The small house on the outskirts of Delhi seemed to hold its breath that morning. At the gate, a woman stood silently, her hand trembling as she touched the old wooden door. She was Mrs. Sharma – the mother who had been missing for 20 years, now unexpectedly returned.

Inside the house, Rohan and Priya – siblings – had just returned from work when they were stunned to see a strange woman standing at the door. She was thin, her hair a mix of grey and black, and her eyes were both unfamiliar and terrifyingly familiar.

“Rohan… Priya… it’s Mother…” her voice trembled.

The siblings froze. They had grown up in hardship and pain, because their mother had left without a word when Rohan was only 10, and Priya was just 6. Their father passed away in an accident a few years later, and the two children relied on each other.

Rohan stared at her:

“Mother? You left us for 20 years… What are you doing back now?”

Priya said nothing, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had once longed to see her mother again, but years had turned hope into anger and doubt.

Mrs. Sharma sat down, clutching an old photo from the altar – her husband’s picture.

“That day… I didn’t leave you. I had an accident on the way to the market, a strong blow to the head. I lost my memory and was taken in and cared for by an old woman in the Himalayas. It wasn’t until a year ago, when she passed away, that I gradually began to remember everything. I searched and searched until I finally found my way back here…”

Rohan and Priya sat opposite her, their eyes both skeptical and wanting to believe. The story sounded incredible, but the longing for their mother had been etched in them for too long.

Mrs. Sharma’s hand trembled as she opened an old cloth bag. Inside, she took out a few faded photographs. They showed her with another elderly woman, surrounded by a wild, mountainous landscape. In another picture, Mrs. Sharma, with darker hair and a younger face, was smiling innocently beside a stream. “This is Dadi Lakshmi, who saved me and cared for me… I didn’t remember who I was, only the name ‘Mai’ (mother) and this name.” She pointed to an old bracelet on her wrist, engraved with the word “Anand.” “I thought it was my daughter’s name… but only much later did I realize it was the name of the bracelet itself.”

Rohan reached out to examine the photos. They didn’t look like secretly taken or staged pictures. They were authentic, simple.

“I also kept this…” Mrs. Sharma softly said, holding out a small, tattered piece of cloth. “It’s a piece of your father’s shirt… I always kept it with me.”

Priya couldn’t hold back anymore; she rushed to hug her mother, her sobs breaking open. Rohan also couldn’t maintain his composure. The long-held anger vanished, replaced by overwhelming emotion.

“Mother… where have you been all these years?” Rohan asked, his voice trembling.

Mrs. Sharma continued her story, detailed and emotional. About the lost days in the mountains, about the simple but heartwarming life with Dadi Lakshmi, about the fleeting dreams of a home, of her two young children… and about the moment her memories flooded back like a torrent.

“I walked, rode buses, asked everyone… just hoping to find my way home.” She choked up. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, my children…”

The siblings held their mother tightly. Now, the wounds of the past seemed to be soothed. The loss of their father, the emptiness of a mother’s absence, the loneliness of their childhood… all seemed to be filled by this miraculous return.

But the story didn’t end there.

A few days later, when things had settled down, Mrs. Sharma revealed a detail that sent shivers down the siblings’ spines.

“When I was taken to Dadi Lakshmi’s home, I always had a strange feeling… like something wasn’t right. Dadi Lakshmi was very kind, but sometimes I saw her looking at me with fear in her eyes. And she always reminded me not to go down the mountain, not to tell anyone about my life.”

“Once, I secretly went down to the district market. I saw a man who looked very familiar. He was an old business associate of your father’s. I was about to call out, but he was with another woman… and she had a very distinct scar on her forehead, exactly where I was injured.”

Rohan and Priya looked at each other, a horrifying thought dawning on them. They remembered their mother’s accident. The police concluded it was due to a truck losing control. But there were no witnesses, and the scene showed no signs of a severe collision that would cause amnesia.

“And then,” Mrs. Sharma continued, her voice dropping, “when I remembered everything completely… I realized. That day, I wasn’t going to the market alone. I was with your father… And the woman with the scar… was the woman your father was having an affair with. They caused the accident… and left me there, thinking I was dead or would never remember.”

The room fell silent. This chilling truth was more horrifying than any ghost story. Their father, the man they had grieved, was the very person who had tried to murder their mother, covering up his crime by staging an accident and abandoning her in an amnesiac state.

Rohan sprang up, his fists clenched. Priya sobbed uncontrollably, but not from happiness, but from the immense pain of betrayal.

They had their mother back, but along with her came a cruel truth about their deceased father. The small house was no longer a place of warm reunion. It became a repository of a horrifying secret that had just been unveiled.

The siblings decided not to inform the police. Their father was dead, and this truth could ruin the rest of their lives. They chose to live with it, with the pain and the complexity of love and betrayal.

Mrs. Sharma stayed with her children. She had lost 20 years of her life, lost a husband, and now lost her faith in the man she once loved. But she had regained her two children, the children she once thought she had abandoned.

The family was reunited, but it wasn’t a sweet ending in the conventional sense. It was a reunion full of scars, full of unanswerable questions, and full of secrets that would forever haunt them. Life continued, but none of them could ever forget the horrifying truth hidden behind their mother’s altar photo, and the man who secretly took it to bed every night.