Wave

by Sonali Deraniyagala

But here in my home, I will be destroyed by getting too close to the life I lost.

So I am evasive in order to spare myself.

I can see us now, on the day he was born. What bliss. Malli asleep on me. Vik, who was quickly bored by his brother, clambering precariously onto the handrail of my bed to look at a crane hoisting some steel rods outside the hospital. Steve too elated to worry the boy might fall. A Voltaren suppository nicely numbing the pain of my cut. I think of that day now, and I cannot reconcile it with the impossible horror of how they were severed from me in an instant.

How hideous, that there should be a pecking order in my grief.

Maybe the majesty of these creatures loosens my heart so I can hold it whole.

I suspect that I can only stay steady as I traverse this world that’s empty of my family when I admit the reality of them, and me.

For I am without them, as much as I am on my own.