The first rays of the morning sun filtered through the curtains woven from a pale flimsy fabric, setting the room ablaze and waking Saumya up from yet another night of sleeplessness. Her head was heavy and her vision was only a blur. She reached out for her glasses on the side table and in the attempt groped her box of pills, her latest medical reports, her hairpins and dropped them on the floor which still had traces of water spilled from an half empty glass of water the previous night. Her body was stiff and cold but her bloodshot eyes felt warm as she rubbed them with her fingers. She kicked off her blanket repeatedly until it no longer covered her and revealed her poorly toned legs that were a few shades fairer than the skin of her hands and face. Her face had an outburst of acne which drew the onlookers attention away from her otherwise sculpted features. She had dark moons under her eyes from insomnia. On her tongue, she could feel the bitter taste of pills which she had been taking to fight her medical condition. It was the 15th day of October and it had arrived quite nonchalantly making it all seem like an ordinary affair that men and women do as part of their ordinary lives.
She slipped into her house robe and with slow heavy steps walked across the corridor, its walls lined with a series of odd sized frames some inharmoniously blank. They seemed to be epitomizing the void in her life between the moments of happiness. She pushed open the door gingerly and peeped. Rihan, her four year old son was asleep with his arms curled tightly over his stuffed Spiderman. She watched him from a distance as he lay lost in his dreams. A step closer to him and she knew she would crumble like the flakes of the puff pastry she had refused to buy him last night in her efforts to garner the courage of separation, of not letting his tears weaken her. From this day today, she would never see him cry or smile or look at her with his round eyes that gleamed over little joys.
But what she couldn’t wait to miss were his mannerisms which he’d acquired at an early age to prove that he was a chip of the old block. She felt a strong surge of raging anger against his father intertwined with a mad love for him every time she looked at him and his facial features that resembled that of his father struck her - the way his eyebrows met in bewilderment, the longish dimples, his soft auburn hair, his prominent chin, the high cheekbones. Her endurance was tested and the time had come when she had reconciled to accepting failure of raising a child which was as much hers as it was of her wicked past. Five years back when she signed the separation papers with her husband she had resolved to give birth to the unborn child, much against the advice of many. “I was much stronger then”, she tells herself now, consoling herself to not regret the mistakes of the past.
She returned to her room disconcerted by the thoughts running in her head. She swallowed her grief with gulps of caffeine that had turned cold and with shaky hands reached out for the papers of the foster home. As she stared at the forms filled in a neat legible handwriting, her eyes gave way to a stream of tears which rolled over her cheeks and dropped from her cheekbone onto the forms, smearing the details filled in ink. She moaned in despair, loud enough to feel relieved but silently enough to not awaken Rihan. Her maid rushed to her aid. This wasn’t the first time she had seen her so destitute or possessed by the thoughts of her son. As always, she just waited there without speaking a word, not holding her hand, her face bearing a troubled look, until her presence was discomforting enough to make a wailing single mother to stop grieving by being conscious of her presence. She got up, wiped her face hastily with the sleeves of her robe and tore the papers into bits in frenzy and tossed them into the air. The pieces showered on her like the confetti at her wedding quite ironically. The maid left with the mug of coffee that was left half sipped and after having gathered the bits of papers which were strewn on the floor.
Saumya was greeted by a sleepy Rihan who had walked into her room. She hugged him tightly as if she’d never let him go which made him irritable in his stupor. The touch of his soft skin against her made her feel an instant connect to the part of her she had almost decided to let go of. Living without him turned out to be as arduous as living with him and raising him while she was not in terms with herself, constantly at her wit’s end. She lifted him and tossed him in the air until he burst out chuckling. She carried him to the balcony of her flat on the fourteenth floor and showed him the sea, as the waves bounced off the rays of the morning sun. The enormous expanse of the sea and the distant horizon gave her a sense of a diminutive existence. The wind that swept the sea seemed to beckon her to the part of the world that was more peaceful. She looked at Rihan and smiled. He smiled back. When the maid returned with a freshly brewed mug of coffee to the balcony, it was empty. It was probably the emptiness that Saumya had left behind as she carried Rishabh along with her to the more promising side of the world. The wind blew stronger with some sort of determination and the sea chuckled as the wind tossed its waves playfully.