Home, Home Again

By Prissha Bajpai

The sun is barely an orange remnant in the sky when Amleth awakens. She blinks once, twice, and then sits up.

The clock ticks and she counts alongside it. One, two, three…

…thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…

…fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.

It takes her twelve minutes to get up today. An improvement, she thinks, folding the bedsheets twice, thrice, before putting them away.

She walks to the kitchen, then to the fridge, her steps echoing in the silent corridor.

The sun has set by the time she checks the note sticking to her freezer.

Amleth discards it alongside the breakfast on the table.

She opens the refrigerator and wonders if pouring herself a glass of milk would be worth the effort, then promptly decides against it when she spots a chocolate bar.

Her laptop Is turned on by the time she finishes eating. She looks at the loads of documents resting in the trash bin and realizes she could never possibly catch up.

It has been six months. It has been a long enough break for her and she should’ve been able to return to work by now.

She contemplates messaging her husband, asking him what he wants for dinner. He would be glad, she knows. He wants nothing more than for her to get her mind off things.

She can’t.

It has been so long since she made anything for anyone, so long since she thought to do anything for anyone.

Maybe she should try tomorrow instead. Azaer wouldn’t be opposed to making dinner for her again, and he wouldn’t be opposed to doing the dishes tonight or even dusting the house tomorrow. He is like that.

And she loves him so, so much.

But it’s not enough to make her want to wake up in the morning.

The bell rings.

It is seven fifty-seven.

Another day gone.

Amleth opens the door and smiles that smile of hers which doesn’t really resemble anything happy, or even comforting.

There is no ‘welcome home’ from her. Azaer smiles back nonetheless.

He closes the door behind him and she fills him a glass of water.

She sees the bags under his eyes, but does not ask him if today was hard.

What’s the point? Every day is. She doesn’t see the significance in reminding someone of their sorrow again and again and again—

“We had a lot of work today.” She blinks.

“Oh,” she says. “What… kind of work?”

“The usual, you know,” Azaer sips his water and pauses for a moment, “Lots of grieving clients.”

“Oh.”

And the conversation is over, just like that.

She fiddles with the end of her shirt, realizing she had not changed it since the past four days.

It is embarrassing, even if she has grown accustomed to his presence. It is embarrassing that she could do nothing to prevent what had transpired.

Maybe— maybe she had a hand in it after all.

It is nine twenty-eight when they finish dinner.

Azaer is one of the best cooks she knows. She remembers his passion for cooking as a teenager.

It never became anything more.

The food tastes like ash on her tongue.

“We should probably start cleaning up the cupboards,” Azaer comments, picking at his food nervously.

“I,” she starts, staring at the food before her. It makes her feel nauseous.

“Only,” he interrupts, “If you’re ready.”

She drops the spoon, unable to meet his eyes as her mind conjures up a loathsome, revolting thought.

“I’m suggesting, please don’t—”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

Please—

“’Suggesting’,” she laughs hollowly, words coming out crueler than they had sounded in her mind. “It’s so easy for you to say, because you never thought of her as your real daughter, right?”

The glass of water beside Azaer clatters to the floor, shattering when it meets the ground.

He smiles that nervous smile of his — which she loathes so much — and with his nervous, trembling hands, picks up his plate to discard it near the sink.

“I’ll— I’ll clean that up.”

“No need, I’ll do that.” Amleth says, softer then, “You should rest.”

He doesn’t insist otherwise.

She collects the leftovers from the plates and disposes them in the dustbin.

Then she carefully picks up the pieces of glass with gloved hands, pausing on her way to consider the stain on the wall.

For a long while, she stares at the empty space there, paint a bit washed out on the rectangular outlines in place of a picture frame.

It is still intact in her memories, engraved behind her eyelids like it is just a day away.

A day she has lived past.

She turns off the lights and stands at the door of her husband’s room.

Maybe she could have reached out if it was a warmer night.

If it hadn’t snowed, if there was lesser traffic, if she’d woken up earlier, then perhaps—

She stands for a while, longer still and counts the minutes past midnight, then she enters without knocking.

Azaer is asleep, she can tell by the soft rise and fall of his shoulders under the blanket messily draped overhead.

Sitting by his bedside, she runs a hand through his hair, untangling the soft brown curls. Everything in her palms turns to dust, this will be no different.

But she turns over his pillow nonetheless, like he has for her several times, so he does not have to wake up on his own dried tears and lament his solitude.

She places a soft kiss on the side of his forehead, tucks the blanket in and leaves the room.

The lamp by her bedside is switched off and she does not forget to take her pills before she goes to sleep.

In her dreams, the world is still golden and innocent, the sky is splattered with colours and there is love in her arms.

In her dreams, there are picture frames on the wall and three plates on the dinner table.

In her dreams, life is still bright and warm in all the little places and she cherishes all of it so, so much.

“Mum?”

Amleth smiles.

She doesn’t wake up.

By Prissha Bajpai