The Day She Left
It was a Tuesday.
I remember the weather was beautiful that day. Sunlight came through the hospital window and cut a bright rectangle across the white bedsheet. Mum lay there looking smaller than usual — like a balloon with the air let out, just a thin layer of something left.
She took my hand and said, "Elena, Mum might have to go away for a while."
I knew what she meant by "go away." I was already sixteen. Old enough to know what "leaving" meant.
But I didn't cry. I don't know why. My tears simply wouldn't come. I just sat there, watching her face, watching the focus slowly drain from her eyes, watching her hand go cold in mine.
Dad stood beside me, his hand on my shoulder, but I couldn't feel the warmth. He wasn't crying either. He just stood there, watching, watching, until the doctor came in and said, "I'm so sorry."
Those three words. I'll never forget them as long as I live.
At the funeral, many people came. Many people cried. I stood there in a black dress, watching that white box lowered into the earth. I still didn't cry.
Dad asked me later why I hadn't. I said I didn't know. He said crying might help. But I couldn't.
Maybe, I thought, my tears had already run out in that hospital room. Maybe I'd already finished crying, and just hadn't known it.
That night, I came home and walked into the kitchen. There was something Mum had made that morning — a bowl of rice porridge, gone cold. I sat down, picked up the spoon, and took a sip.
The taste was still there. That taste she made, the taste only she could make.
Somewhere in the middle of eating, the tears came. Not the loud kind — just that quiet, unstoppable kind, one drop at a time, falling into the bowl, mixing with the porridge.
That was the first time I cried. And the last.
After that, I never went into that kitchen again. Dad turned it into a storage room and packed away all the pots and bowls. I didn't object. I knew he was hurting too — just in his own way, like I was in mine.
The melody disappeared around that time too.
Not because I didn't want to hear it. Because I was afraid to. Every time it started to surface, I'd press it back down immediately. Because it would make me think of her, of that kitchen, of that cold bowl of porridge, of those unstoppable tears.
I told myself that over time, it would fade. But it didn't. It only found a deeper place to hide, waiting for someone to brush against it lightly — and then it would all come rushing out.
Like this morning.