I woke up to a startlingly loud sob. Groggily, I untangled myself from the sheets, the white dress from last night clinging to my body. The rattle of the newspaper guy's old cycle echoed up through the window as he cycled past us. Trying to rub the sleep from my eyes, I followed the feminine sobs down the stairs.
Khammi appeared distraught. Dressed in a simple cotton kameez, she sat on a tool near the base of the stairs, trying to muffle her sobs with her pink dupatta. The moment she spotted me with her bulging watery eyes, making me yelp, she launched up from her seat and pulled me into a crushing hug, her wailing jumping a pitch.
Mortified, I scrambled away from her, wondering what the hell was happening. The clock hanging on the wall above the couch said that it was 7 in the morning and it had brightened outside, but nobody had remembered to turn off the glaring light.
Considering Khammi's state, I turned to the other occupants of the room for an explanation. Dr. Amir, Mr. Fuller and Bapi were hunched over on the couch.
"What's going on?" I asked loudly, stumbling into the view. The men looked up at me, various degrees of pity glinting in their eyes. "Bapi? What's going on?"
That was the first and only time in my life I saw Bapi cry. Pulling off his tie, he lowered his head into his palms. He didn't utter a single cry, but when he looked up, his eyes were red and misty.
Mr. Fuller spoke to me first. "Honey, your mother is missing. Don't you worry, we'll find her in no time," he took several steps, slightly rickety courtesy of his age, towards me, placing a trembling hand on my shoulder.
"But, how?" I asked, refusing to believe it.
"We don't know that yet, honey," Doc said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "She was seen going into the Chemistry lab last night, but she never came out."
The next few days were hard and repetitive. Khammi packed a large, expensive suitcase and took up residence in the guest room. I passed the sleepless nights wondering where Ma was, how she was, and if she was even alive. Funnily enough, even though the nights seemed everlasting, the thoughts wouldn't end when the sun came out.
Mr. Fuller would come over whenever anything police-related happened. "No worries, sweetie," he would reassure me. "It'll be fine, we'll find her in no time. Have faith."
Principal Nilima Russo visited us once every day, not uttering a word about how I was missing school. The guys came over every day after school and stayed with me well into the night. West never accompanied them, but I had other things to worry about.
MA! MAA! Delirious with worry, I wanted to scream, shout, punch, but Bapi was home all the time and I couldn't do this to him. I'll do anything for you, Ma, come back! COME BACK!
But she didn't.
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"Hey, Doc." I muttered, taking a seat on an upside down wooden barrel. Bapi had shoved me out of the house and ordered me to cycle to Doc's as a solution to my depressed attitude. As I traced the ring of rusty iron circling the barrel, Doc's eyes shot up.
"Hi, sweetheart. What's up?" he smiled worriedly, wiping his hands on a towel and making his way over to me from the kitchen/lab. He grabbed another barrel, turned it upside down with some difficulty and sat down beside me.
"Nothing much," I said. I wanted to tell him more, but I wasn't sure of what to say.
"Tea?" he asked absentmindedly, staring outside through the window. Following his gaze, I saw that the gate was still mid-air, and a complicated device that looked suspiciously like a car engine rested on top of it.
"I don't really feel like it," I scratched the dirt on the floor with the tip of my sneakers, feeling a passiveness seep into me. I suddenly felt very old.
"Oh... About your mom-"
"Can we please not talk about her for a moment? I mean, it's all everyone's been talking about the past three days, it's driving me nuts," I pleaded, wringing my hands.
"Oh, okay." Doc and I shared a silence as he zoned out, waving his hand about like he often did when he was trying to figure something out. Emerging from his reverie after a while, he got up from the barrel and started sifting through the myriad of curiosities in the room.
"What're you looking for?" I quizzed, staring with interest at the jar of pickles (probably mango, we're Bengalis after all) now in his grip.
"I had a radio in here somewhere," Doc muttered, placing the jar on his barrel. I immediately snatched it up, taking a tantalising whiff of the contents after twisting the lid open. Yep. Mango.
"Geez, they still make radios?"
"No. I made it myself, for fun," Doc smiled, lifting a tire in search of his device. I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sigh.
"Why do you need one?" I asked, looking around for something to reach for the pickle when my fingers fell short of the task.
"Afsar called," he said, pausing to shot me a weird look when he saw me trying to reach into the jar with one of the test-tubes lined on the shelf. In my defense, Doc had admitted that those test-tubes were the cleanest things in his house. "He told me that you're arranging and going ballroom dancing? I bet him that you didn't know how to dance."
"What the hell? Principal Sen must've told him. It's just a high school dance," I muttered at my feet. "And I'm not going."
"Whoah, hold up, young lady. Why not?" Doc gave up on looking for the radio and returned to his seat, gazing at me with sincerity.
"What do you mean why not? Ma is missing, for God's sake. I can't just go dancing. Besides, I don't have anyone to go with," I mumbled, shoving some more tangy mango pickle into my mouth.
"Okay, look. I've known Saroor for since college. She'd be bummed if you didn't go," Doc said, wrestling the jar out of my grip and trying to reach the pickle inside with his fingers.
"You have no idea what you're talking about. They're brown parents-"
"Trust me, I know what I'm saying. And FYI, you're being prejudiced," Doc said, licking the pickle off his slender fingers.
"But, like," I paused, I knew better than to question Doc's judgement even though he was currently trying to be discrete about wiping his hands on the lab coat resting on his guitar.
"Now," he got up, extending a hand in a very formal way. "Miss Rashid, if you have anything other than loud pop music on that iPhone, will you do me the honour of joining me for a dance?"
Smiling weakly, I got up. "Only if you wash your hands. I've got Pachelbel's Canon, is that okay?"
"You actually have classical music on your phone? What sort of a teenager are you?" Doc shook his head, striding to the sink in a corner and rinsing his hands in the pink water that spouted from it. Don't even ask why the water was pink.
Doc pushed several bizarre articles aside to make some space for dancing. Finding Canon, I turned up the volume and accepted Doc's hand, letting him lead me as best as he could with me stepping on his toes every few seconds. Soon, we'd found a rhythm, and I rested my head on Doc's chest, the depth of the music making a set of tears well up within me. I closed my eyes, letting the tears fall.
Doc stroked my head affectionately as we swayed, but he was so immersed in his thoughts that I doubted he'd noticed that his shirt was soaking up with my tears.
"Aditi," he called as the music ended, cupping my face in his palms. "I need to hear you promise me something. Promise me that you'll pull yourself together. I know it's a burden you don't deserve, but I need you to be the strong bitch I know you are, okay? I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Afsar said that what's hurting him the most is that you're falling apart."
"You said bitch," I tried to smile weakly as he raised a brow. "I promise, Doc."
"I don't mean pretending to pull yourself together, you actually have to do it," he called as I made for the door.
"Weellll, I can't promise that. But I'll try."
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