“Shall I cut these apples in rabbit shape for you, Grandma?” Lara asked as she took out the fruit knife she got from home.
“Hmmm.” Isabella sat up on the bed.
Lara quickly helped Isabella to straighten the bed and arranged the pillow for her.
Then, she sat on the chair beside Isabella and took an apple.
She sliced into pieces and took individual pieces and cut the core out of each apple wedge.
While cutting one wedge, Lara accidentally cut her finger.
“Ouch.” Lara immediately put her finger inside her mouth and searched for a plaster in her purse.
On finding one, she quickly wrapped it around her finger and continued carefully scoring the apple skin with the knife in an inverted V shape.
“Ok, girl.
Spit it out.
Clearly your head is somewhere else.” Isabella noticed her granddaughter was not in this world at all.
Her mind was completely somewhere else altogether.
“How can it be when my lovely grandmother is in front of me?
This cut?
It’s just a rookie mistake.” Lara tried to push the suspicion away.
She couldn’t risk her grandmother getting any kind of shock after a surgery.
“Rookie mistakes are made by people who just enter the kitchen and start learning how to cook.
Not someone who has been cooking in my restaurant for ten years and got 1 Michelin star.
Now, tell me.
What is it?” Isabella crossed her arms and looked at Lara.
She scrutinised every single facial muscle movement of Lara.
“Grandma, it’s nothing.
I was thinking about a conversation,” Lara lied and smiled.
“No, something else happened.
You have never made a mistake like this even when you were half asleep and cutting a fish with scales.
What happened?” Isabella pressed.
“I just met with some lawyers and a very rich family.” Lara confessed under the pressure.
“How rich of a family?” Isaella asked out of curiosity.
“Rich enough to be able to own this hospital, some malls and a very famous entertainment label.” Lara thought for a while and replied.
When she signed the share transfer papers, she did see these in them.
“How did you end up meeting such people?” Isabella asked out of curiousity.
“They searched for me.” Lara put her head in shame.
She knew what her grandmother was thinking.
But she can’t fulfil them for her.
“For your music?” Isabella asked with excitement.
“Finally, God is with us,” she thought.
“No, for my blood.” Lara said, barely above a whisper.
“What do you mean?” Isabella’s face froze.
Things didn’t feel right.
“Grandma, I don’t know how to tell you this.
I myself can’t wrap it around my head.” Lara mumbled in fear and anxiety.
She didn’t want her grandmother to know the truth, but she needed to tell her as well.
“What happened, girl?
Just tell it.
Your grandmother isn’t some weak woman,” Isabella barked.
“Grandma, a DNA report says that I am not your granddaughter.” Lara decided to tell the truth finally.
“I felt that,” Isabella said with nonchalance.
“What do you mean?” Lara shrieked.
“Have you not noticed once how different you look from your mother and father?
Or even me or your grandfather?
I always felt that something was wrong,” Isabella replied like a matter of fact.
“Then why did you raise me?” Lara asked quietly.
“Because you are my granddaughter even if a medical test report says you are not.
You are the child my daughter named and raised with all the love.
You are the granddaughter who I raised since my daughter’s death.” Isabella patted Lara’s head gently and said.
Lara started to cry.
She was so scared that the reply could be something worse.
Like in those cliché novels – ‘You looked pretty enough to be sold in a marriage with a good bride price.’
“What happened, child?
Why are you crying?
All because I said that I love you even if you aren’t of my blood?
Oh, come here, you child.” Isabella stretched her arms, and Lara immediately hugged Isabella.
She cried like a ten year old child who just got bullied by children.
Isabella gently soothed Lara, “My child, Grandma is always there for you, no matter what.”
“Grandma, I’m getting married.
I’m getting married to some random guy.” Lara accidentally slipped it while crying.
“What!
Lara Collins!
What have you done?” Isabella looked into Lara’s guilty eyes.
“Nothing, Grandma.
It’s all for you,” Lara replied guiltily.
She bit her inner cheeks as a punishment for making such a blunder.
“Are you pregnant?” Isabella interrogated.
“No.” Shocked at the question, Lara instantly replied.
“Are you dating anyone?” Isabella questioned again.
“No.
Why was I being pregnant the first question?” Lara questioned Isabella’s sanity.
“Then, do you owe this person some money?” Isabella finally asked.
Lara looked away, conscience-stricken.
Isabella knew she hit the mark.
“How much do you owe that you have to marry this person?
And why do you even owe this person?” Isabella lightly joked.
“I don’t really owe the person I am marrying, but the family I am bloodily tied to.” Lara said, avoiding Isabella’s eyes.
Lara told Isabella what happened in the morning.
She told about Arnold’s offer, her deal, and all the papers she signed.
She told about the marriage that she was about to enter and, most crucially, why she chose it.
Lara told Isabella about Isabella’s diagnosis.
The price the doctor quoted it could become.
The severity of her diagnosis.
Everything, without leaving a single piece of information withdrawn.
Lara tried her level best to make the cancer sound less severe and managable, but Isabella caught it.
“Why did you take a loan like this from them?
For me, this old woman who would die anytime?
Have you lost your mind?” Isabella angrily yelled at her granddaughter’s supposed foolishness in her absence.
“You don’t get it,” Lara retorted.
“What do I not get, girl?
Who told you to take such decisions, huh?” Isabella hit Lara on her sides with her frail-framed yet incredibly strong hands.
“I have lost my mother.
I have lost my father.
I have lost my precious pets.
I have lost money.
I have been hurt and ripped apart by people even though I didn’t even know what wrong I did to deserve it.” Lara hiccuped a bit.
She tried to control her breath.
“And now, I will lose you.
Waiting for better times, where I’ll have enough money to save you and have time to spend with you, is meaningless, cause who knows when it will come?
I’d rather accept the cards I have and go ahead and plan my life according to them,” Lara said as calmly as possible.
Isabella looked at her granddaughter.
She always knew her granddaughter was way mature for her age.
She always wondered what was going on in her head when she took her decisions.
For the first time, Isabella knew.
She knew and she accepted.
For people keep saying blood runs thicker than water.
But they always say half of it, just to satisfy their point.
“I am your grandmother, even if a medical test report says I am not.
Always remember that.” Isabella said as she held Lara’s hand.
The warmth of her hands made tears well up in Lara’s eyes.
“You forever are, my grandmother.
Nobody can change that.” Lara said and kissed Isabella’s frail, wrinkled hands.