To: mijanur.rahman1243@yahoo.com
Subject: hi
okay so i know this goes nowhere. i know. the account is probably dead or it isn't dead which is worse. it's just sitting there with 14000 unread and mine goes in with the loan offers and the discount codes and the ones that say your package is waiting, like my grief is a promotional offer, like it will sit in a folder called junk which is, honestly, the most accurate folder anyone has ever named anything, and nobody will ever open it because the person who had the password is the person i am writing to, and i knew all that before i opened this and i opened it anyway at 1am on a tuesday so draw your own conclusions about me.
i gave you the raincoat.
that's it. that's the email. i stop here every time.
i gave you the raincoat because i wanted the umbrella. it was red and it was pretty and it had some cartoon on it that i can't even name now, that's how much it mattered, and the only thing that mattered was that it was MINE, nana, it was mine and i wanted to carry it, the way a child wants something, which is not really wanting, it's closer to needing, there's no gap in it to put a reason into. and ma put the raincoat in your hands and said put it on her and you looked at me — and i said no. you said nothing! you just put it on, the transparent polythene one, the coral pink one you could see straight through, and you walked me home in it, a grown man in a child's rain cover, and i have thought about how you must have looked maybe four hundred times and i still cannot let myself see it properly, my brain goes blurry at the edges like it's protecting me, and i don't want to be protected, i want to see it, i want to see exactly how stupid you looked carrying my dignity for me.
and then i FELL. i fell. in the mud, in the brown water that looks two inches deep and is not, i sat down in it like a dropped bag and my socks filled up and i cried, not because it hurt, i need you to know it did not hurt, i cried because i was embarrassed and because the water was cold and because i already knew who i was going to blame
and i blamed you.
i went home and i told ma i fell and i let her fill in the rest and she filled it in the way i wanted her to, she yelled at you, her own father, in the living room, in front of me, and i stood there in my brown uniform with mud going up my spine like a ladder and i did not say one word. one word. "i gave him the raincoat." nine syllables. five seconds. i had them. i didn't spend them. and you didn't say it either, that's the part i can't get past, you had the whole truth in your mouth and you swallowed it to keep me clean, you let her think you were careless with me when you have never been careless with me once, not one time, not ever, and you just stood there with your head bowed and took it, your head was BOWED, nana, you bowed your head for something i did, and then it was over and i went and changed my clothes.
why did i do that. why did i do that. i've been asking for five years and the answer is just "you were nine" and that answer is true and it does NOTHING, it does nothing, it's like being handed a receipt for something you can't return
sorry. i'm sorry. i don't know who i'm apologising to, you can't read this, this is going to junk
the lychees. you peeled them with your thumbnail so my hands wouldn't get sticky. you bought six dal puri and ate one so i wouldn't be eating alone and i only worked that out this year, i worked that out at SIXTEEN, i was eating next to a man's kindness for years and i thought it was just how puri came. the salted chips in the silver packet that cut the roof of my mouth. the clemon sweating in the glass. the sticker sheets for absolutely no reason, no birthday, no result, no nothing, just a man handing a child stickers. pencils. colour pencils. the cloth doll that one birthday with the stitched eyes and the soft body, and i was so happy with it, that's the thing, i was happy, i loved it and i loved you, i was never once ungrateful, i knew exactly what i had, and that is precisely what i cannot explain, because how do you love someone that much and take that much from their hands and still never once say sorry. how did i do that. i had years. he was right there for years. and i never said it, not because i didn't feel it, i felt it the whole time, i just kept not saying it, like it was a thing i could do later, like he was a permanent arrangement
and then 2021. the front room. the katha laid over your body, the one sewn out of squares of other cloth, the one that was made out of scraps — nanu's old salwars, frayed pillow covers, old blankets — everything that was left over, and i noticed it and i still see those squares when i close my eyes.
and i cried. i cried so hard. i sat down at your feet and i cried like something was being pulled out of me, baba had to come and hold me and talk me down and i couldn't stop, because it had just arrived, the whole thing had just arrived at once, that it was FOREVER, that there was no later anymore, that every sorry i was saving had just become permanently unspendable, and that i never told you i loved you, i never said the sentence, i thought it constantly and i never once said it out loud to your face and now the face was under a quilt
your feet.
i was AT your feet. i was sitting right there at them. and even then i didn't take them in my hands.
they were cracked at the heel. white lines in them like dried earth, from sandals, from hot roads, from walking to my school and back twice a day for years for a child who wanted to hold her own red umbrella. we do that in this family, we hold each other's feet, it costs nothing, and i had sixteen hundred chances and i used zero of them, and the one time i finally sat down at your feet you couldn't feel it
i can't fix it. that's- that's the whole thing. there's no version where i get to go back and hand you the raincoat and take the yelling and press my thumbs into your heels and say sorry and say the other thing, the i love you nana, the four words i was sitting on like an egg. the guilt isn't a visitor anymore, it moved in, it pays no rent...
i carry an umbrella with me whenever i go outside (and a book, i love books nana, i know you would love to hear me speak of them). i always lend it to others, friends, strangers at gates, my sisters, before i've even decided to. i used to think that was kindness and it isn't. i am so spontaneous now nana. i hardly think before i speak, the words cascade over my lips and pool at my feet and i think i have learned this because i will never get a second chance. because
i hope you're cool under there. i hope there is soft grass cushioning your feet.
thank you for being the best nana in the world.
ok. sending it. to junk. whatever. i love you, i love you, i'm so sorry, i miss you so much it hits me at 3am and leaves me with hot, swollen eyes.
your zaara-moni
Glossary
nana — maternal grandfather, the mother's father
nanu — maternal grandmother
ma — mother
baba — father
katha — a quilt stitched at home from layers of worn-out cloth and scraps
salwar — loose trousers worn under a long tunic
dal puri — a small flatbread stuffed with spiced lentils and fried
Clemon — a Bangladeshi lemon soft drink
-moni — a suffix of endearment attached to a name; moni means gem
