A Memory Of Her Mother

Lalin gazed at the half-face of the moon, hanging outside her hotel window. She wondered if her aunt and her mother were watching over her now that they were both not a part of this cruel world.

She turned over her shoulder and watched the huge bed covered with thick blankets. A basket of fruits was sitting quietly on one of the side tables, Stella had it delivered in case she wasn't in the mood to eat something, and next to the basket of fruits was another basket. That one was full of junk food, they were from Cynthia. The personality of the two was as contrasting as those baskets.

Lalin smiled bitterly. The corner of her eyes stung and she let the tears at bay fall, breaking the ghostly silence of her hotel room with her sobbing. She let herself cry because her friends had all gone home. They could not stay here with her because all of them were minors, just like her. They could not stay outside for a long period of time without their parents reporting them kidnapped.

She pulled her knees closer and hugged herself. She had pulled the breakfast table under the huge window and climbed on it and watched the nightscape of the city. She had been in this room for three days. She tried not to cry and not to think of anything sad but after a while, she just could not help it. Her heart felt like a hard stone, so heavy in her chest that it was almost impossible to breathe. And the only way to lessen the pain was to cry.

Not her usual quiet cry but a loud, messy, and ugly kind of cry, like what she was doing right now.

She never let herself cry with a sound. She didn't want to add to her mother's problem, hence, at a young age, she taught herself to cry quietly behind her bedroom door. She became so good at it that she didn't know how to cry with a sound, until today.

She turned her tears-stricken face to the window and gazed at the moon once again. A small smile played on her face when she recalled a memory.

She was about three years old at that time. Her mother dressed her into two layers of clothes even though it was summer. She protested crying but her mother won in the end. She was still crying on the floor when they heard angry knocks on their apartment door.

Her mother paled and her tears stopped at once. Ever since she was young, Lalin could sense if something was about to go wrong. And that time of the night, with her mother putting her into thick clothing and a duffel bag that was bursting to its seams was next to the door, waiting.

"Open this door! You think you can hide from me forever? You think my business is a charity case just because you have a small child in there? Open this door or I will call the police!"

"Lalin, we are going to visit your aunt," she said with a smile, wiping the tears from her chubby cheeks. "Can you promise me that you won't cry?"

Lalin met her mother's eyes and saw the desperation in them. She nodded and gave her her Snoopy ponytail. "Tie, tie," she said, tugging her unruly hair.

Her mother laughed, kissing her cheeks, one after the other before she tied her hair into a bun.

"Ready," she asked once she was done.

She held onto her mother's hand and nodded. They walked slowly to the door where a commotion was already happening.

"Finally! I thought you already died there!"

"Good evening, Mrs. Chui."

Lalin looked at the old woman whom her mother greeted politely. She looked angry. She didn't know if it was because she was angry that it made her look like a balloon with too much air.

The angry woman pushed the door so forcefully that it shook on its hinges. Lalin's mother hid her in her legs. She was short and at eye level, she saw her mother slowly pushing the duffel bag outside the door while the angry Mrs. Chui walked inside their small apartment, checking everything they own in that small room.

"You! Get out!"

Mrs. Chui strode to where they were standing, her fingers that looked like Chinese sausage pointing at her mother's face.

Lalin felt her legs leave the ground, her mother picked her up and held her close in the safety of her arms.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Chui. I only ask to leave in the morning—"

"No! You leave now! I gave you so many chances but you don't pay! I need money. You are not the only one who has a mouth to feed. Leave!" She pushed her mother and slammed the door in their faces.

Lalin felt her mother's warm hand rubbing her back. "We will have a bigger house soon, Lalin. One with big windows," she whispered in her hair.

She snaked her arms around her mother's neck and buried her face in her neck as her mother bent down to pick up the duffel bag that she successfully got outside the house, away from the angry eyes of Mrs. Chui.

"Mama, I have big windows now, you see?" She whispered, watching her reflection in the glass window of the hotel.

She heaved a deep sigh and stretched her legs in front of her. She had been hugging her legs for a long time, they were now cramping.

"Mama, I'm going to live in a house with big windows. I promised. Please, don't worry about me. Tell Auntie that I'm sorry for not listening to her words most of the time. I heard all of them, I just didn't want to do what she was telling me," she said, sniffing and wiping her snot.

"Mama, Auntie, thank you for everything. Thank you for trying your best to give me a good life. Don't think that you failed in doing so. You just left too soon, you didn't wait for it to happen. But, I hope you keep on watching because I promise to make them happen for us."

Lalin felt a new hope after uttering her promise to her mother and her aunt.