Jejak kasih?

When Anita's sister called me last week trying to get hold of Anita's present address, I didn't give it to her although I knew the address. I just buat bodoh (read: be myself... :)) and pretended I knew nothing about whatever that was going on between them.

I mentioned that Anita did call me to seek help regarding her identity card; and that I'd inform Anita (about her sister trying to look for her) the next time she calls. Anita's sister however didn't want me to tell Anita about her call. Even if I really knew nothing about the goings-on between them, I would have suspected something amiss. I mean, why wouldn't she want Anita to find out that she tried to call me to find out Anita's whereabouts?

Anyway, based on the text messages the sister's "so-called" hubby had been sending to Anita (which Anita did not respond to), it was very unlikely that the sister wanted to patch things up. The way I see it, things may get even worse for Anita if her evil sister and the guy get their hands on Anita and her baby.

For the moment, I will just let Anita and her baby stay with Kak Ana, at least until we can settle her identity card and son's birth cert problems. Kak Ana can in the meantime try to educate Anita and maybe one fine day when Anita is capable of being more independent, she can live on her own if she wants to.

Actually there was another "jejak kasih" call the week before, which I'm not really sure if it was really a "genuine" intention to patch things up, or another "udang di sebalik batu" intention.

No, not another of Anita's sister trying to look for her. This one came from Zana's sister. Those of you who had been following my blog earlier may remember my postings on The Problematic Young Woman.

Zana was the first of the out-of-wedlock pregnancy cases that I had to send to shelter homes. I sent Zana to KL in 2006 before she was due to deliver. She delivered a pair of twins just before Raya in 2006 and due to her own attitude, she couldn't get along with the other occupants of the shelter home. After a few months, she was ready to head back home to her own family. Both Kak Hawa and myself were made to believe that her family was ready to accept her at home.

Then on the very day that I went to fetch her, she got a call from her sister telling her not to come home as her father was very furious with her. And I only got the news when I got to the home. Lucky thing I had another function to attend to in KL earlier in the day, so my trip to KL wasn't really a waste of time.

Kak Hawa and I then agreed that while Kak Hawa was to try talk some sense into Zana, I would try to speak to her family, hoping for them to reconcile.

But my attempts to get in touch with the family were futile. Zana's younger sisters did not even dare answer my calls and text messages. I finally did get a text message from a different number...

"Assalamualaikum. Saya family Zana. Maaf ye, Zana dah takde tempat dalam family kami. Dah 2 kali dia buat kerja bodoh tanpa fikirkan kami. Kami dah bagi peluang tapi dia tak gunakan peluang yang diberi."

To me the message was to tell me not to pester them further. So yes, I stopped at that.

Since then, one of Zana's twins died, and Zana had moved out of the shelter home, initially with her son, but later on Kak Hawa went to get the baby from her as Zana had not been giving the much needed attention to the baby.

Zana had been contacting the shelter home from time to time, but except for once, she never even bothered to visit her baby; despite saying time and again that she wanted to take the baby back. The boy is now already 3 years old.

Back to the recent "jejak kasih" call, it was a totally unexpected call.

"Ni Kak Afizah ke?"

"Ya saya. Siapa ni?"

"Saya ni adik *Zana*. Akak ada tak nombor telefon terbaru dia? Kami dah terputus hubunganlah dengan dia."

Terputus hubungan, did she say? I thought they were the ones who didn't want to have anything to do with Zana anymore?

Truth is, I too had not been able to get in touch with Zana. She's no longer using the last number I had. I didn't ask Zana's sister why she wanted to get in touch with Zana, but I told her that her best bet would be to get in touch with Kak Hawa at the shelter home since Zana's son still says there and Zana would still from time to time call the people there. So I gave her Kak Hawa's phone number.

The next day I called up Kak Hawa to find out. Yes, Zana's sister did call her but like me, Kak Hawa too was not able to give her Zana's contact number. You see, although Zana does call the shelter home from time to time, almost every call came from a different number. Whenever her credit runs out, instead of topping up, she'd get herself a new prepaid number. And sometimes she'd call using a friend's phone.

The only thing we can do now is to inform Zana the next time she calls, about her sister wanting to get in touch with her. And it will be up to Zana if she wants to call her sister back.

Why did the sister want to get hold of Zana? Has it anything to do with Zana's older daughter who is being taken care of by Zana's parents? Do they really want to patch things up? Has Zana's garang father forgiven her?

Hard to tell now that I myself am not able to get hold of Zana...