys had managed by themselves.
Lived alone in the mansion by themselves with the help.
First, they shouldered the burden of keeping the family business running smoothly themselves but soon started to realise that a woman's touch to the place was something they both craved.
The elder brother was admittingly a ladies man.
Dating a number of well-known celebs and models over the years in private.
But promised his younger brother to give up on his old ways of the boy married first.
The boy agreed to this.
Their aunt had been put away by their mother after a family tragedy and mental breakdown that had occurred with her years ago.
She wasn’t fit to live in the same house again the doctor had said.
It could affect her psychologically.
And so it had to be done.
But she had nowhere else to go.
Half their mother's age but a woman, their intention had been pure to bring her home.
They needed a mother more than she needed children.
So she had moved back to the house after 10 years of staying at a special facility in Japan for those who couldn’t cope with the outside world.
She had the habit of speaking her mind.
Unable to stop her thoughts at her lips.
If anyone met her only once. They were rather taken aback, but once the boys explained her behaviour to them briefly, they adjusted to her.
Only managing to admire her that she didn’t keep any hatred inside of her.
Peculiarly enough thought it seemed all her clothes were in deep shades of red.
Suits, saris and even nightgown.
But one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover she thought to her self.
When the topic of her travel plans came up, they accepted them willingly.
While her relatives had advised her on not going for it now given the change in circumstances.
But the boy's elder bother suggested that the boy go along with her for the trip.
This has to some extent shocked the relatives but they smoothly pleaded to them saying at least she wouldn’t be alone and out of harm's way given the extend of the trip.
And the boy and girl and boy would have a chance to know each other better. They would trade their room for a more communal one.
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