All This Could Be Different

by Sarah Thankam Mathews

When my relationship ended, things had turned tense back home. Papa entreating me to consider at least meeting some nice boys, some NRIs they could connect me with. A lavender marriage if nothing else. Madi, my mother had said to him with an awful finality. Madi, it will not happen the way we had hoped. Mollé, she said to me over grainy video, we do not know what to do with all this. But we can tell you this: We do not want you to end up alone, end up by yourself. We would like to see you settled, in some way, before we die. We want you to have somebody who will take care of you, okay? Because we all are brought to our knees at some point in this life. The idea that no one will be there for you when that happens—my heart cannot take that. We want you to have family, to have somebody. This is what I think of, staring at dark soil and egg carton, seeds pale as maggots within.