Chapter 16

A stark white room, filled with memories of the past: two dark shapes, holding hands and smiling at the camera as the picture is taken, a bookshelf with blurred headings- Nietzsche, Kafka and Freud, A dress rack, now empty, holding her clothes. The light in the room is shining bright, yellow, but the room reflects white in the spectrum. A single hospital bed stands in one side of the room, unoccupied. This room shows signs of a prolonged stay, but there is no one. I see it in my minds eyes, or perhaps my own, as a corpse is placed on the bed. But in reality, the bed is empty, I can see that. I know that Grace is dead, she has been dead for a year. But I still see it as people in white uniforms and masks reach down and takes her away, her eyes popping out of their socket and falling down under the bed.

I am screaming, I know now that I am dreaming, but I can't open my eyes. I try to make a sound, and for a while there is nothing. And then I feel my consciousness coming back, and I try to scream harder, my eyes closed, but only manage a feeble grunt. But there she is, sitting on the armchair, staring into the distance, knowing that this might happen, and she runs to me and shakes me as I keep grunting with my eyes closed.

"Azalea. Wake up. Wake up, daughter."

I feel like I'm still in the dream, but I can open my eyes. I keep them closed, though. And she sits near me and try to comfort me.

When I finally wake up, I keep hold of my pillow and cry for half an hour with my face in it. Mother has tears in her eyes, too, but she says nothing. She doesn't dream of Grace ever, it is only I who gets to see her on alternate nights. She just make sure she's near enough to know when I'm screaming in my sleep. I would have preferred father to be the one to hold me- mother just doesn't seem the type- but since he has spoken a bare minimum ever since that fateful day, I cannot hope for another word of comfort from the man. He is now permanently behind his glasses, staring at a distance, immobile in his chair.

I remember bits and portions, faces and arms, words and shrieks, and mostly a continuous wail running for two weeks. I don't understand how mother didn't lose her voice in the two weeks that followed Grace's death. Father went silent after awhile, but mother, I sure thought would die, or lose her voice in the least. I remember being worried about her, but here she is, trying to comfort me in my sleep every night, trying to get father into talking, or just making us all a nice, warm delicacy once in a while to lift us up from the misery that we've fallen into.

I remember Sayani and Kaitlyn rushing to hug me as I sit there, my eyes swollen and head aching like it would burst. Sayani has called a few days back, telling me that she wanted my custody for the remaining time I have before I become legally adult. I refused. I also refused her invitation to stay at her house whenever she asked me to, and Kaitlyn is confused and hurt by these. I told her I'm busy. She's young, and she has more worries on her head. She won't get time to worry about me.

Melissa had come, silent tears on her face. She had liked Grace, admired her. She came down with Shahbad, who stood at the door with his head held down. We acknowledged each other just by a nod. They left soon, which was a relief.

The year that passed has been a blur, and whenever I see her, the women who hated me holding my hand as I fight through my nightmares, I feel like I'm still in a dream. And though I spent my life waiting for this miracle to happen, it came at a price of bringing my whole world down.