Aanya Khan was only eighteen years old when she found out she was pregnant. From the get-go, there was nothing but panic: the father was long since out of the picture and her parents had absolutely no idea that she was sexually active. Worse, she was due to start college once the summer was over so making money of her own was out of the question. It took her several weeks to come up with a game plan, and once she left Chicago for Seattle, she got in touch with her mother's sister, a trusted aunt that she knew she could turn to. A well-off and lonely doctor, Zara Khan agreed to raise the child for Aanya so that the young woman could continue on with her life. Satisfied with her solution, Aanya went to school all the way up until her water broke on the afternoon New Years Eve 1986.

Shortly after midnight on January 1st, Nadira Kiara Khan had screamed her way into the world, falling silent once she was cleaned and swaddled and placed in her mother's arms. Aanya held Nadira for several long minutes in complete silence before handing the newborn over to her aunt. From there, niece and aunt went their separate ways: Aanya returned to school to finish her degree in Seattle and Zara raised Nadira in the suburb of Tacoma. Nadira was a quiet and reserved child, sensitive and preferring to be on her own instead of socializing with her peers. She performed well academically and from a young age played the violin competitively. While Nadira was still young, Aanya visited her and Zara a few times a year for an hour or so at a time, though as Nadira grew older the visits became less and less frequent. Zara explained that Aanya was Nadira's aunt who happened to live in the area; for the time being, Nadira accepted this as truth and, once Aanya stopped visiting entirely, nearly forgot about her.

A reticent and unique child, Nadira began to show signs of rebellion once she reached her teenage years. On the surface she appeared the brainy, good-goody student at the top of her classes. Beneath the surface, however, still waters were beginning to boil over. She always had a feeling that Zara was not her real mother - at the very least, Nadira was never satisfied with not knowing her father. She began to skip classes to dabble with drugs and alcohol with her more popular and connected classmates, showing up to school and performing well enough to escape much notice. She began to argue with Zara on a regular basis over small and large issues, and she began to stay away from the home she grew up in, staying instead with friends or an older boyfriend in Seattle. When it came time to graduate from high school, Nadira and Zara had one last explosive fight where Zara revealed the truth: the aunt that would visit her as a child was really her mother whom Zara was no longer in contact with, and Zara was not her mother but her aunt. Nadira left her childhood home, vowing never to return, and moved north to Seattle with two of her friends. She worked as a barista while going to college full-time. The driven, hard-working facade of her was back in full force, and she threw herself into her studies. By the time she graduated with her bachelors degree in nursing, she had hired a private detective to locate Aanya Khan, formally of Chicago, Illinois. The detective worked for less than a week before returning with disappointing news: Aanya Khan had passed away in 2001, murdered by an abusive boyfriend. Nadira was devastated at the news. Any trace of her biological family was gone. Her father's identity died along with her mother.

The summer before she started her graduate program, Nadira accepted a nursing position in an emergency room down in Portland. She stopped by Zara's house before she left, and the two Khan women finally made peace with one another. Zara was the benefactor who made sure that Nadira's way through school was paid, and Nadira swore to make her aunt proud of her. With the loose ends tied up, she was free to start anew in Portland.

It was at the University of Portland where she met Marco Edwards, a tall handsome man with dimples and a perfect smile. Introduced by two friends, Nadira was taken with Marco immediately, and just a few short weeks later, the two began to date. Dating Marco was a pleasant change from the people she dated in college. Despite her desire to not end up like her mother, she still found herself in short-term relationships with men that began to grow rather abusive. She managed to leave these relationships behind, but was still scarred from them in all sorts of manners. Being with Marco almost erased all of that. A fellow graduate student in the MBA program, Marco was a loving, attentive partner who supported Nadira through the trials and tribulations of working in the emergency room and working towards her masters degree in advanced nursing. A month after graduation, Marco and Nadira were married in a small, intimate ceremony that involved their closest friends and family members.

The two had an ideal marriage. Marco had a similar story to Nadira: born in Tennessee, he was in and out of the foster system before he was adopted at the age of 10, and went down the rebellious path in life. When he was 18, he joined the Marines for the discipline and guidance that he lacked and did two tours in the Middle East. When he came back to the States, he was a changed man and ready to devote himself to succeeding in life. They rarely argued and enjoyed a close-knit life together with just a handful of friends for support. Both were in contact with their families - and both wanted to start a family. Yet no matter how often they tried, their attempts at conception frequently failed. To her sadness, Nadira learned from a doctor that she was barren due to a quiet virus. She would be unable to have children of her own. While she was depressed by the idea, Marco attempted to cheer her up. His devotion to her increased and encouraged her to consider adoption. Over time, she got out of her slump and began to give the idea some thought. Things were beginning to look up.

Marco always watched Nadira while she slept. For the longest time, she had difficulty sleeping in her life; having him nearby relaxed her enough to lapse into a deep slumber. One morning, she woke up and Marco was lying beside her, watching her like always. She leaned in to kiss him and was shocked to discover he was ice cold.

The autopsy showed Marco died from a brain aneurysm, a sneak attack to an otherwise healthy young man. He had died sometime during the night while Nadira slept. To say that she was devastated at her husband's passing was an understatement. She was inconsolable at the funeral, and lapsed into a deep depression for months afterwards. It took her making a mistake for her to get help - she nearly injected a patient with the wrong dosage of anesthesia that would have killed them. A fellow coworker noticed and pulled Nadira aside to urge her to get help because her work was clearly becoming affected. She agreed, and checked herself into an in-patient facility where she underwent intense therapy for not only her loss, but for other trauma she had gone through. The experience was life changing. After two years of intensive therapy and hard work, Nadira decided to leave Portland for good, and in January 2018 made the move to Florida.