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[Fiction]

Mother’s Day
by Anil Ananthaswamy

Excerpts:

     It’s still dark outside, but I can hear my daughter up and about in her room. I’m reluctant to get up today, today of all days, and Sheila, anticipating this, has taken it upon herself to wake up early and make sure everything is done right. I lie with the quilt pulled over my head and wait, until the morning light emerges through gaps in the cotton, diffuse patches of yellow and orange, urging me to get up.

   Today, Sheila is busy playing mother. She is already dressed, smartly, in her navy blue skirt and white blouse, and is standing behind me braiding my hair, looking over my shoulder into the mirror, trying to catch my eye. Her hair, black and long, is tied in a loose knot, held elegantly with a brass pin. She has inherited her father’s lean build, and her face is a fetching combination of his full mouth and firm jaw, my black eyes and dusky skin. I look into the mirror, into Sheila’s eyes, wondering what she sees in mine. Can she tell I’m unsure, frightened, like a small child about to step into an unknown, intriguing world?

     She smiles at me, and says, “It’s going to be all right, ma.” I lean back into her, and she holds me for a while, and then pushes me upright firmly, and says, “Get ready ma, we have to go.” I reach for the red kumkum powder, and as I have for a year now, hesitate before I dot my forehead, wanting just for once to leave home without my mark of pride, of belonging. “A married woman without her bindi is wanton,” my aunt’s shrill voice reminds me, a voice from my childhood, a voice I hate. She never told me what to do if the husband was the unfaithful one. Sheila thinks we should come up with a color scheme for the bindis; I smile ruefully at the thought and watch reluctantly as the red dot takes shape . . .

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