I didn't get time to drink tea today. It feels like a tight band is squeezing my head from both sides. I wait an eternity for the cab to arrive and when I finally get in, the smell of petrol makes my intestines squirm. I roll down the windows and the gentle breeze brushes my hair. The driver is playing a song. It sounds familiar. I've heard it before but I cannot remember it. I don't try too hard to recognize it either; it must be one of the songs my mother used to play when i was younger. She used to play a lot of songs. I feel like I'm in a movie - the female centric kind, where the main character miraculously figures out her life which has been falling apart for the past decade. At the end of the movie she gets in a cab and asks the driver to drive her home. I’m going home too, I think. I remember, as a kid, I always wanted to get a house of my own with my name beside the front door. Today I have that, but sometimes I want to scratch off each letter carved on the metal plate, pack my bags and leave forever. I don't know exactly where I want to go. For some reason, I've never known that. I washed my hair today but the polluted air of the city makes my freshly shampooed hair sticky. It’s okay, at least I am having my main character cab moment right now.
The cab comes to a halt. The GPS lady lets me know that I have reached my destination. Perhaps I should brush my hair before going in, or perhaps not. He wouldn't care either way.

I choose to take the stairs instead of the elevator. My flat is on the sixth floor. It takes me a few minutes to get there, so I plug in my earphones and play a song from my playlist. If I rang the bell, he probably wouldn't open the door. He must be working or playing video games or talking to a friend. He's always doing something. He doesn't want to admit it, though. Instead, he just takes long enough to respond that I get annoyed and unlock the door myself. I rummage through my bag for the keys and find the Moana keychain my mother gave me.

“I’m home.”
“I’m hungry.”


He went to sleep early today. I went to brush my hair.

When I was younger, I used to have three things by my side while sleeping -a water bottle, a novel and a comb in case I needed to scratch my back. I picked up that habit from my mother. I take after her in a lot of different ways. I wish I was more like her but I also wish I was nothing like her. I love my mother. We have a strange relationship dynamic. As her daughter, I feel so angry, about everything she did to me and everything she didn’t. As a woman, however, I understand. Sometimes my womanhood and daughterhood fight with each other and my mother cries.

My father was always a busy man. My mother and I have been best friends for as long as I can remember. We shared the same room until I was 18 and moved out for university. There was a few centimetres gap between our pillows where we kept the comb. I used to turn the smooth side towards her and the pointed side towards me.

My mother is a good mother but she has made mistakes, and I wanted her to admit that. I get it. It was her first time being a mother. I just wanted her to understand that it's my first time being a kid too. I wanted her to know about the things she did which hurt me. We lived in the same house, in the same room for eighteen years. We got to see every flaw of each other's character. She used to be my best friend. I was hers. We used to tell each other everything. I've heard so much — about the way my father's family treated her or how two of her sisters are having a fall out over something ridiculously trivial. And she has heard about all the stupid things I did or saw other people do in elementary school and middle school. She knew about all the couples in my class, all the stories about school which were not "parent-friendly". I tell her everything even now. But in the last couple of years before moving out I stopped telling her everything like I used to. She didn't notice it right away, either.

I stopped telling her about how I feel - why I used to be so frustrated all the time or about the things she said which used to hurt me. I remember trying to talk to her about it and the way she would become defensive and somehow always manage to play the victim. I would end up feeling bad about myself every time. She has three sisters, a husband and a daughter to talk to. I only have her. So instead, I would shut up and try to be a good daughter. After all, I snatched away her dreams when I ripped her womb to breathe. I was born with blood on my hands.

There’s a void in my heart where I cultivate grief. There, I plough the fields with the pointed side of a plastic comb, the side I turn towards me so my mother doesn't bleed anymore. I'm not seventeen now and the anger in my veins has receded. My daughterhood and womanhood don't fight anymore, neither does my mother cry. Instead she calls me and asks me if I've eaten. But the void in my heart still persists. It's become a part of my being. I don't know who I am without the grief. Perhaps, my familiarity with grief is why it feels like home.

I wash off the little dried blood from the comb, brush my hair and put it Into a bun. I take my comb with me. It's been a long day. Before going to bed I apply ointment on the fresh bruise from last night, scarring my left wrist. In the faint glow of the night lamp, I place the comb between our pillows turning the smooth side towards him and the pointed side towards me.

Anushka Ghosh