She was dead. Our grandmother was dead.
'About time' Omer broke the silence tossing the letter on the table in front of him.
'Omer can you at least be a bit more respectful she was our grandmother after all' Inaya exclaimed with her hands in the air. She was the youngest but definitely acted like our mother.
'What!? you're telling me to have sympathy for that old hag who kicked us out when we needed her the most? Come on Inno get real-
'I suppose we will have to go to the funeral I doubt anyone else will show up' Hamza cut through loudly, his suggestion leaving us all in deep thought.
'I don't see why we have to go it's not like she wanted us there when she was alive why would she want us there now when she is dead?' This time Rayan broke the silence.
It had been at least fifteen years since my parents had died leaving my four siblings and me under the care of our only known relative, our paternal grandmother. But in our most desperate time of need even she turned her back on us and instead had us sent to the States to live in an old mansion under the care of some butlers and servants. Now that she was dead, we didn't know what to make of it. We never had a close bond with her or anyone for that matter and had grown accustomed to our lives here in the US. Besides our butlers and servants were not that bad dare I say they were the closest thing we had to a family.
'I never liked her and I know none of you guys ever did either, but I feel like we have to go back if not to pay our respects than to at least take care of her will and the property, chances are we are all owners now of the farm and the haweli' Hamza argued.
'That old place ought to be burnt' Omer commented and Inaya nodded in agreement. I found my head slightly nodding as well.
To say Dadi's haweli was ancient would be an understatement. The fact that the place still stood up as it had for the past 100 years or more was astonishing. The architecture of the building was absurd; we had only been in there a handful of times (usually during our annual Eid visits) but it was enough to make us book hotel rooms instead of sleeping on old poster beds and walking into the massive oak tree the house was built around. As if the idea of having a giant tree in the middle of the house wasn't enough, the house had three bloody floors and every floor had so many doors and passages that I would struggle finding the bathroom at night which for some reason was built at the end of the hallway that had no lighting fixtures whatsoever. There were bullet holes in the walls from the wars back in the partition days that she did not bother to fix. And the house always smelt of cigars and rotten meat no matter how much perfume I'd spray around.
The place was a shithole and I despised her for living in it.
My flashbacks of the haweli were interrupted when Rayan spoke out again with an unsure grin.
'I guess a quick trip back to settle any problems on her behalf wouldn't hurt, besides if her lawyers wrote to us it probably means we all have inherited something valuable'
I decided to finally speak after listening to my siblings.
'I think the right thing for us to do is to go there as Hamza said and get this over and done with it won't even be that bad considering we will probably be the only ones there so let's just go I'll book the flights for tonight-okay?
'Fine' Rayan clicked his tongue turning towards me.
'As long as we're back before my uni starts' Inaya shrugged leaving the room.
'I guess I'll go' Omer gave in with reluctance ' But I swear to god if she leaves me with even a single animal from her taxidermy collection I will throw it in her grave' and with that he left the room leaving Hamza, Rayan and me slightly amused.
'He's not the only one scarred of those animals' I whispered more to myself than to my brothers
'Yeah...well time to pack can't wait to bury the dead woman once and for all' Rayan said walking towards me and ruffling my hair before leaving the room along with Hamza.
Well, at least we won't ever have to see her again.