Page 76 of Pillow Talk
‘Eat,’ she said placing the plate in front of her. She then started brewing the tea.
Shona took the first bite and wanted to cry. She missed hermother’s cooking.
‘Aruna told me about the conversation you had with her, so I understand your side. I know what you went through and I know how it feels,’ her mother said.
Shona looked up from her plate. ‘How would you know?’
Her mother put a cup of tea in front of her on the table, sat down opposite and drank from her own cup. After the first sip, she started talking.
‘Because I went through the same thing,’ she said.
Shona was about to ask for more information but her mother continued. ‘I felt trapped by that awful shop, and I still do.’
Shona put down her roti roll. ‘Then why didn’t you say something?’
‘Because I couldn’t,’ her mother replied, sounding defeated. She wiped away a tear.
‘Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ said Shona apologetically.
Her mother shook her head. ‘You didn’t. Now would you just keep quiet so I can tell you the story! And no interruptions.’
Shona smiled and nodded.
‘I fell in love with your dad during the summer when I turned 17. I was visiting my aunt, who wasn’t married and didn’t have children of her own. We made big plans. We would get married and move away to my hometown where I would work as a hairdresser. Your father had applied to college and was accepted to study to become a teacher. He knew he would easily find a job in my hometown once he finished college because it was bigger than Rally. The plan was never for us to live in Rally,’ she said.
Shona’s jaw was on the ground. Her father wanted to be a teacher!
‘I never knew your grandfather; he’d died the year before I met your dad. But I knew your grandmother. She was shrewd. Unnecessarily cruel and, in a way, very pleased that your fatherand I planned to move away once we got married,’ she explained.
Shona was about to ask a question, but her mother shook her head.
‘No interruptions. Dad left to go to college and I studied at beauty school. The plan remained in place. As soon as Dad graduated, we got married. My father had several properties in my hometown, so he gave us one to live in. We were married for about three months when everything changed.’
Her mother looked out the window. She blinked away tears and then turned back to Shona.
‘Laksh died. He was five years older than your father. A fit, healthy man, but his heart just stopped one morning. Your dad rushed back here. Your grandmother was devastated; Laksh was her life. The shop was his – the plan was always for him to inherit it and run it. He was the oldest son. Dad was like the spare, and he was the heir. The day after Laksh’s funeral, I made your father promise me that we would go back home in a couple of days. He promised and I believed him.’
Her mother wiped away tears with the back of her hand.
‘But he broke his promise. His mother guilted him into running the shop. One day when he got an order wrong, she said it should have been him who’d died instead of Laksh. I told her off, but Dad didn’t back me up. He never stood up for himself. It started to feel like it was me against them. Dad just never said anything. I stuck it out for a few years and then my father died. I went back home for the funeral. I planned not to return, but I found out I was pregnant. My brother said he would support me, but that was no life for a married woman and a child. So I came back here,’ she said.
Shona wiped away her own tears. Sitting at this table, she could imagine her mother as a young woman filled with dreams and hopes.
‘Your father was so excited when he found out I was pregnant.We were still living with his mother, who continued to make my every day a living hell. You were born and she was appalled that you were a girl – a girl wouldn’t suit Shah & Sons. My aunt died and left me this house. I came straight here from the hospital and your father and I made it our home. But your grandmother still controlled everything.’
Her mother sighed.
‘Sometimes I believed she was obsessed with the shop because Laksh loved it and she wanted to preserve it in his memory. But then I would be reminded of the way she treated Dad and you two girls. And I knew that she was incapable of love.’
Her mother stood up and carried her teacup to the sink. She washed it and put it on the dish rack.
‘But after she died,why did Dad stay?’
‘Because he forgot what it was like to be himself…the man I fell in love with. She broke down his confidence. She made him feel worthless. Dad is afraid. He knows nothing else. So he stays,’ she said.
‘And you?’
Her mother came back to the table.
