She was running. Her feet pounded on the littered grey cement. Grey, just like the lines of her life - blurred, unfocused, gradation. Machilean wasn’t a word she knew.
She ran because she was sorry. Because she didn’t want to turn back. She hid herself, weaved her way through the pathways, ignoring the calls of her name behind her back. She was yearning to get away. Mercy, mercy, please.
My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was seventeen. I was standing at my bus stop, waiting to go home. It had become a daily routine, standing on this empty sidewalk, where the sun was unyielding. It beat down on me the day I got Amal’s phone call, I looked at it with a slight annoyance, the ringtone abruptly silencing the music. I let it ring and ring and ring. It didn’t stop.
Amal had moved out when she was eighteen, crushed under the weight of South Asian values. She lived vicariously, maintaining a steady lifestyle through her blogging. She left me behind to fend for myself against the same lifestyle she left. I was left alone, abandoned, with no means of supporting myself.
I finally picked up when it got too much, the ringtone echoing in my ears.
“Mama’s in the hospital. Come quickly.”
I got on the wrong bus twice before arriving at the cold, harshly lit hospital ward.
Dad was leaning against the wall, his head in his hands. Dad loved Mama, yet he was indifferent to how Amal and I managed ourselves. Mama and him fused out at once after Amal left, and now it was all bickering, nagging, stomping down the stairs. Our mother’s love never once yielded, she read all of Amal’s blog posts.
I was a different story. The second daughter, I wasn’t the token child. I was bitter. Annoyed. Amal was the perfect child until she wasn’t. I can never forgive her for finding a getaway car, and not waiting for me to put on my seatbelt in the passenger seat.
Amal was on the floor, holding an empty coffee cup; her knuckles were icy white and red. I didn’t have the strength to face her yet, so I just stood at the corner of the hallway defeatedly, not knowing how to approach her after three years.
I watched her hands thaw out, her grip eventually loosening. I took a step forward, as Dad looked up and opened his arms.
“She’s in the ICU, no one can see her yet,” he whispered, smoothing my hair back. “Is she okay?”
At that, Amal scoffed. I looked down and suddenly was overcome with a renewed sense of hatred for her. My pent up emotions let loose like a dam being flooded with unbearable pressure. Anger, grief, and pain came in waves, washing over any hope I had of reconciliation. I was drowning.
“Why are you even here? You don’t care, you left her, you weren’t here when she cried herself to sleep, when she thought she failed as a mom, I-”
“Enough, both of you, this isn’t the time.”
We both drew back but I had the last word, “Why don’t you just leave like you always do?”
The hallway became a prison, we were trapped within both the walls and the emotions threatening to suffocate us.
We waited for what seemed like hours, the constant hum of the hospital slowly lulling me away and fading into the background. The sun dimmed, and the darkness of the evening seeped through my bones.
The doctor came and explained that Mama had stage four terminal brain cancer. There was nothing they could possibly do to stop it. Chemo would make it worse. She had slim to none chance at surviving. My world came crashing down.
When she was finally wheeled back home, her once safe haven of a bedroom became a makeshift hospital room. Amal and I became the nurses. Day in and day out we made sure our mom was okay, that she took her medicines on time. Amal and I cooperated despite our differences. We shared a common goal: our mother, our lifeline. Minutes, hours, days went by and somehow, me and Amal became a team again.
“Do you want a cup?” Amal asked, popping her head into Mama’s room, where we so often congregated.
“Yeah, can you bring the cookies too?” I got an eye roll at that.
Mama saw us sitting together at the edge of her bed, drinking chai and laughing over some irrelevant article I had found, her eyes lit up, the wrinkles by her eyes accentuated. She had a warm smile and when my eyes met hers, she nodded at me. That gesture held the weight of our unspoken promise: no matter what, I was and would be there for Amal, and Amal would be for me.
I remembered when we were young and wild and free. A few blocks away from our house, there was an abandoned park with winding pathways and sprawling trees. When we wanted to get away, we would take our bikes and ride and ride and ride. Our bikes - mine a rusted pink and hers a mint blue - were still in the garage, untouched since she had left.
I was taking out a box of old pictures to show Amal, because we did that now: reminisced over memories and the good times, when I looked at the bikes for the first time in three years. The metal was cold and the seat dusty.
I traced the handlebars when it hit me that I was never angry with Amal for leaving, I was angry at myself for not reaching out to her. I was angry that I didn’t forgive her until the distance had extended to the ends of the earth. I thought I was one step forward, but ended up two steps further from my best friend, my sister, my everything. I had spent so much time thinking about myself - selfishness consumed me - that I didn’t think of how she was. It was time to forgive her.
I was carrying the box of pictures up the stairs when I heard the insistent beeping of Mama’s heart rate machine. My own heart in my throat, I ran into her room, praying that everything was alright, and grabbed Mama’s hand. Her eyes were closed, her breathing erratic, and she gripped my hand and then went slack. The green line extended endlessly on the monitor and I screamed as I desperately tried to do something, anything, to save my mother’s life.
Amal rushed in, scrambling to dial 911, but I knew it was too late. The sirens were getting louder, I could hear the trampling of the medics rushing to take out the stretcher.
And I ran. I ran down outside where the sun was again glaring at me, putting me into a spotlight I didn’t want. I could hear Amal and Dad crying out for me to stop, to wait, to slow down. I ran as fast as my legs could take me and collapsed on someone’s lawn, tears flooding my eyes. I don’t know how long I stayed there, my head in my hands, wanting to pinpoint the blame on someone.
It was Amal who became my scapegoat. The days leading up to my mother’s funeral and the one’s after, I took it out on her.
“Why weren’t you there?”
“We were doing just fine before you came back and ruined us all over again.”
“You left her again and see where it got you?”
I was irrational, I was aware what I was doing was wrong, but I justified it with the loss of my mother. She was the only person I had left after Amal left. She taught me everything I knew and took care of me and gave me love when I felt incapable of it.
I could only turn to Amal in disgust now even though none of this was her fault. But before I could say anything, I remembered my promise. To be there for Amal, how we weren’t for our mom. Mama had left for a better place, but in exchange, I got my sister. I promised to be strong even if I was wrong.
I had to tell Amal I was sorry. That I knew she was sorry too. That I had forgiven her a long time ago. That somehow, somewhere, my jigsaw puzzle was complete because she was the missing piece, wedged in between my pride and love. All we had was each other.
I went to go find her a few days later. She was in the backyard, pulling the dandelions out and gently blowing on them. I had found faith in family, in forgiveness, in fostering love once again. Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the oak trees, illuminating my older sister. We didn’t know what we wanted, but I had hope in us to make it right, after all the left turns we had taken. God will forgive me for this one, we had found our way Home.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Wanna go for a bike ride?”
She smiled and her face lit up the sun.
“Yes.”