When tomorrow comes
I'll be on my own
Feeling frightened of
The things that I don't know
Amma never came back. The cavity in Nuala's chest just deepened each day, until ice cold numbness grew in its place. She understood that life was unpredictable and death inevitable. Her mother was gone. Was. Past tense. Nuala was all by herself in the big world that seemed more intimidating each day.
The only consolation in her despair was Sparky, a token of her mother's love. It kept her belief in magic alive. It grounded her amongst the sheer mundane and desolate disposition of her life. It was the only safe place for Nuala to reminisce her amma without feeling need to claw out the bone wedged in her lungs or spill out her stomach. Her symptoms didn't go unnoticed by the people around her and with time, amma became a forbidden topic in their household. Any mention of her dead mother had Nuala escaping into a blank space in her mind where she counted backwards from 100 to 1 until the person got discouraged and left her to her own devices. Her heartbreak was the lonely kind where everyone knew something was wrong with her but had no clue how to fix her. They left it upon time to stitch and mend that what was broken within her.
Although time didn't heal her wounds it transformed her. She grew up. Now she could make her own bed, fold her own clothes, wake up early and do all the other things she needed her mother for. Little Nuala wasn't little anymore. She was a young lady of twelve years, who lost her naiveté when she lost her mother.
"Baby, your lunch is ready." Lata, her house help said. Lata was a middle aged woman with three children, a drunken husband and an old mother-in-law who had lost her sight because of cataract. Appa had appointed Lata shortly after amma's departure because he had no idea how to look after their home or Nuala for that matter.
"I'll be there in a minute Lata. Is Aruna coming today?" Aruna was Lata's eldest daughter and the closest thing Nuala had to a friend. She came every weekend to spend time with her and Nuala always looked forward to those meetings. They didn't share secrets or talk a lot, like other adolescent girls but she simply enjoyed having her company, like the peace of drinking cool coconut water on a scorching summer day.
"No. She is taking care of Jeetu, he's fallen ill again." Lata said.
A weekend without Aruna, Nuala tried to not feel too miserable about it. Anyways, she had an important discussion with her father ahead and she felt her nerves go haywire in anticipation.
"Take him to a good doctor please, I can ask appa to give you an advanced salary. He wouldn't say no." Nuala said.
"No baby, it's alright. These children eat all the garbage they sell outside the school and then cry when their stomachs ache." Lata complained but it wasn't so hard to detect concern in her voice. Nuala felt a twinge of jealousy, nobody worried about her like that. Not even her father. She gave up persuading Lata.
*
Lunch started as a formal affair. Her father asked her a few obligatory questions and she replied using as little words as she could. It was a weekly ritual both would rather not participate in but Sunday meant no work for Appa to excuse himself from the duties of a father and no school for Nuala to provide a refuge from their awkward relationship. But this Sunday Nuala had something more to add to the conversation. She waited until Lata served kheer, her father's favourite dessert. She had specifically asked Lata to make it in hopes of softening him.
"Appa?"
"Yes," her father said distractedly. He didn't even look up from the kheer bowl he was devouring. Nuala didn't let his indifference squash her hope. She was waiting the entire week for this opportunity.
