Respectfully yours, said the curator, and left the stone, alone and waiting…

An unpolished piece written at an airport. Would have liked to work on it more, but decided to leave it as spontaneous as it was. Any resemblance to anything in reality is coincidental...

She adjusted the fabric over her forehead, carefully looking into the mirror. She didn’t mind it anymore…he had said he liked how her brown eyes blazed through out of the black when she wore it. So she didn’t mind as much as she used to in her university days. They had only been married a month, and of that the two had only spent a few days and nights together. The family was moving the business south, you see, and he was busy with work. And she too was caught up in it all... helping her sisters-in-law pack, tossing out old carpets, taking the paintings out of their frames and wrapping them up….

People had said that this was a good family, they didn’t share like some others did. She had accepted the proposition and now was very excited. She had never been south and looked forward to setting up house, to raising the children that were bound to come, and sending them to study abroad like her aunts had done with theirs. She was excited, for sure, and her excitement manifested itself as frenzied activity. She packed all through the day and then helped cook a large meal at evening. She even put her freshly loved nieces and nephews to bed each night. And sometimes when she fell asleep beside the youngest baby, she felt as though the well that held her excitement hidden through the day would have risen to the earth before the night ended.

Her older sister had said that being married was wonderful, more so than sitting in the back of humid classrooms swatting flies to dull out the drone of the professor, especially if you married to a good family. And she had done just that, she thought, and smiled into the mirror. She felt open; her senses were expectant of all the happiness that was to be hers. There she was, prepared to be happy, eagerly anticipating, ready and waiting, like she never had been before.

The train ride south was long, but uneventful. One of the boxes got misplaced and had to be searched out.... He had given her a special name during a few stolen moments on an unnamed platform stop....They were to stay in an unused wing of an uncle’s house while their own was being painted. All six adults and six children in two rooms made for cramped quarters, but it was only for a few days, so they adjusted.

The very next day the men went to open their new office, while her sisters-in-law decided to take the children out to keep them from running over themselves in the house. She offered to stay back and do some dusting.

In the midst of all her cleaning, she also made tea for her second brother-in-law who had come home early and tired. She arranged the biscuits neatly on the tray like she had seen her sister-in-law do the week before. Both sisters-in-law freely shared their cooking skills with her. They had even begun to give her tips on starting a pregnancy. She was thankful for all their help, but had not anticipated she would need it so soon. The tea, on the other hand, lay untouched and grew cold.

The painting took longer than expected, but three weeks later their house was ready and they moved in. The very next day the new family doctor told her she was carrying child. Everyone laughed and good-naturedly made fun of her that evening for her ‘quick work’, as they called it. Her sister-in-law made special lamb for dinner.

But…how could she tell? And…maybe she needn’t tell, maybe they already knew. Maybe they deliberately didn’t quell the talk that said they didn’t share. Yes, that was how it was, she thought as she fell asleep that night. They knew already.