Chapter 4: Aftermath and Escape

I used every rupee from my part-time jobs to send my mother to a clinic. I sold my only gold earring, pawned Nani’s watch, borrowed from the canteen lady. Each kindness became medicine.

We couldn’t afford a private hospital. The government clinic stank of Dettol and despair. People waited on plastic chairs, clutching forms and prayers. I sat for hours with my mother’s battered head in my lap, smoothing her tangled hair.

The doctor, a thin man with thick glasses, blinked at my mother’s bloodied face. Even the nurse gasped as she peeled back the bandages.

“This is… disfigured.”

He said it softly, as if afraid to offend fate. My mother’s swollen cheek and split lip looked even worse in the harsh light.

Her leg was broken, too. The X-ray was a mess. The doctor mumbled to the nurse in a dialect I didn’t know. I clutched the prescription slip like a lifeline.

From then on, she was bedridden. I fed her, cleaned her wounds, helped her pee in a bucket behind a faded curtain. My pride shrank until it was as small as a mustard seed.

“Better get her to a big hospital,” the doctor said, not meeting my eyes. “Beta, yeh kaafi nahi hai. Do you have family here?” I shook my head.

I bought painkillers and antibiotics. Whether she lived or died was up to fate.

With each note I handed over, my hopes faded. My mother stared at the ceiling, eyes glassy, already gone somewhere I couldn’t reach. I tucked the medicine under her pillow and waited for the next blow.