Bedtime
Every mother's worst nightmare is that they will die before their child has learned how to sleep alone.
My mother died when I was not yet seven years old. I had never spent a single night away from her. If I woke up in the middle of the night without her by my side, I'd go in search of her and drag her back to bed. This didn't happen too often. Most of the times, we slept together right until the stupid alarm on her phone would ring in the morning, and she would be as sleepy as me, half-convincing me to get ready for school.
Bedtime was our favourite time of the day. It started the moment we finished dinner. She would be washing up and closing the kitchen for the night, utensils dripping on the rack above the sink, wiping down the stove and platform, all the dabbas and spices back in their places, switches off, gas valve down, a quick broom sweep. And the whole time I'd be sitting on the stool that she used sometimes, to reach the shelves up top. Come on, come onnn, it's time to go to bed, I'm sleeeeepy, I'd whine, while she "just a minute, just this and I'm done" the whole time.
And then we'd wash up and get into bed and have the most fun. She would make up fantastical stories about buildings and monkeys that talked to each other. Sometimes I'd ask her my favourite question, "did I poop in your stomach before I was born" and she would laugh and say "I don't think so, I'll find out, but this is what you did do when you were inside my stomach" and so on. At some point, all would begin to fall quiet inside my head and because actually falling asleep was a little scary for the seven year old me, I would hold on to her arm for comfort, knowing that wherever we seemed to be drifting off, we were drifting off together.
When she died, and someone explained to me that she had "left forever", I thought to myself, who will put me to sleep now? I had lots of people in my family who wanted to help me fall asleep and my aunt, especially, tried a lot, but on my first night without my mother, I knew it was useless. I had to find her.
But before I could, I had to learn to pretend to go to sleep. It was difficult at first, because I actually kept falling asleep. Everywhere. In school. Especially during Hindi class. My mom used to speak to me in Hindi, and something about hearing the teacher tell us stories in Hindi, even though the stories in my textbook were nothing like my mom's, put me to sleep. Sometimes I would come back home and lie down on the floor, the coolness of the tiles reminding me of my mom's arms.
Eventually, I got good at pretending to sleep. I'd close my eyes, breathe slowly, drop my limbs like I was gently falling into the depths of the bed. And then I would wait until the others had really slept and go in search of my mom.
Then one night, I woke up in the dark. I was sitting on the stool. Holding the sides with my hands as I used to, I thought I could hear the dishes being washed. Mom, I said, mom, is that you? Come on, come onnn, it's time to go to bed, I'm sleeeeepy, I began whining. And that's when I felt the lights on my eyelids, and heard a quick, in-drawn breath from my aunt.
What are you doing here, child, come to sleep, come on, she kept saying, while I stepped off the stool and followed her to bed. Okay, I said. But I didn't tell her that I could hear my mom putting the dabbas and spices back in the cupboard.
Tomorrow, I said to myself, I'd drag her back to bed where we belonged together.