Lisa smiled at her and replied, "He's here already. Let me call him…
Honey!!!"
As soon as Lisa called for her husband, everyone moved their focus from her to the door.
They were all excited to see the husband of Lisa who seemed to love her a lot which they could imagine just by her talks...
----
In the adjacent room...
Andrew was taking deep breaths one after another to calm his nerves. He was sweating profusely even in the highly air conditioned room.
His throat got dried with the anticipation of meeting his friends but somewhere in his heart, he was very much scared of their reaction.
He knew that whatever he had done with them and the way he had manipulated everyone to believe that he was already dead, was absolutely wrong.
If he was in their position, he too would get angry on them and might not acknowledge them the same way like before.
But who could stop anyone from expecting love and support from others!
Human heart is very vulgar. It always desires to get the love from the people who it adores..
It can even become selfish to get both the affection and attention from their closed ones when nothing matters to them other than being cared by them.
Andrew remembered about his and Lisa's child which was still growing in her tummy. He knew that his child deserved all the love from his grandparents, uncle and aunts..
Finally inhaling the longest breath, he got the courage of meeting them because of their unborn child and walked out of the room...
---
As everyone was eagerly waiting for him to come, Veronica too was very much curious about him.
She didn't know why, she was feeling like they were gonna get one of the biggest blow of their lives.!!
But this feeling was not negative like the previous one..
Somehow it was giving her a positive vibe that something good was going to happen which might turn their world upside down but only with happiness..
Soon there was a knock on the door and everyone's attention got locked on the wooden material.
Their anticipation grew more by each passing second and when finally the door cracked open, the whole room fell in eery silence...
There was no gasp or scream but a complete silence which was quite unexpected from them.
Andrew entered the room with slow steps while each and every person present in the room just looked at him with confused eyes.
This went on for few more minutes without any talking anything and reacting much as they saw him standing beside Lisa and wrapped his arm around her shoulder protectively.
Reuben was aware that it would be hard for his friends to believe it. So he chose to not say anything for a moment to let them get a grip on their emotions.
But there was only one person except Reuben who was not shocked like others. He had an indescribable emotions painted on his face.
Neil looked at Reuben who too turned his eyes towards him. They gave each other a knowing nod with a serious face.
Andrew didn't know what to say and Lisa too could feel his sweaty palm.
"Guys, you asked me to introduce you to my husband. And here he is, Andrew Jones.." Lisa thought to be the one to instigate the discussion by breaking the silence between the siblings.
As Lisa said this, everyone's eyes widened as they scrutinized Andrew from top to bottom with their hawk like eyes as if they were inspecting some criminals.
"You are Andrew Jones? Our Andrew?" Henry who too was very much shocked, finally asked.
Andrew looked at him and smiled a little before replying, "Yes, Henry. I'm the same Andrew. All of yours big brother."
"But.. how could it be possible! You were dead, right?" Willa queried still not believing her eyes.
Andrew chuckled sarcastically and said, "No.. I'm still alive.."
Lucinda who was in complete shock finally came out of her trance and ran to Andrew like a bolt of lightning.
Andrew saw this and removed his hand from Lisa's shoulder before stretching it out for her.
In a second Lucinda jumped into Andrew's arms and hugged him tightly while crying loudly, "You are really alive brother. You are really really alive."
"Yes. I'm Lucy. Your brother is finally here." Andrew said while caressing her head.
He then extended his other hand to Willa who too had tears in her eyes. Seeing his action, Willa too rushed towards him and hugged him tightly.
"You don't know brother Andrew how much we have missed you." Willa too sobbed with Lucy.
"I know that very well sis. I too missed you guys." Andrew said while kissing their heads.
"Liar! If you have missed us then where were you for all these years?" Jack complained like a kid.
Henry too agreed with him and said, "Yes, you don't care about us."
Andrew detached himself from his sisters and walked towards his brothers. He stared at both Jack and Henry for few minutes, then engulfed them into a big hug...
"I'm so much sorry for hurting you, guys." Andrew apologized sincerely.
Henry and Jack hugged him back and felt overwhelming emotions running through their veins.
Neil too come forward and said, "So finally you become a little bit of daring to face us."
Andrew glanced at him with guilt in his eyes and said, "Yeah.. Finally."
Neil didn't know what to do. He just kept quiet for few minutes and then embraced him tightly, forgetting all the past memories.
But there was only one person who still didn't show any reaction of it. She was just standing there with an expressionless face watching over the whole scene quietly.
Reuben tilted his head down to look at Veronica and rubbed her back to sooth her. He exactly knew what kind of pain she was going through now!
Pain of betrayal and lies!
Andrew too noticed it and stood in front of her before asking, " Everyone had already greeted me. But what about my most favourite sister?"