Short Story Family – Orphan
Photo credit: anitapeppers from morguefile.com
I had my head buried in my hands, and there were tears in my eyes. An unusual thing for me. Being a girl isn’t that easy. Being an orphan….there’s no telling. My parents died when I was one month old, in an accident. I was in the house with my grandma when the shocking incident happened. The news of their immediate death reached us real soon. And what was the advantage? My grandma died too, just seconds after hearing the news. And she was the only relative that I had, besides my mom and dad.
You must be wondering how I came to know all this, since I was only a month old then. Well, when I was 18, I pressed the nuns of the orphanage for some details of my history. And they couldn’t say no to my demand, as I was the finest girl in the entire orphanage. ‘My history’ actually made me sick. It crammed me with guilt. I had always thought my parents had just left me. You know, in the garbage or something. And I was really mad at them back then. I was more than mad actually. I had called them every swear words that I could manage to amass living with nuns. And now…..I just hope my parents will forgive me.
One day, I got an anonymous letter, saying that a relative of mine was in town and that he would meet me the next day. I was surprised. A relative? Anyway, I just eradicated the contents of the letter. “It must be for someone else”, I thought. And boy, was I ever wrong?
The next day, a man came in search of me. My brother, apparently. My step-brother. At first, I thought we had not real connection. Then I came to know, that we had the same mother not father. After that, I felt we connected. But I didn’t go with him anyway. He called me several times, to go and live with him. But I refused. Not because I love living with nuns, but because I thought I belonged here. We met, of course, almost every single day. As each day progressed, I felt like I finally found a family. I started to know him, to understand him, and solve his troubles for him. He had a lot of troubles, actually. Seems like every one of our family does.
Yesterday, I got terrible news, that he was admitted in a hospital, and that he’d die any moment! The shock is imaginable, I suppose. At last, when I thought I had someone to call ‘family’……..I rushed to the hospital, as fast I could.
But I wasn’t fast enough.
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