Chapter -3 The battle
815 Words
Life is hard, living is hard, but worse of all is coping with death. I am 24, yet my mom chose not to tell me about her cancer, she told dad, who is not here anymore but not me, that makes me wonder how many more things were my parents battling alone without even telling me.
Yesterday, I was trying to cope with my father’s death and today, I am trying to cope with the fact that I might lose another parent. I am standing outside the hospital, waiting for the doctor to tell me what I already know, that it is in it’s third stage, that it is advanced, but still, I should keep hope. I will keep hope because that is all I can do.
The doctor comes outside and repeats exactly what I repeated in my head. My mom walks outside, I want to be mad at her for not telling me but I can’t. I open the car door as she sits inside,
“They are telling me to take some experimental medicines, they are saying it worked on many other patients.”
“yeah, the doctor told me that”
“Luna, are you mad at me”
Tears fill my eyes and I look at her,
“No mom, I am not mad at you, I am mad at this situation, this situation which has put us in a spot like this. I hate the fact that I might lose you”
I start crying and my mom hugs me,
“Shh. Luna, we will make it, okay?”
“yeah, yeah we will”
I sniff back my tears and start driving home.
“Hey Luna, I have actually put up the back room for rent, I mean with your dad gone and cancer and stuff we need the money”
“But mom I earn”
“I know honey, but extra cash won’t hurt anyone. Plus, it gets lonely with you in the job all day”
“Okay mom, as you see fit”
“Luna, let’s have some ice-cream”
“Now??”
“yeah, let’s buy some and we will have it after dinner”
“Okay”
I park outside a shop and buy three tubs of ice cream, chocolate for me, blackberry for mom and vanilla…..vanilla for dad. I walk outside and that is when I realise, that dad is no more. I try to keep my salty water waterfall from flowing, but it hurts knowing that probably, few months or years from now I would just be buying a chocolate flavor tub. I clear my throat, wipe my eyes and walk back inside the car.
“You bought vanilla for dad?”
My mom asks casually,
“yeah I did”
“How come you remembered, you always forgot….Oh”
“yeah”
My mom starts sobbing and I console her, “its okay maa we will get used to it, it will just take time”
It is so strange, we tend to neglect the things people want or say love when they are alive but when they are no more, we just can’t seem to neglect them like before, we start to remember things that we didn’t even register in our brains in the past. It makes us realize how self-absorbed we are.
We reach home, keep the ice cream in the freezer, we both cook the dinner and eat in silence, The wind starts to howl and the trees start rustling,
“I guess a storm is coming”, I say.
“Yeah, from the looks of it, it will be brutal”, Mom replies
After we finish our dinner, I scoop out some cream for maa, for myself and then I place one small bowl of vanilla ice cream on small table beside my father’s arm chair, he would always sit on that arm chair and no where else and open a book of short story and read one to us while we all had ice cream.
I take the book and my mom smiles as I start reading story number 52.
Suddenly there is a violent knock on the door.
“Who could it be at this hour?”, my mom says.
“Wait maa let me check”
I see outside the peep hole and I am shocked. I turn around and say,
“Mom, it’s the toilet man”
“what?”, she says with her mouth agape
“I mean it’s Hiram”
“You mean the Hiram who helped you catch the druggy teens”
“yeah”, I say.
“Then open the door”, she says.
I open the door,
“Finally, hello I am…”
“Hello Hiram Lodge”
He groans as I snicker,
“YOU??”
“Yes, me.”
- Writer
