Date with the Daughters

By Morsheda Amin

Life is already abundant with the resources of fulfilling a desire. Fear doesn’t allow people to see the already ready abundance. In this book characters are coming to a realization that fear exists only on a choice point. Once fear is illuminated, characters discover that they were flawlessly abundant in the first place. In the process of discovery, a divorce occurred. But the divorce worked as a catalyst to increase self-esteem in the divorced couple. The kids of the couple are the most benefited because of their parents’ separation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669805120

Morsheda Amin

I love poetry. I have been admiring poetry since I was a child. The admiration put me in front of one question: where does the feeling of love come from? I used to look in the beauty of sky to find my answer. I looked at the beauty of roses to find my answer. It took a long, long time for me to realize that I am magic and I am made of love with so much creative potential inside of me. Now I look back and laugh at my confused mind. It was not actually my fault that I couldn’t see my power like a tree doesn’t think about the fertility of the soil. But we human beings need to think about our power so we can use it righteously better. Now I am a thinker of “magical human inside.” I am fascinated by the magic and write my fascination through my writing.

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Copyright © 2022 by Morsheda Amin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/23/2021

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It is

thirty first of October. Kids are busy with trick or treat in this neighborhood. Priya and Serenity follow the kiddy crowds with their mother. Priya is a dragon and Serenity is a witch in their Halloween costumes. Tina-the mother is wearing a fox faced hat. As they were walking in the dark, they didn’t see someone terribly spooky coming behind them. Serenity hid herself between Tina’s legs. There and then she refused to go any farther with the Halloween event. Tina has to postpone the trick or treat fun even though Priya wants it so much. They came home while kids were still chiming outside on the street. Priya keeps scolding Serenity for being so chicken. ‘Tina starts to scold Priya since she is not being kind to her little sister. Priya seriously doesn’t know what to do with her disappointment. She went to the bed and buried herself under a blanket. She can hear her friends’ voices coming from the window. It is not a very good feeling when a sudden incident kills excitement. And she is a little upset with mom too. She loves serenity more than her. Serenity is her priority all the time. She feels tears rolling down to her lips. She is terribly missing the fun outside. Suddenly she hears someone knock on their door. She gathers all her attention to the ears. The one is nothing but a trick or treat party. Mom and serenity gave them candy. The party is looking for Priya. Mom tells them to go to the bedroom. A group of nine years old came into the room like a bucket of fall leaves scattered all over. They try to comfort Priya and tread their candy. Priya sits on the bed and realizes she herself is in a Halloween costume like her friends. She actually teared up as a witch. They all together talked at once, giggled and shared a sweet Halloween experience. Priya’s feelings changed from dark clouds to sunny mornings. Her friends left saying that they will see her in the school the next day. Priya came to the kitchen and told mom that she was hungry. Serenity is already there sitting at the kitchen table and eating macaroni cheese. Mom is sitting next to her with her hands crossed on the table. Priya can sense that mom is a little off, quieter than usual. She is only nine and she has no idea about the world of grown ups. Their dad is a police officer. He was recently posted in another town. He comes every weekend. But they didn’t see dad for the last few weekends since he is chasing some serious criminals. Mom made chicken borido for her. Mom herself took a cookie and coffee for dinner. It seems mom has plans to stay up at night. After dinner Priya and Serenity changed into nighties and showed each other’s candy. There were not too many because they couldn’t finish their trick or treat parade. Still Priya is happy for her friends who are kind enough to visit their friend who was cut short of Halloween fun. Serenity is five years old and a blinded follower of Priya which is something Priya doesn’t like. Priya and Serenity share the same room but different beds in the room. Serenity is still too scared of monsters she saw in the street. She asked Priya if she could sleep with her. First she said no then she said yes thinking serenity is only four and she is her little sister. They tugged themselves under the same blanket. They fell asleep. In the kitchen Tina is drinking espresso coffee too thick that it can be cut by a knife. For the last few months she is assuming something around her husband. It feels like he is living with another woman and the woman has a little boy. She saw him buying a boy’s toy last time she saw him here. He told her that he bought it for his coworker’s boy’s birthday. But some senses of surety nagging her for a long time because he is not intimately excited for his family. He calls only when he is outside, not home. He keeps telling her about the urgency of the job and how much he is needed there. Tina knows that new love and romance hit him hard. He is tangled with another heart. Her woman’s intuition knows all that for sure. She actually began to let him go from her mind. Her only concern is her daughters’ emotions. They love their daddy as much as their mommy. She decided to call her husband to make sure of her assumption. She called but no one picked up the phone. She called five times putting a ten minutes interval in between, still no response. Definitely he is having sex in one room and in the other room a little boy is sleeping. Strange Tina is not jealous or envious as if everything about her husband was fake or phony from the beginning. He knew this kind of situation was coming sooner or later. She just thinks about how she is going to break this news to her daughters. She comes to the daughters’ bedroom and sees they are sleeping together. This bed scene breaks her heart into pieces. She kissed them on their foreheads and made a room to sit next to them. Sitting there she feels her inner monster that can move the mountain for love. She came back to the kitchen again. Outside is pin drop silent. Only a new moon hangs the world to its edgy hook. The darkness is too mysterious to comprehend. Human beings think life is under their control. Life is actually controlled by the mysterious highness of love. Girls are not actually losing daddy’s love. They are losing a watch of intimate connections between a couple who are their parents. Tina asked herself a straight question: is she afraid of taking all the responsibility that comes with motherhood or is she angry because she has lost the possession of her husband? The answer is:both. Right now at this moment she is nothing but scattered broken pieces. But definitely she will gather herself together and will move on with her daughters in her arms. She decided to tell her daughters about the dad situation when it is time. She came to her bed. Lying in the bed she tries to remember all the connections she had with her husband at the heart level. She doesn’t find one. It was all demystifying sex and experincing cuteness of babies. They had sex a millions times and they made two babies. Still it is nothing to keep a family intact. Her husband wants to know what is absolutely real by romancing other women. Tina thinks anything people make with a wrong mindset finally turns into an illusion. The reality is girls are here and her love for girls is infinite. Hopefully her husband feels the same way. It is important that he claims fatherhood. Tina tried to sleep. It is impossible to sleep with this dagger in the chest. She thanks herself that she has finished four years of school and already has a steady job. Difficulty is not actually around finance. It is dealing with the girls’ new perception of their dad. Tina doesn’t know when she fell asleep. She wakes up with the girls’ voice calling her. She has to get her daughters ready for school and she herself has to be ready for her school. She teaches physics in a private high school. Priya is a third grader and serenity goes to preschool. Tina has a babysitter who picks her girls’ from the school. She takes care of the girls until Tina comes back from her school. She dropped the girls at the school before she headed for her job. It is not that she loves her job. Students are inattentive mostly. She repeats the same topic ten times, but still she hears Mrs Hidalgo, can you please explain the laws of gravity again? She loves her job for herself. As she teaches, she harnesses the beauty of the laws of the universe. People say the universe is unlimited with potential. Potential is limitless but laws that rule the potential are brutally limited, restricted, unforgiving. Human beings can’t trick these laws. If they try, they have to face the consequences and the consequences are not pretty. This truth applies in her life. She shouldn’t have married Lio or Leonardo in the first place. But she wanted to get out of her family and her home country so badly that she just landed on a man to do it for her. She met Leonardo in the United Kingdom. He is a US citizen who was visiting the United Kingdom at the time when he met Tina. Tina is a cocacian and Lio is a Central American american. Tina moved to America with a spouse visa. Here, their two girls were born and Tina attained school for a master’s degree. Her soul’s desires were never family and marriage. It was absolute freedom from the social dispute of her being raised in a colored family. She was an adopted child. All her life she has been searching for her parental identity. She started her journey of life by borrowing someone’s guilt. There is no ancestral blessing in her life. Still life goes on. Since she never had someone to look up to and make proud of herself, she understood fairness clearly. She stood out because of her excellency in academics. She doesn’t know her birth parents. This mystery gave her a magnetic heart attracted to secrecy. She loves digging deeper whether it is human psychology or astrophysics. Her past made her a human woman who is independent from the world. Only one time in her life she chose a deliberately selfish mindset when she accepted her man. She did not want her love life to be this way. But she did not know any better at the time. She was always extra sugary to cover her selfish mind and Lio couldn’t catch her true color. Does she miss her husband after raising a family for a long time? Not really. It is because she knows herself and she has no guilt for what she did to her husband. Her self love is selfish as hell. It is because her birth parents were selfish as hell. On the contrary she is a parent of two little beautiful girls. Her girls know nothing about this complex world. They have to learn the hard lessons about how to be independent from the world, even though mommy and daddy are apples to their eyes. Love is whole with all the affection in it. Survival is selfish that sacrifices love. In between life’s drama hits the climax. Now Lio realizes that something is missing in their relationship which is his wife’s respect. Tina has zero respect for her husband. He was just a ticket for her life’s evolution. She can’t blame Lio for anything. Her only challenge is to break down the complexity of life to her daughters. Girls have a deep rooted we are family idea. Tina wants to give them time to perceive their dad with their own little intelligence. She doesn’t inject any pre-existential notion around father in their brains. They will take everything as it comes. Tina came home after her teaching job. Girls are with their babysitter watching television. Tina hugged them and wanted to see the project they made in the school. Serenity drew the solar system and her family on vacation. Her dad is too fat and wears a suit in the painting. She asks Serenity why dad is so big. She said that dads are supposed to be big because they protect their family from monsters. Serenity still thinks about the Halloween monster. Serenity’s perception of dad made Tina melancholy.

Tina asks, do you miss daddy?

Serenity replies, so much so I can’t sleep at night.

Tina took her four years old on her lap and said, Daddy will be home soon.

Serenity starts crying because she misses her dad so much. She cries with her soul out. Serenity is Tina’s crying baby, but her cry has no lie.

She called Lio. Lio picked up the phone. Tina complains about his absence as if she is suffering so much managing two girls here. She is acting again. She can’t avoid this trend because that is the foundation of the relationship. She asks Lio to talk to her little girl. Lio promised to the girl that she will be home this coming weekend. Today is only Monday. Okay, Serenity can wait. Priya is playing video games. Priya loves movies and the playground. Serenity is quiet and emotional about everything. She cries every time she needs to say goodbye to someone. She has a missing out kind of attitude around everything. She is the only little person in the room who feels someone’s absence so strongly when the one just left the room. When she is in school, she misses her home. When she is home, she misses her school. Tina takes care of her little one with extra care. God knows where she got this extreme flexible emotional state of her mind from. Tina grades her students’ test papers while her kids are busy doing their homework. After school work Tina puts the kids to the bed. They have to wake up early in the morning for school again. Weekdays end quicker than they have thought. Lio called Serenity and Priya for unlimited times during weekdays. He talked to Tina too. Most of their talks are about Priya and Serenity. Finally Saturday morning came. Priya and Serenity are waiting for their dad on the porch. Their daddy will be here in five minutes. Serenity is shaking inside as she is the most excited one. Their dad is six feet tall and slim. As he got out of the car, two girls slammed on him. Lio came inside carrying both of them. He is flooding kids with his kisses. He kissed Tina too, lightly though. Serenity has so much to show dad. She is opening up her new found life story one after another. Lio is listening to her story and asking questions to know more. They all took breakfast together. To the little girls Lio’s dad’s energy is like weaves of mountains. They sing, dance, and play around him. Dad brought toys for them. A crying baby for Serenity. A Hula dancer for Priya. Coming home Lio did not go anywhere else. He spent all day with the kids and cooked dinner for the family. Tina is so pleased to see him being a lovely dad for the kids. He is naturally lovely to kids because he loves kids in general. It is sad he really has no interesting story to tell the kids because all he does is catch criminals. Still he became a horse for the kids and let them ride on his back around the house. He is wholeheartedly dedicated to his two daughters. As night is heading into deep, he is separating himself from the kids. He put the kids to the bed and went to their bedroom. Tina is waiting there. With a long pause he asks Tina if she doubts him with anything.

He asks, how do you feel about your husband having an affair? Answer me honestly.

Tina asks, so you are having an affair?

Lio said, I ask you the question first. You can’t reply with another question.

She said, I am very much concerned about our daughters.

Lio replied, forget about daughters. Think we never had daughters. Now tell me how would you feel about your husband having an affair?

Tina said, I don’t know.

Lio said, exactly, you don’t know because you never had a husband. What you have is a servant who will worship your blonde hair and high calibers.

Tina gets close to him and said, no, I love you. This is why I brought my daughters with you.

Lio smarks, forget about daughters. I have an undergraduate degree and I am a cop. You can’t stand it. I am Spanish and that bugs you. I have a Guatemalan accent. You hated it. I know you all british are brutal from the beginning of the earth.

Tina screams, so you are having an affair. With whom? A Spanish house cleaner?

Lio said, yes, do you have a problem with the status of my lover? This should not be your business.

Tina started crying and said, what do you want to do now?

Lio said, Tina whatever I do will never be able to earn your respect. My soul feels disrespected in your company. All these years the sexual bond we had, the imaginary emotional connection we had is false. No one can love anyone without respecting the very person who she or he is. We both made a mistake.

I am falling in love with you now. I have never seen this ‘you’ before.--said Tina.

Lio said, this me came out because I was genuinely, lovingly respected by a cleaning lady. You can’t change it to something else.

Tina sighs, the lady has a boy. You always wanted a boy.

Lio said, Tina, I knew you were smart. Why do you mislead our conversation? You do it because you know that you are lost. Why don’t you think that this is your freedom from me and from a painful falsehood?

Tina said, I can’t praise your taste. After all these years living with me you are falling in love with a cleaning lady.

Lio replies, you see how odd it is. All these years you had sex with a man who is only worthy of a cleaning lady. You must feel disgusted by your choice to choose me as the love of your life.

Tina started crying and said, what I am going to tell my daughters.

Lio said, You don’t have to tell them anything right now. I was never your husband, but I was always a dad. Please Tina, don’t miss out on your tumor. All men in the world want to be respected by their women. Period.

Tina said, can we share the bed tonight or it should be prohibited according to your new found love motto?

Lio said, I am going to make a bed on the floor or on the couch in the living room.

Tina said, stay here. I don’t want my girls to see this separation.

Lio said, how long would you be able to hide it? Sooner or later they will know everything.

Tina screams, what do you want to do? Kill my daughters?

Lio felt frustrated and said, I don’t know Tina. our daughters see us as a unit, a whole. How do I burst their happy-go-lucky sweet minds? Please Tina take time on this one.

Tina and Lio slept in the same room on the separate bed. A Halloween monster is looking at their room from the neighbor’s house. The monster is tall from the ground to the ceiling. It has black gown and red face. Tina is not scared to see the monster at all. Her mind is clear and she can think better. She is thinking about the possibility of being a best friend for her daughters for the rest of her life. If Lio is with another woman, it means sooner or later he will be responsible for his new family. It is possible Tina is going to lose his emotional support. She was absolutely ready for this time, but now she is missing her husband. Pretty soon she will not see Lio anymore. Strange, Tina doesn’t feel jealous. She is not jealous because her husband is in love with a cleaning lady. Strangely, she is the person who gives this title to her husband’s lover, not her husband. Who knows who the lady is. Whoever that lady is, she made Lio a better person. Tina can’t sleep. Lio is sleeping fine. Tonight is the first night of their separation. Lio is right there but she can’t touch him. This is called the human psyche. A cat can transpass this invisible fence but not human beings. Human beings need permission from their inner belief to take a small action. Tina fell asleep with head full of questions and clarity of life’s direction in her head.

Morning is beautiful, sunny as if what happened between Tina and Lio is a nightmare. Lio made mickey mouse pancakes for the girls. He allowed the little one to decorate his breakfast plate with colorful fruits and grown up pancakes. There was an eating fruit competition. Serenity ate five strawberries and ten blueberries. She is so proud of herself. Anything doing with dad is so much fun. Today, Priya and Serenity are going to the zoo with dad. Dad is going to buy tickets online. Today is slightly cold so dad wants them to wear winter coats. Exactly at eleven o’clock they left the house for the zoo. Zoo is so big it seems like another safari country. Lio didn’t forget to get a stroller for Serenity. He is pushing the empty stroller with his two daughters left and right. Serenity is about to faint with joy. She is constantly talking about everything at once. Tina didn’t want to come at first, but girls wanted her to come so much. She is walking behind all three. She is wearing blue sunglasses. She looks amazing in a light turtleneck white sweater. The sky is blue with many angelic white clouds. Weather is a little on the cold side. Tina is following her beautiful family. Everything looks so very perfect. But down at the heart, attraction has a different story. Attraction is made in the factory of soul. People can compromise with the preferences of life, but can’t compromise with the very attraction with which the soul is made. Lio is one kind of a man who does everything to keep his family bountiful and happy. The image of happiness is his goal around family. Tina loves men who challenge her beliefs, who are not afraid to point out her limitations. She wants to break free from all limitations. This is who she is. She is not greedy for what physical comfort man brings for a woman. She herself is good enough to give herself a comfortable life. She loves to dig deeper into life. Girls brought so much depth. She experienced a mysterious love force through motherhood. This experience of proactive love doesn’t belong to men. This is why every woman wants to be a mother. Her girls change her life for the better. In the zoo, Lio is equally excited as his daughters are. He keeps taking pictures in front of animal cages. He asked someone from the crowd to take a picture of his entire family. The picture came out so nice that Tina thought she would put in a frame. Tina is quieter than usual. But, Lio is way too expressive than usual. It seems he has found what he was looking for a long time. Now is the time to celebrate it with his daughters. After a quarter mile walk Serenity sat in the stroller. She fell asleep in two minutes. Lio and family sit on a bench and allow Serenity to take a nap. Lio is chatting with Priya. He showed Priya all the pictures he took. While he was sliding the pictures, a little boy’s picture appeared. Priy asked who that boy was. He said that the boy was his friend’s son and he promised one day he would introduce her to the little boy. In another picture the boy is holding a puppy. The boy also came up with his mom. Priya asked Lio if the lady with the boy was his friend. Lio also promised one day he will introduce them with his friend. He is promising all these with Tina next to him. Tina is surprised that Lio’s girlfriend is a very smart looking woman. It seems she knows who she is. Thank God Tina doesn’t feel jealous at all. Rather she is happy that from now on she doesn’t have to carry the burden of unfulfillment of her soul. But she is not sure if Lio is going to be able to keep his new found freedom. Keeping freedom is another set of ball games. Tina saw Lio’s girlfriend and let him know that she saw it.

Tina asked, she is nice. What does she do for a living?

Lio said, She is a school teacher like you.

Tina said, Are you joking or are you lucky with only the school teacher?

Lio said, I am joking. This lady is an immigration judge.

Tina laughed and said, another joke right? How in the world you meet an immigtaton judge, after all judges are too private.

Lio myteviously said, if you think it is a joke, then it is a joke. But let me tell you, all judges in the United States are dying to meet their significant others and when they find someone like me, they cherish it.

Tina said, you are taking advantage of a lonely soul. You are not really attracted to that lady. One more mistake Lio

Lio said, no mistake, she is a cleaning lady.

Tina surprisingly said, she doesn’t look like a cleaning lady. She is highly conscious about everything around her.

Lio laughed and said, "who told you that a highly conscious woman can’t be a cleaning lady. This country, the United States, is a strange