She stormed into the room, her red hair flying, eyes wide and lips pursed, stomping down to my side of the bed where she halted, and thrust her hand forward, saying, “What is this!”
I had been so occupied admiring her narrow and supple waist starkly laid bare by her black lingerie so much that I had completely ignored the white paper in her hand.
“What’s this?” I said slowly, raising my eyebrows, and looking her up and down slowly, making it obvious that I wasn’t asking about the paper.
She hurled the paper into my face. It swooped towards my face, then fluttered, then fell into my lap.
“It’s her, isn’t she?” she said in a completely flat monotone and I knew things were serious.
I pinched one corner of the paper lifting it carefully as if it was explosive. One look at it and I realized it ‘was’ explosive. It was *the* letter.
“Damn,” I muttered.
“Yes, damn,” she said, grinding her teeth.
“Baby,” I said, raising my hand like a convict, “let me explain.”
“You!” she lunged forward, snatched the pillow from the bed, and — one, two, three — began swinging the pillow at me.
“Wait, baby, wait, please,” I pleaded, but she kept on beating me, my head, my shoulders, my back. After a while I just balled into myself, putting my hands over my head, and pressing my legs into my chest. She stopped. In the silence, her breath bellowed loud, tired, disappointed.
Then I heard the soft thud of the pillow falling on the floor, and the sound of her footsteps receding away out of the room.
I raised my head and saw the letter on the bed in front of me torn from one edge. Stealing a glance at the door, I got up, lifted the paper, and began pressing it, wondering how did she even find it. I had kept it under a pile of papers in the bottom drawer of my table. Even I don’t find things in it when I’m searching. Or did I leave it outside?
Whatever the reason I had to go to her. I got up and padded out of the room.
She was sitting in the balcony, in the evening light, smoking. It had been six months since she had quit and my heart broke realizing how much she must be hurting.
I sat down on the chair beside her.
“Since when?” she asked me.
“Two months back,” I said gazing at the purpling horizon. “She first wrote when you were in Paris.”
She didn’t reply, just kept on staring ahead, the half-burnt cigarette dangling in her fingers.
A few moments of silence passed. I gazed into the horizon, now soft orange, now deep crimson. I inched towards her and held her hand. They were cold.
“Please Evelyn, don’t be so hard, hear her out,” I said, slowly.
“Hear her out! Hear her out!” she hissed. “You are impossible George. Despite knowing everything you are asking me to hear her out. How can you do it, George? Tell me? Go behind my back and talk to that slu — ”
“Evelyn! She’s your mother” I cut her, sharply.
She stared at me, breathing long deep breaths. Then, she burst into crying, lowering her head on her folded arms on her knees.
“Evelyn.” I got up, kneeled next to her chair, and began caressing her back. Her entire body was shivering, the sobbing incessant. I knew she was hurting. I knew it because I had felt this too.
For years I too burnt in anger for my mother. For years I accused her of ruining my childhood, and my youth. For years I never let go of any opportunity to spite her.
And then one day I learnt we had ended up so far apart.
And I cried.
Evelyn was making the same mistake; letting anger destroy relationships.
When her mother and I talked two months back, I had planned to gradually bring in the topic of her mother to Evelyn. But that was gone now. Now we must confront it every day until it was one way or the other.
I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her head, fully knowing we had a long night ahead.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Motoki Tonn on Unsplash
