Not Ready To Make Nice

A family of four, but not the way it should have been. There was an old man and his bed ridden wife, her grandparents. Her mother must have been forty even if she repeated the magical number of sixteen, year after year.

She herself was sixteen.

I remember this one day. We sat on the porch and I was telling her about my day at school, about how this one guy had called me ugly and pulled my hair. Shaw looked horrified, but it was a practiced look and I knew. She had been hearing me get miserable over this boy for a month now.

'I know Shaw, I really do. I should complain to the teacher, right? I was going to. I swear I was, and then I felt his eyes on me, I could already hear what he would say to me afterwards. I just sat back down. I hate him, Shaw. I really, really hate him.'

She wrapped her arms around me and said, 'I hate him too'.

And that's how it was. I don't know why I called her Shaw. I remember her having a beautiful Christian name, though I couldn't quite get it right then, and now I forget.

Shaw's mama stepped out. She wore a radiant orange salwar-kameez and her hair were two pigtails fastened with spare clips. Looking up to the sky, she inhaled a rush of fresh air, looking up to the sky, only to release herself as she said, 'higher! higher!' It beckoned her, to call out to what we couldn't see, asking to be taken 'higher! higher!' She might have been shouting to the void in her mind, or she might have been serenading the entire cosmos. But I know as much and as little for sure that Shaw's mama couldn't really see us, she could see no one. And we were right there.

And now she danced. Sixteen, in her mind and grey to our eyes.

Shaw smiled.

'What?' She had my attention.

'Nothing,' she replied. 'Just that last night, when everyone else slept, Mama told me about this man she met. He has a job and she said he loves her. They are going off to some place nice and that I could come with her. I think she was talking about my dad.'

Shaw's dad was nobody. One morning he got up, went to work and never returned. But her mother mixes up the story too often to be taken seriously.

Shaw started to say something again, when we heard the song. Her mama now sang as she danced. And was she loud! Hysteric movements and that song. Shaw was used to this, she had seen it coming but I was only beginning to comprehend.Before anything else, her Nanu came out and frigidly told Mama to get in. 

Only if she could hear him.

'Get back in!', this time louder, perceptions of honor seeping in through the cracks of his voice.

She ignored him, but only because her song hadn't finished yet. Nanu now grabbed her by the arm, and began dragging her towards the door. Struggle.

She strived to get herself out of his big, burly grip, never quietening her song. He made his staunch efforts, alternating between curses and blows. Twice he slapped her and just as loudly she wailed her song. She fought, she wailed and she sang. He somehow managed to haul her to the door. She fell, she got up, she ran back out and she sang that song.

Nani could be heard from within the house. 'It doesn't stop, she doesn't stop! Don't hit her too hard, just get her back in. We deserved better. Oh! We deserved so much better. Get her inside...'

More struggle, more persecution, more singing. Nanu went after her. He was enraged and it was a scary sight. He caught hold of her hair in one hand, grabbed her arm in the other, and savagely began to force his way. She gave a loud cry, kicked her legs everywhere, resisted violently for another few minutes and then, just as impulsively, went quiet. The song was over. 

Rapture.

She asked indignantly now, 'What are you lugging me for, huh?'

'Just walk back in, stupid whore.'

And she did, unruffled. The old man drew a hefty breath. This had been tiring for him. The disdain was explicit. He started to walk towards the door, when he saw Shaw and me there. We hadn't moved all this while.

'I can't deal with you and your mother in the same breath. Get in', he said to Shaw without moving that petrifying scowl on his face. Shaw scampered. By now she had learnt to play second fiddle. Nanu was a nice man, he was. But he could also beat her to the last breath without any sense of remorse. He was capable and he needed no reason enough. 

That evening when Shaw came to prepare dinner, her forehead was sore. We would ignore that bruise even as it turned blue in that awkward silence it brought with itself. She showed off a new pair of earrings. 'Nanu got them today. Tasteful, aren't they?'

That night Shaw's mama died.

Another evening, and we were right back there, on that porch.

'I expected Nani to die, you know. She can't move a limb. Mama seemed okay. She wasn't even that old really. 

'It was all so strange. We had dinner, Nanu talked about his new employer, Mama complained a little about the tasteless meal and Nani went on about finding me a husband. The dishes were washed, the beds were spread out and the lights were switched off. The night was called and then somewhere in the middle of it, she stopped breathing. Just like that. 

'Nanu hasn't uttered a word since, but Nani says he'll come around. We all do. You know what else she said? That last night was the most peaceful she has had in a long time.'

'Shaw, do you miss her? Like, right now?'

Shaw looked at me, frowned. She was figuring that out. 'I don't know. No, not right now. Maybe tomorrow it'll happen. The dead are to be missed aren't they?'

I didn't know, so I said nothing.

'You want to know something funny?'

I looked up.

'Mama always thought she was sixteen'.

We laughed. Tears followed, The sun went down.