Roxy: Chapter III

After the funeral, Kaya sat down across from her mother, holding her hand, both having difficulty to look at each other in the eye. If they were to share a glimpse, the mirroring sorrow multiplying in an endless loop potentially felt too grand to fit into the frame of a single soul.

Kaya’s mother broke the silence.

“He’s never known love.”

“Why did you get married if you think he’s never loved you?”

Her mother replied with a soft smile attempting to form through her lips, not quite reaching the corners of her mouth.

“It seems, so you could be.”

“Were you pregnant with me when you got married? Is that why you got married?”

The smile that failed to reach the corners of her mouth appeared in a flicker in her eyes when she replied.

“No.”

In that moment, their facial expressions resembled an aggressively practiced seesaw of contrasting emotions, that painted an abstract twitch, a caricatured seizure.

Kaya finally understood what her mother meant, not quite through her wording but through the magnified warmth that illuminated the room when she confronted the short-lived light in her eyes. It was a brave and a hasteful moment for the both of them.