She comes back home with a skip in her step like she is a young child. There is a smile on her face that refuses to cease. She feels idiotic for it but it is also the first bloom of warm, pure joy in her heart so she keeps on, letting herself go in a way she hasn't for years! 

The home she returns back to is silent and midly cold. The light seems to be on only in the hall and mild strains of instrumental music are emnating from there so she makes her way to the hall to greet her mother. Her smile that had bright all along, now dims with each step towards the hall but it does not completely wipe out. She tells herself it's okay, that her mother might be in a good mood going by the music and most importantly that it is frankly irrational now that she is an adult and her mother is not the gringe!

Her pep talk to herself ends as she makes her way into the hall. Her mother is seated on her usual chair but there is no melancholia lingering on her face so she takes it as a good sign.

"Amma, I'm home!" she says with the smile intact. Her mother smiles back and nods.

"Where have you been all this while?" her mother asks curiously. 

"Oh I was sitting by the banks of the river and lost track of time!" she says and feels extremely guilty for it. It is the first time in days that her mother looks so chatty and she does want to linger and continue their conversation but she is still unable to or rather unwilling to divulge about Ila. She does not mean it to be a sort of secret, something meant to be kept in the shadows yet she cannot yet part with something that seems just her own, untainted by her mother. That particular thought deepens her shame and guilt, for thinking something can be 'tainted' by her mother, by the woman who stayed, who did not leave her all alone, who raised her and looked after her at the cost of her own health and well being, despite having shouldered grief and emptiness for so long.

You really are such an ungrateful, pathetic wench- her inner voice screams at her, especially as her mother nods, accepting it as the truth because it did not seem unlikely for Tara to do something like this, the smile on her face touched with hints of fondness and it makes her lie taste sourer on her tongue.

God was she such a pathetic creature!

"How was your day today?" she asks her mother instead, wanting to rectify at least a little bit of it.

The smile drops and a familiar emptiness envelopes her mother's face. It makes her want to curse herself for causing it. Seriously, how was she so bad at this even after all these years?

"Oh it was rather monotonous. But I...your grandmother had called today..."

Her heart sank in her chest. It did not mean anything good if her father's mother had called her mother!

"Amma, what did Ajji say?" she asks, inching closer to her mother in a bid to offer her the comfort she knows she needs.

"Oh just the usual" her mother brushes off but something begins to shatter in her countenance and suddenly she knows. She realizes. The music, the smile - all of it had been a bid to hold strong and not crumble in the solitude of their abode. To not rely on her daughter like she has been for so long! For trying to do better and suddenly the apology of a few days back comes flashing back to her.

It was a bleak day in the boredom it inspired. Everything she sought to do just seemed like another push towards the exacerbating of boredom. And to top things off, she was alone at home. If her mother had been home, at least they could have played a game. That sounded like fun and at least a little alleivation of boredom. As if summoned by her thoughts, her mother walks into the house. She stands up, feeling a little more enthusiastic about having found a way to kill her boredom now that her mother was back, when her mother suddenly moves towards her and wraps her in a hug.

Now her mother randomly wrapping her in a hug wasn't the a happening at the occasion of rarity. Tara and her mother had no qualms of wrapping each other in a hug whenever they felt like especially because Tara has always been a person who sought warmth and comfort in touch. No, what makes it different is the way her mother seems to be holding her now- like a mother holds her child, her hand placed on Tara's head in motherly affection. Not like their usual hugs where she holds her mother like she is the child! 

"I'm so sorry I have been a bad mother!" she whispers against Tara's shoulder and it is all she can do to not burst out crying because suddenly she is at such a loss with words and comprehension! Because what she wants to ask is sorry for what but the thought in itself curls her soul in guilt!

"I spoke with Akka today and I was telling her how I should never have left you with our parents" her mother continues and suddenly everything within her halts.  

Oh! oh!

She wants to wail. She wants to curse.

Oh, look at her mother apologizing for something that wasn't even her fault.

She wants to scream.

But she does none of it. Instead she tightens her arms around her mother, whispers sweet assurances and forgiveness to alleivate the deep seated guilt that lives in her mother and hopes it will soothe her enough.

Because nothing within her has soothed. It's a quagmire and it's still a storm!

"Amma, tell me now" she insists, refusing to allow this to happen. It's a bit too late now to think about pulling off from relying on her when she had no qualms all these years, she thinks bitterly and rather irrationally. The guilt is instant. Swallowing all of it in, she instead decides to focus on the matter at hand.

She will ponder about the pang of fear at her mother no longer relying on her later.

It seems strict enough because her mother breaks. They come out in silent, hesitant sobs at first and transition into more when she wraps her hands around her mother. The words come then, slow, gradual, hesitant.

The more she hears them though, the more her blood boils. The audacity of that woman to question her mother's values when her coward of a son chose to forsake them than stay. The sheer audacity to blame the woman when the man goes scot free, not even derided for his blatant flaws like her mother has been for the imaginary ones! These thoughts take her back in time to that one memory of a broken woman on her chair, a young girl alternating between looking out the door her father left from and the said woman. 

Shaking her head to get rid of those flashes, she whispers assurances to her mother. She tells her not to pay heed to those words, to not let that vile woman get to her. Not when the said woman is so in the wrong and especially not when she has done nothing in her life except wreck other people's lives!

"You are not what she accuses you of being! Don't let her words get to you Ma" she says, patting her mother's hair. She lets her mother hold onto her and cry till the sheer exhaustion of it has her falling asleep. She slowly manoeveurs her mother into a comfortable position on that recliner chair and covers her with a bedsheet. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, she switches off the music and dims the light.

"Goodnight Mumma" she whispers and moves towards her room.

Love,
Pratyusha

WC: 1355 words