Cosmo Short Stories: "The Good Daughter"

“Savi looked at her mother’s toenails. They reminded her of a witch she had once seen in a movie. The name eluded her. She set her sickeningly sweet cup of tea on the table and walked out of the room, determined to rejig her memory. The mind has a penchant for perusing frivolities to restore normalcy, to make a situation palatable. And that’s what Savi’s brain was doing. Trying to lull her away from the despair she felt, sitting by her mother, watching her body give up, an organ at a time.

Unlike the scores of people milling around the hospital corridors, forever restless, or hopelessly praying for the prescience that could help them predict a loved one’s fate, Savi had the luxury of time. For the past three months, she had practically lived within these walls. It felt like home now. Everyone recognised her, appreciating how she had dedicated her life to her ailing mother. Does someone really get to choose between keeping their mother alive or letting go, she wondered. A few lucky ones did. Like her sister Ishika. The apple of her mother’s eye, the girl who could do no wrong. But it wasn’t her mother’s fault, she figured. Some people are born special. They look better, they’re treated better, and everything just falls in line. Even as she saw her sister walk towards her from the end of the long corridor, it seemed as if she was walking down a ramp and not in a hospital that housed the tattered body of the mother that doted on her.

 

‘This couldn’t wait could it?’ she said petulantly, standing with her hands on her hips. Her presence in the hospital was an inconvenience, and she felt no compunction demonstrating the same. Savi pulled her inside a consultation room and shut the door. ‘We need to make an important decision, Ishika. About our mother. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’ ‘What? About the life support?’ Ishika shrugged. Savi looked at her sister incredulously. ‘How can you be so casual about something of this magnitude. She’s our...’ ‘Mother? Yes. I know that Savi. The only difference is that I live practically, with my feet planted on the ground while your head is forever in the clouds. That’s the very reason you can’t even...’

Savi kept her eyes on her sister. ‘Say it...hold a job? You think I stay with mom because I need her to support me.’

‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’ Ishika shrugged again and checked her phone. ‘By the way, I’ve already had a chat with Dr Shenoy.’

‘No you didn’t.’ Savi stood up, fists clenched. ‘She might wake up. You know there’s a chance.’

‘A very slim and expensive chance Savi. Just let go.’

 

A few hours later, as a full moon appeared outside the stark hospital window, Savi sat watching her mother again. Even though it took a very public meltdown on her part, she was happy she had dissuaded her sister from her unilateral resolve to let go of their mother.

After the nurse made her last round for the night, Savi pulled out a syringe, plunging it deftly into a small vial. She moved with the ease of an expert and sank the sharp needle in her mother’s arm as it moved ever so slightly in response. Years of drug abuse can be beneficial in strange ways. Years of neglect and anger even more so. Her monster of a mother who was convinced her younger daughter was one, would now no longer burn her with her words or her actions.

As the monitors started beeping, Savi shut the door behind her and walked into the long dark corridor triumphantly, towards a fresh start. Nothing would be traceable; she had been promised. With the thought of her mother’s slack jaw that had always waged wars against her, she smiled, knowing that she took what was rightfully hers, the power to silence her.

And that’s when the name of the film popped into her head and she laughed with the recollection. ‘Makdee!’”