An Attempt to Redeem
He watches her. She is making coffee for their daughter. The daughter, their third, is visiting. This daughter of theirs, unlike their other two, rarely comes home. And when she does, she never stays longer than a week.
But this time she has chosen to stay for a month.
His wife is nervous. She is scared. She does not want to make a fool of herself in front of their daughter who uses big words. His wife always struggled with bonding with their middle child. He, on the other hand, didn't. Of all his daughters, he knew this one like the back of his hand. The frown, the quiver, the discomfort he could pick up on their daughter with ease, often missed his wife’s notice.
This daughter of theirs, eased around him, and tensed around his wife.
She did as a child, and he noted, she still does as an adult.
His wife is very careful with the coffee. She wants her daughter to like her coffee. Like it enough to never leave home or at least like it enough to return home more often. The mother and the daughter had been speaking about the mother getting a new car for herself. The daughter encouraged her mum to get the Jeep she has been secretly eyeing.
“Umma, you like the car, you have the money, get it for you!”, the daughter insisted!
He heard his wife think, “If I buy the Jeep, she will visit me more often”, as she nodded on to their daughter’s rant
He smells the aroma of filter coffee fill the kitchen. It reminds him of the time his wife timidly made him try her very first attempt at making filter coffee. She had burnt the coffee. She was very embarrassed. He smiled at the memory as he scanned his wife’s face. Life had aged her, but her beauty, the one that struck him all those years ago when he was a teenager, still shone through her wrinkles and grey hair.
Four children of his, she had birthed. All took a toll on her body. But the loss of their first child took a toll on her soul. It took the light out of her eyes. Dark they stayed, for a very long time.
They are at the kitchen table now, both sipping the coffee his wife made. An odd air hung between them. He worried for his wife, his daughter could be spiteful.
“Why did he leave us, Umma?”
“You know why he left, Molu”
“No, I don’t! You said it was affairs.
He said he was trying to run away from debt collectors, which is it?”
His wife's face fell. He wanted his daughter to stop. She didn't.
“I know about his affairs Umma, I received texts from his girlfriends after his death”
“You what?”
“Well not his girlfriends, whores I guess!”
“How did they get your number?”
“It was dad’s number, I had his phone when I moved to the States”
His wife’s face turned red. He recognized that face. That helpless face
“Molu, your father was..”
“Umma just be honest with me, did you or did you not have a conversation with Uppa when he left us, did he leave us after talking to you or did you not know he wasn’t coming back?”
“Molu, that was a long time ago..”
“No I was 13, he left me, I want to know why? Who lied, you or him?”
His wife is sobbing. She is inconsolable. Her daughter sits across from his wife, stoic.
“He told me that he had to leave for Muscat to recover the debt he made in Dubai.
He told me that we have to stay in Dubai, and once he makes arrangements,
He would send for us.”
“And?”
“I waited, the calls stopped coming..”
“You didn't know he wasn’t coming back?”
“No, Molu”
“Then, why did you take him back, Umma?”
“I thought we could be a family”
“Umma, he came back when I was 23 and died a year later, what kind of fucked up family is that?”
He watched them.
He can not touch them. He can not console them. He can not speak up for himself.
He watches them from a place where none of this is possible.
What would he tell them even if he could touch or console them? That he was a man trying to figure his way out in the world, He wanted to make money, He did not know how to be a husband or a father.
He did not know how to love. He did not know how to feel. He did not know how to care.
Penned by Noor Begum.
