She could hear a knock and a soft whisper of her name at the door. She glanced at the watch and a wry smile spread across her face. So, they have increased the time to twenty minutes now. Previously it was just fifteen minutes before someone came to inquire if she was alright and if she was done with her shower. They didn’t trust her with herself and were afraid she would do something. They absolutely had all the valid reasons for that assumption. After all, which wife looks happy and relieved after her husband passes away? Only the one who is out of her mind, which was exactly what they had concluded about her.
They felt she was still in severe shock. “Am I?” She questioned herself. No. Shock was the word she would have used to describe her state of mind when he revealed to her about his cancer and how untreatable it was. She still remembers that day. He was acting different for a couple of days, treating her to lavish dinners at her favorite restaurants, indulging her in shopping and all the things she liked. One day he even insisted they take a day off from work to drive down to the beach and watch the sunset, hand in hand, her head lying against his shoulder. She could still feel his breath on her head. It was one of the best moments in her life. And it was that night that he talked to her and showed her the medical reports. He thought she would totally lose it, but she appeared very calm, most frighteningly composed. But if she were given a chance to pick a right expression she would have gone with the word “numb”. Numb with the suddenness of the event. “Is there hope?” was the only question she could ask and he just drew her close, kissing her forehead and holding her for a long time, the answer crystal clear.
“Runa,” she could hear the whisper again. “I’m alright. I will be out in another five minutes,” she answered monotonously. By now, she was used to this kind of monitoring. Some days she felt like yelling at them to leave her alone. Why on earth would she kill herself? It was ridiculous that somebody would think she would so such a thing now. She was actually looking forward for normalcy to return back into her life. But they wouldn’t believe her. “You didn’t even cry on that day! How are we supposed to believe when you say you are alright?” they would keep arguing.
The day they were referring to was the day when they brought his body home. She sat before him, dressed in a white dress, hands around her knees, watching and watching. Neither a single word nor a tear. She did try to force an expression of sadness on her face. But she just couldn’t do it. All she could feel was an unexplainable inner peace, relief and happiness. Happiness that he lay resting peacefully, finally. She could read the carefully hidden dismay in the eyes of people around her. What kind of a wife doesn’t shed a tear at the sight of her husband’s dead body?
If only they knew how those months at the hospital had desensitized her and left her incapable of any emotion. If only they knew that she had cried her share of tears at nights between the narrow walls of the hospital restrooms. She still remembered that night when she was alone with him and he took her hand into his, eyes filled with tears, asking her to forgive him for putting her through this. She wanted to say a hundred different things, how it wasn’t his fault and all that, but not a word came through. All she could feel was a painful lump in her throat and the urge to grab her hand out of his – to drive back to the house where she could be alone with her grief. That day, she did cry to her heart’s content – loud, almost sounding like a wounded animal – unabashed tears gushing out of her body. It was like she was totally drained of tears and ever since, she never cried.
“Runa,” she heard that voice again. “I said I will be out.” Her tone was caustic and biting this time. She could now hear the retreat of her sister and the shut of the bedroom door behind her. “Thank you,” she whispered with a hiss. These people were slowly starting to get to her. If not for them, she would be totally balanced and composed and working on getting her life back. But whenever she saw an old relative cry suddenly at the thought of him, she felt like yelling and asking her to get out of her sight. She actually did yell once – when an old aunt of hers was mumbling that she would have escaped this fate had she married the boy that they suggested. That day, she did really lose it. She even asked her to get out of her house, right then and there. Her mom and brother had to pacify the bewildered old lady who was starting at her speechless. Ever since, they decided to put someone at her side everywhere she went. They thought she might do something to herself on impulse.
But what they didn’t know was that she was well past all that now. She did have thoughts of suicide. On some days, she would come back home for a shower after staying by his bedside the whole night and that was when she would walk into the kitchen and take a knife into her hand and keep staring at it for a long time, the gleam of the sharp edge weaving a spell on her. She used to feel the urge to dig it into her pulse and stop her mind from thinking anymore, to put an end to the angst, the pain of seeing him being reduced to a shadow of what he was, the pain of waiting for his death. But slowly she would talk herself out of it. She would remind herself that this pain wouldn’t last long. There will be a day when all this will have a closure. And the day did finally arrive.
One morning his condition worsened and the doctor took her aside to tell her that he was in a coma and it was just matter of hours before he died. She said nothing and just sat beside his bed, holding his limp hand in hers and looking at it, a familiar feeling creeping back into her – numbness. Later, she moved aside, staring into emptiness as others took turns to hold him for the last time.
She could now hear hesitant footsteps approaching the bathroom door and lingering outside for a while before they moved towards the bed. She knew exactly who it was. Her mom. She knew exactly what she would see when she opened the door. Her mom, sitting on the bed with an I-am-here-if-you-want-to-talk look on her face. Maybe one of these days she would succeed in convincing them that there really wasn’t anything to talk about and they should, for once, believe her and not drag her back into the morbid thoughts and instead assist her in her effort to return back to normalcy.