The slight breeze brushed across my skin but the heat, as always, clung to my skin, thick and unescapable. The pot of rice crackled softly on the stove and the scent of fried garlic hung in the air.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and extinguished the fire. The room felt bright and empty- the kind of stillness that was both familiar, lonely and could only be broken by love. I lit up incense sticks and a candle and watched the smoke curl above the altar, thin as thread.
I swept the floor twice and folded my son’ clothes. Work kept me busy, and I hurried from one room to another like a person trying not to think. But thoughts clung to me like they have their own legs. They always managed to catch up.
Today was Memorial Day for my beloved mother and husband. Grief still wrapped around my heart. Pain of losing your loved ones refused to leave and left a constant dull pain even if years had passed.
My own mother died with her skin the colour of turmeric. My husband followed ten years later with the same yellow eyes. The doctors simply shook their heads and never told us what it was. We called it as what everyone did: the yellow disease.
My ten-year-old son didn’t know yet and we never discussed about it in the house. He knew we went to the clinic last week and the nurse had taken his blood. He knew we were going to the UK soon- he talked about the snow he had never seen in his whole life. He dreamed about buses with two floors like a treasure.
My sweet little bird! How I wish the bitter realities of life never touched him!
But he didn’t know that the doctor has asked him and me to go for a test I have never heard of. A test. A quiet request the young doctor made while my son was distracted by the posters on the clinic’ walls. The yellow eyes of my late mother and husband suddenly came back to haunt me.
He doesn’t know that when I packed our bags, I left space between his clothes for clinic papers, x-rays, and a kind of fear that doesn’t fold neatly.
When he came home from school, he ran straight to the fan, arms spread like wings. “Ma, it’s so hot today,” he said. The stillness was finally broken by love.
I nodded. “Go change. We have to go back to the clinic.”
He groaned. “Again?”
“It won’t take long.”
He didn’t argue. He never did. I smoothed his uniform and tucked the clinic receipt into my bag. The ink was already fading.
As we walked, the street bustled with children in barefoot and women balancing baskets of fruit and snacks. The air smelled of tamarind and exhaust. My hand wrapped around his like a rope.
Inside the clinic, the walls were pale and tired. A fan turned slowly overhead, and someone coughed in the next room. I handed the nurse our slip. She nodded and disappeared.
We waited.
I stared at the wall. I counted the cracks in the floor. I watched my son swing his legs. I touched the back of his neck, just to feel the warmth of him.
When the doctor came out, he said my name gently. He held a folder in both hands.
Everything I have ever feared fits between those pages.
And he hasn’t even opened them yet.
