‘SHADOW’

by Shailey Bellamkonda

The rain patters down on the gravestones. So many lives in one place, so much grief and heartache. So many stories. I put down the flowers before my parents grave. A small combination of peonies and yarrow.

My dad used to buy bunches of peonies for my mom. They literally covered the entire house. And yarrow used to fascinate my mom. She had always been fond of tiny clusters of white flowers. It took her some years to find a particular name for them. Whenever she found one, she would pick it up, dust it and put it in my hair. I loved it when she did that.  My mother, to me, was the gentlest being on earth. The only thing I found strange about her was that she would become cold and angry whenever I mentioned her parents. “Don’t speak of them,” she would say. “They hated your father.”

I asked her once. “Hated? Why was that, Mom?”

She had given me a blank expression and changed the topic then. I never found out my mother’s maiden name and therefore couldn’t find anything on my grandparents.

A cold breeze swept over the graveyard. A pale figure took form beside me.

“Bea, stop trying to give me a heart attack.” I say.

“I can’t just walk here. People might see me.” Bea says innocently.

“Bea, no one sees you. We have been through this. Even if we try showing you to someone, everyone will think I’m a lunatic.” I say and I immediately regret it.

Bea looked down at the gravestone quietly. I wish I could make her happier. She is a spirit and I have seen her and talked to her ever since I remember. But no one else can see her or hear her and she can’t touch anything of this physical world.

That didn’t stop her love for different varieties of flowers.  She would often wake me up in the middle of the night and take me to the garden behind my house to show me new flowers that bloomed.

Of all the flora we explored during a series of nights, her excitement never faded at the sight of carnations every time. She speaks of them with such fondness that I often liked her excitement more than the visual of the actual flower.

One such night, after navigating through the garden with Bea, I headed back upstairs only to find my mother’s motionless body lying at the foot of my bed. I huddled in a corner of my room until my aunt came and took me. I was never told how or why my parents died, and I really didn’t want to find out. I found solace in Bea’s presence and time flew by. I sailed through the years that followed.

The sad part was, it was hard for Bea to get by. I had other people to talk to and things I could feel and touch. The warmth of my blanket, the smell of books in my library, the chilliness of a cold winter breeze, the hugs and kisses every now and then.

Whenever I am excited about something or feel low or find leisure, I resort to one other best friend of mine – sketching. As I sit through the process of sketching or painting, I see how similar this process is to the journey of life. In both Painting and in life, no matter how best you think you erased a mistake, it still remains underneath the layer of corrective measure. You can, at best hide it, not erased it completely.

So is the case with Bea. I cannot take her sadness away. I can only distract her, well, momentarily. One day, I realised that part of her sadness is also because of me, or to better put it this way, for me.

“I can never forgive myself for what I did to you. A sorry might not be enough. But, I’m sincerely sorry dear”, she once told me, with wet eyes, in shivering voice.

I’m perplexed. “Hey, what are you sorry for? I can’t think of a moment you hurt me anytime!”

“Hadn’t I dragged you out of your home that night to the garden, You’d have been at home, tried to do something to save your parents or at least be with them during their last moments.”

“Wait, wait. Hold on. How would you or I know that that would happen to them. It not your fault and I never looked at it that way, even as a child or when I grew up to be this. You’re never to be blamed, hon!”

“But… If not for me…”

“Shhh...” I kept my index finger on her mouth stopping her from saying any further and gave her a tight embrace. I could console her, but not myself. The thought of their death and the memories of them choked me.

“It’d been fourteen years…” I tried to pull myself together.

Bea patted on my back and moved from the hug. She tried to smile, “And you’re still the same sweet darling”

I forced a smile, weakly. We both remained silent for a while, busy gazing the stars. I finally broke the uneasy silence.

“The doctor said it’s a girl.”

Bea smiled widely and gently laid her hands on my belly. “Really? Wow, that’s a celebration. I’m so happy for you”

“Shall we take a walk?” She offers. “Its good weather and it’s been long since we sat like this. A walk is good for you.”

“Sure.” I stood up, with Bea’s help.

Few steps into the walk, I sensed something. And then there is this intense pain shot through my belly. I stopped, wailed with my hands tried to clutch my belly as if holding something back from slipping.

“To the hospital please…” I barely finished my silence. We rush through a long lane of shops and reached clean white building.  There is hardly anyone outside the building. My eyes are closing as someone put me into a wheel chair.

“Which hospital is this?” I frantically ask Bea. “Elm tree,” she replies. I made a call and repeated the name over the phone.

That’s all I think I remember.

Two hours later, I woke up to notice a nurse walking towards with me, with the just born in her arms covered in a clean white robe. I could feel my glowing, my lips widening with a smile and my heart pumping with unfathomable joy. I looked t the baby as if there are only two of us in the whole world.

A few moments later, I looked around for Bea and him.

“I wished for you to have a baby like me…” a sinister voice whispered in my ears as Bea appeared, out of nowhere.

Still looking at the baby, I smiled and then shifted my eyes at her.

An intense uneasiness ran through my spine at what I saw. This is not the same Bea I know of and have been associated for years.

Her left corner of the lip is slightly cut open, her chin twisted upwards and the right eye bulged outward.

“This is the real me dear. Disgusting, right? Had you seen my true self in our first meeting, you would’ve run away from me, avoided me like my mother did then… well, like OUR mother did…!” She paused. Or, is it that my mind stopped listening any further or stopped functioning?

I tightly closed my eyes as some images started flashing rapidly and I could register a face among the speeding visuals. Yes, that was my sister! And yes, the same Bea I’m seeing now. Sensing something sinister, I opened my eyes with my heartbeat pounding heavy. While I still remained dumbstruck with shock, she continued.

“Yes, OUR MOTHER! We’re sisters, siblings, born to same parents. And our … No, No, I should say, your mother abandoned me for this ugly face and preferred you over me because you’re a trophy kid, a picture postcard baby, then and even now. “

My eyes are wet. My sight blurred. Her voice shivering, with pain, with anger.

“Our father didn’t stop her. He always lived in his own world and left all decisions to mother. He was non-existent for me, for you. And I DIED… died of hunger. I never missed them for what they did to me. But I missed you. So, I returned to be with you. Overpowered by the fear of rejection again, I had this cute face when with you. You still could’ve shut me out for I am a ghost, appearing, reappearing as I wanted. But, thanks to you, you didn’t. You embraced me. We were like alter egos all these years”

All I could feel is a lump in my throat. Her presence or her deformed face is not scary anymore to me.

“I was thinking of leaving your life to be when you got married. But when I heard you’re pregnant, I decided to stay back. I had this fear haunting me. What if your baby is born like me, for some strange reason, genetic or whatever? What if you do the same thing to the baby like your mother? I stayed back with you just to watch out for the kid. Just to make sure she earns her place in the world, to make sure that she’s not punished for no mistake of hers. To do anything, ANYTHING in all my power to ensure that.”

Her voice resolute, her vision intense. I could feel the Pain, the Rage.

“I’m truly sorry Bea. Sorry for what you went through at that tender age. None should’ve been there in that place. I was too young to do anything then. And I’m and will be thankful to you all my life for making my childhood so memorable and beautiful. I …”

“I know you’re not your mother. But I understand this. She, your daughter, might’ve born fine, physically. But, as she grows, she will have her vulnerabilities. She will do mistakes. Everyone does. No one is flawless and perfect the way we want them to be, like a product manufactured in a factory.  Don’t try to prevail over her life, just because you gave her birth doesn’t give you all rights over her. Learn to accept her as she is.”

I nodded in agreement, obediently, like a student to a teacher. It wasn’t forced. It was effortless.

“But you’ll be there for her too, like you’re for …”

“I’m leaving. I trust you. You’ve her, a new friend. But remember dear, I’ll be watching, will be her shadow, in light and in dark too. Don’t make me come again. Love her. Love You”

Her face changed back to what she has always been to me, to old Bea. Same old beautiful Bea. Perhaps, she wanted me to remember her the same way as I’ve always known her since beginning. She looked into my eyes for one last time. And then, she vanished.

It is strange that animals don’t need to be taught, to be disciplined, and to be reminded of their duties. They just follow their own unwritten laws. It is humans, for all the brains and reason they have, who need all these reinforcements time and again.

I took the baby from my lap, close to my heart and kissed long. I could still feel Bea by the bedside watching intently, with all the love she is made up of.

SOME PEOPLE NEVER DIE.