Strangers - A short story

Everything eventually comes to an end. It's like you start out life with an empty slate and then you keep writing and erasing stuff. You meet people. You do things. Times people surround you everywhere. Times when you would listen patiently for the slightest of sound. A footstep maybe. A laugh hopefully. But nothing. Not even a pin-drop. Happiness overtakes you sometimes. Only to be replaced by such intense pain sometimes that you wonder how you even survived. But you do. Live through it all. Everything in life, a stranger before, a friend for a while, sometimes becoming even a best friend, before eventually becoming a stranger again. Again and again.
I looked at my life. I was amazed how I could look at it. Totally detached. As if I was reading an autobiography or watching a movie. Everyone around me relegated to being just a character now. How important they were at that time in life before fading away. Sometimes to turn up again. But eventually to fade into oblivion. Seemed like I was also playing the part of a character. A character that was alien to me. A stranger.

She had walked towards me. Mom, I have to tell you something, she said amidst her tears. Dressed in wedding finery. My baby. My precious little baby. Embarking on a life, I thought I had embarked on just yesterday. But here I was looking into the eyes. Eyes that had remained the same. The same eyes of the baby I had held close to my heart. This was one friend who I would not allow to become a stranger, I had thought. Like her father. Attempting to grab whatever out of the mess that had become my life.

12 years I had struggled. For her sake, I'd tell myself. He is her father after all. She adores him. What about one day at a time. No, that did not work after a while. So it was one breath at a time until even that became excruciatingly difficult. At one time there had been love. Beauty. Friendship. Now it looked so strange. Nothing as ugly as love gone wrong. A beautiful thing shredded apart. Takes everything out of you. If it hadn't been for her, maybe I'd have given up happily and given in. But there she was. My precious little one. Not so little any more. She was going to be a teenager now. That night I looked in the mirror and the amount of gray in my hair startled me. A dream shattered. A chunk of life waiting to be erased.

The pain hit us both hard. She could not understand how people who seemed to love her so much did not seem to love each other at all. Hadn't her mom told her that it had been a love marriage? How happy she had felt then. Proud of her parents. Proud of me for going against my family to marry the man I fell in love with. So she looked in horror as her father packed his belongings. She refused to come out of her room for a week. I had to call her father. He came.

Threatened to break the door down. She walked out. Delirious. She had brought her father home. He could not leave now. She held onto him. Maybe she could live with me for a while, he reasoned. She jumped at the offer while my eyes stung from the force of it.

Had never felt lonelier than I did during that time. The door to her room remained closed. Sometimes you cling to a feeling. You know reality is something else but just a fleeting second that you think that she just might be in there was enough to keep me going. She would call from time to time. She would come see me from time to time. But the door to her room remained closed. Soon even the raw pain started to ease a bit. I could breathe without struggling. Fight with some force the impulse to just go and join father and daughter. What was I fighting? What was I waiting for? Then I'd look at the scar. The emotional scar a decade of compromised life had left. It ran deep. Even the love for my daughter could not cloud that scar. It remained ever fresh in my memory. So I picked up the pieces and moved along.

How long had it been since she had left? Correction, since they had left. But somehow he did not count. A stranger doesn't, after all. Had it only been a couple of months? How did I survive? For the simple reason that I had to. There are no ifs and buts in life. It goes on and you have to go along. Unless you want to kill yourself which could be either the ultimate act of cowardice or of courage. I belonged to neither category, so I had breathed, eaten and gone on. And yes, waited. Waited for her arrival. Which came eventually. Not a long time after that. Forgotten was the misery and wretchedness of a few days back. But the pain of erasing a lifetime of memories remained.

That's when I found him. Just when I had thought that hope and happiness were but strangers in my life. But somehow they found me again. He found me and they followed suit. Life was again going towards beauty, love and friendship. I could not hide the joy of my being as she probed. Who was he? Why did I go out with him? How could I do this to her dad? But soon it looked like she got used to him. He tried with all his might and broke the shell. They got along. That's all I wanted. For them to get along. Soon it looked like they had become fond of each other. Marry me, he said a year later. I thought I had been sure before, but this time I knew I was sure. Yes, please, I said as the familiar warmth of his arms welcomed me.

One day she came to me as I was working on my wedding dress. I have to tell you something mom, she said. I looked up at her. Her face pale and haggard. Her depressed self had not escaped my attention. I had put it down to jitters before her mother's wedding. But I had waited. Waited for her to come out with what was bothering her. She did. Mamma, he molests me, she said. One sentence that made the entire world turn into a stranger once again. My daughter even, this time. An all-encompassing set.

A decade later she walks towards me. The dress not too different from the one I had stashed away in the bottom drawer of my Chester. A dress that had tasted blood as the needle had pricked my thumb as her words had stabbed my heart.

"I am sorry Mama. I have to tell you…"

"I already know"

"But…"

"I just have one question. Why?"

"Dad said he loved you still. That he wanted to get back with you."

Ultimate deception. Using my daughter as a pawn against me. Somehow it did not surprise me. I was right in not joining him even at my most vulnerable moment. I nodded. She hugged and cried. Not a tear escaped my eye. Forgive me mamma, forgive me. She said. Again I nodded, patted her on the back and she walked away towards her life. A stranger once again.