By Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
Today, in the evening, I had gone to the CVS store on the corner Market and Main to buy a bottle of the Airborne pills. A friend had advised me to start taking those in advance before my planned travel to my country, India, next week. It would help bolster my immunity against the change in air and water I’d experience on my trip, she’d said.
With the Airborne, I had also picked a bottle of multivitamin Centrum pills for Ammi and five pairs of long Playtex rubber gloves for my sisters’ hands to protect them against the abrasive chore of dish-washing.
At the check-out, my right arm had reached towards the bag of Lindt’s dark chocolate truffles, hanging on a hook below the counter, and then stopped mid-air: I didn’t need to buy them. Not ever. The realization had started pounding my head.
That sweet had been Father’s favorite.
I would never again see the childish grin spread on his face as he rolled the truffles in his mouth with the brown chocolate leaking from the corners. Or hear the crunch of the empty candy wrappers stuffed in his front pocket. Or watch him implore Ammi for one more piece as she pulled the bag from his hands.
I had checked out quickly at the CVS register, without getting my loyalty card scanned and without responding to the cashier’s “Have a good night.”
I had rushed to my car and broken down. My vehicle had absorbed the deluge, like always.
Yesterday, a colleague had asked me which part and towns of the country I was planning to visit on my upcoming trip to India.
“Mostly North. Roorkee,” I had replied, “that’s where my parents live.”
Immediately, my eyes had darted away from that friendly colleague, sought refuge in the wall behind her, which had transformed into a giant screen, displaying a picture of Ammi, wrapped in her blue shawl, sipping her morning chai, alone in the porch, beside Father’s nameplate on the door of my childhood house.
Why did he not live there, in his home, where his nametag was still pinned?
I must have been lost for a while. The sound of my name, which my colleague had called out, had brought me back.
“I mean my mother, Ammi, lives there now,” I had said, slowly.
I still wish on fallen eyelashes for Father’s health when I should be asking God to grant peace to his soul.
It’s been a year but parts of me still forget.
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American, born in a middle-class family in India and will forever be indebted to her parents for educating her beyond their means. She is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee and her work has appeared online in The Ellipsis zine, Lunch Ticket, Star82 Review, and also in print, most recently in the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2018. She blogs at Puny Fingers. Twitter @PunyFingers.