She Wanted To Stop Being the Responsible, Good Daughter

At 13 years old, Naila realized that happiness is like an alien disease to her. She’s so used to hardship that her body didn’t know how to handle anything else.

Every day after class, Naila helped her mother sell meat at the public market. On the weekends, while her classmates went on trips, picnics, or family restaurants, she did chores at home. Then she’d help her mother do other people’s chores in other people’s homes.

When the chores are done and the meat is sold, Naila studied hard. She attended an exclusive private school she could never afford. So one of her mother’s affluent customers sponsored her. But only if she ranked among the top in her class.

One day, Naila didn’t go to the market. The class ended and some classmates invited her to the mall. For the first time, she went with them.

At the mall terrace, Naila and her newfound friends shared a stick of Marlboro red. It was her first time smoking. And then she saw him. The guy she’s had a crush on for years. He was a year ahead and he left for another school, so she hadn’t seen him in months. She was so happy to see him.

In a strange moment of fever-induced clarity, Naila saw her thirteen-year-old self entering the same cycle her mother and relatives went through: the debt, the work, the hard life.

And she didn’t want it.

“He made me realize my body is so unaccustomed to happiness that I got sick when I experienced it.”

She wanted to be like her exclusive private-school friends who can afford to be superficial, immature, and uncaring about the weight of the world.

She wanted to talk about boys, gossip about who is dating who, hang out at cafes and malls, and smoke and drink like a rebel.

She wanted to forget the meat market and her mother, who cried silently every night, lamenting the husband who abandoned her and poring over the gambling debts he left.

She wanted to stop being such a goddamned responsible, understanding, patient daughter.

She said it’s the first time she let out her true feelings about her mother’s death. It’s been 10 years.

She looked at me and smiled. “It has subsided, but I still feel guilty.

I still have these moments, every day at random, where I’m doing something or I wake from a deep sleep, and then remember I’m glad my mother — who loved me and did her best to raise me — died early, so I wouldn’t have to take care of her debt and her bills.”

We stared at the sky in silence. I refilled her cup and gently placed her closer to the fire. Naila shivered, sipped her drink, sniffed, and gave a small chuckle. She was silent for a while.

She wanted to stop being such a goddamned responsible, understanding, patient daughter.

Naila asked if she could sleep outside, next to the fire and under the stars. So I took a large blanket and tied each end to a sturdy post. It was now a hammock, just over a meter from the bonfire, overlooking the mountains, facing the horizon where the sun will rise.

I tell her there’s this old book of poems I’m fond of. Its lines are simple and didn’t rhyme. A traveling Belgian missionary gave it to my mother a long time ago.

It’s a tattered old book. The spine is taped and almost falling apart. The pages are ragged with stains, cracks, and burns — marks that came with their own stories. I open it slowly, tenderly, and I stop at a certain poem.

I look at Naila. Her eyes reflect the fire and the stars. I take a deep breath. How long has it been, since I read this poem to someone? It felt like ages ago since I sat by the shore, feet among the waves, reading the poem I loved to someone I loved even more.

I start reading slowly. I let the words float steadily, like boats on placid waters, fading into the night. I could see a smile form on Naila’s lips. I imagine her dreaming of endless fields and wispy stalks, swaying with the wind. The sun taps gently at her cheeks. She is warm. Free.

. . .

This is a work of fiction. A version of this story first appeared on Anomaly Literary Journal.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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