It got better with time. I still thought of how some months back, I could wake up to the smell of brewing coffee. I was horrible at making tea. He preferred making it himself, at the same time, he made me my first coffee of the day. A phone call from the hospital one rainy night stopped it all. I now made my own coffee. No one needed tea at home now.
The first few days were worse I would sleep for almost ten hours yet hardly could walk out of the bedroom. I could hardly breathe when his clothes would come for washing sometimes or when they aired ‘Friends’… how he used to hate it when Kay watched the sitcom! She wasn’t a child anymore, almost 16! How they fought! He deserved it all, I used to say; she gets it all from him, the bullheadedness and all those crazy arguments!
I knew Kay was in an equally bad condition. She had always been his Princess… I used to be that till he couldn’t stop mooning over the violently pink creature in his hands. It was the day she arrived. He had found ‘perfect-for-a-princess-name’ for her- ‘Keya’. He was so utterly irresistible and so cute, talking to his new Princess. He used to brag about how smart she was and how she looked exactly like him!
All those images kept on playing inside my head only to laugh uncontrollably before helplessly bursting into pathetic tears. I would wake up in the middle of the night when sometimes, I could smell him on the pillow beside me… rush to the toilet to get sick. Come back to the bed and stare into nothingness thinking of how he slept through all my morning sicknesses... was he watching at least now? Hope once again that it wasn’t painful for him in those last few minutes. They ‘assured’ me at the hospital that he didn’t suffer much.
I was so caught up with my own grief; I couldn’t look after my baby. But she was such a rock, a toughie! I wished I had her strength. Silence crept over the house which was filled with shouts, laughter, brawls, cheers and all kinds of noises. No discussions happened at the breakfast table now. No one fought over the remote. I drove Kay to the school in silence every morning. Everything seemed to move in a slow motion. As if, it was all a long miserable dream sequence in a movie.
Three months passed away like that… seemed to take forever! The only time I could smile was when I though of him. He was still alive in my head. I kept his closet door open, wasn’t sure why! I brewed tea alongside my coffee, even though no one needed tea at home now. I still called up on his cellphone thrice a day (almost a tradition, I gave him three missed calls everyday, at least because he HATED it). I kept doing all the things I did for him everyday, to keep him alive, at least in my head. It was all so pathetic! Thankfully Kay had no clue about all this. Wasn’t sure how she’d react if she ever found out. I hoped she wasn’t doing the things I was doing… that would be so regressing!
I had taken a half day (again) from work. I had read in the paper in ‘Movies Today’ section that ‘Die Hard’ (his favourite movie) was going to be aired at 5 pm. I couldn’t understand what possibly would make me want to watch that movie that very day! Or maybe I did, nothing quite made sense. I felt like I was living through my adolescence all over again. When I got home, I found Kay sitting at the table, sobbing! Something happened inside me that very instant- I walked to the table and sat on the chair beside hers. She looked into my face, tears shining in her eyes. I put my head on her shoulder. For a long time, none of us talked (which was quite usual these days). Finally, she calmed down and said- “I am going to fail, Ma!”
“That’s alright, sweetie! I think I failed too. But you know what- now we’re going to try and get to the top of all this, ok?”
“He will hate me for this, wont he?”
I felt my nose and throat choke, “Baby! You know he could never hate us! He would want us to learn from our mistakes. Remember the time when he was teaching you to ride that ridiculous pink cycle you made him buy (I could see a little smile on her pink face now); he told you never to get tired to falling off the cycle, because, the more you fall the better you get, he said, remember?” She nodded a bit and mumbled, “I am not sure if that works…”
“Sweetie, I wasn’t sure either! But something happened to me just now, and I know he is right. We’ll get better. I promise!”
“I really want to make this work, Ma! I don’t want you to be alone in this.”
Oh! I could feel the heat off my face! How selfish I had been! “Yes, baby! I want it to work too. I wasn’t sure how to handle it though. We have each other, right”
“Forever!”
“Promise”
She turned to me and hugged me tight! It was like- coming home to my family after a long time in the cold.
That night, Kay came to sleep beside me in the bed. ‘Love Nest’, he used called it! I used to hold my child tightly, she was all I had; the only proof that I once lived the perfect life that people only dream of. She had her daddy’s curly black hair. Thank God, she had his nose, I smiled to myself. As I watched her breathing peacefully in a deep slumber, I felt I had a purpose now- that finally I would be able to get out of bed feeling- ‘capable’.
We are a family and we’re in this together. We are going to get through. I kissed her and slept a sleep- deep and complete.
A year and a half rolled away, not exactly smooth as butter, but better. I missed him, terribly. But I wouldn’t want to not-miss him because missing him was a part of loving him. I have always been and will always be in love with him. Yesterday, I was cleaning his closet and found a photo-frame. It was a very pregnant girl on the phone, smiling widely. I see happiness shining in her eyes! The simplicity of that picture blew me away! It was me! I felt that I looked like the most beautiful woman living her most beautiful moment… when I turned the frame over- my heart skipped a few beats- it was his lazy scrawl saying -“You will always be my Princess”. I felt a lump growing in my throat. Even after all these years, he had managed to make me fall in love with him all over again!
When I showed Kay the frame, she was quite miffed initially, and then very peevishly said, “There are two people in that picture!”. I was blown away by her logic. It was her daddy talking in her… I laughed lustily and hugged her - “You’re right! It’s a tie then?”
