Broken Strings

Pray

I was five when I visited a hospital the first time. My mother was sleeping on one of the beds with tens of tubes running out of her.

She tried to kill herself.  One of the doctors said as we entered her room. She looked so peaceful that I couldn't believe what the doctor was trying to convey to us. She was covered with bandages and I was afraid that to touch her as I didn't know where it hurt or didn't hurt her. So I spent most of my time staring at her, whispering my secrets and things I did that I know she would be proud of. Everyone resented me. They said I was the reason that my mother had tried to kill herself.

Because I am my father's daughter but not her blood. They said that my presence was too much to bear for her. They said that she tried her best to love but that I was not worthy of her love. They said that I should be the one who should have been paralyzed, not her. And I would pray every day to let it be true. For a chance to exchange our positions.

And since that day I became the reason my family lost its reason to stay together. My grandfather was the first to leave the house. And as the years passed and my mother's continued coma, my brother left when I was 12. And my father never came. But I always sat with her. I didn't believe them. I know she loved me. I believed she loved me.

Sometimes my father dragged me out of her room and locked me out saying that I was tainting her recovery. But I always went back.

When I was 17, 21 December 2017 was the day when she showed some movement. But not the kind we hoped for. Dad wasn't home that day and the nurse was dozing off as she always does in her assigned room. She never believed that my mother would wake up and didn't step into her room until she had to change the cylinders and give my mother the prescribed injections.

I was sitting by her side as I always do. I was telling how I got into the basketball team that day when her heartbeat started dropping off. I screamed. I screamed so loud that everyone in the house came running to the room. My mother was shaking so loudly and I can hardly hear the beep of her heart. The nurse pushed me out and started punching in buttons on the machines. She pushed some injections into her parched skin so hard that blood seeped of her skin. I was crying uncontrollably while everyone else was staring at the scene unfolding with unblinking shock. The nurse shook her head and brought out a defibrillator and placed it on my mother's chest.

As the nurses ran around as making their way to Jay's room with a defibrillator machine with them I jumped up. Maanav was already running towards the ICU when one of the doctors stopped him from entering the ICU. We stood outside the room staring at Jay's immobile figure through the glass wall. Tears were streaming down my face openly now.

My mother's chest raised high up as the nurse sent the first wave of shock through her body. I gasped swallowing down my tears. Another shock went through her body and she was now as limp as a d- I pushed down my lunch down my throat and fell to my knees. I prayed. I cried. I died a little that day as my mother's heart stopped and never beat again. I never prayed again.

As the first wave of shock went through Jay's body Maanav collapsed down. And that was when I realized what exactly Jay means to Maanav. Jay gasped but it wasn't enough. It is never enough. I started hyperventilating as my vision blurred with unshed tears. The memories flood back too fast to push down and haze became too thick to break from. I couldn't breathe. I could hear them as they prepared for another shock. Then other. And another. Maanav was crying now. And I stood there, my face planted to the glass wall even though I can't see anything through the haze.

And I heard the gasp again. And the beeping started. And I fell to the ground, this time with relief.

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After they stabilized Jay, the doctors said that they kept Jay under observation and that they would operate on him the next day.

I stayed outside unable to face the room or the machines again while Maanav sat with Jay inside.

When the night fell and the voices around me grew quiet, I got up and made my way into the ICU. Maanav was sleeping holding his hand, laying his head on the bed and sitting in a chair.

I sat quietly opposite to Maanav and took Jay's other hand. I stared at him. I was listening to the beeping the whole time, reassuring myself that he is alive.

And I whispered quietly

"Please. Please, wake up." And I prayed that night and I hoped that it held at least some meaning after all these years.

I know that I don't know him and that it's unreasonable to pray for him when I have just met him. But something about this room, the state he is in right now and the way the machine beeped showing his steady heartbeat, I knew that I cannot handle another death. Not if its as closely parallel with my mothers' death. Not if there is still a chance.