By Afifah Adi
Notes: The story is based on the Thailand series, Analog Squad (episode 5). Major spoilers ahead!
“Also, I’m not your real daughter-in-law,” Lilly said in a whisper, the revelation sitting heavy in the air. “I would love to be one but your son didn’t want me,” she chuckled in an attempt to cover the hollow feeling growing inside her. If only she knew she could have had this person, had this amazing mother in her life, she would have held onto Pond a little tighter back then.
For things that hadn’t worked her way, Lilly had always faulted it to life being unfair. There was her mom dying, her relationship ended in vain and she was currently pushing 40 with no one to call family. And the next thing she knew, she was diagnosed with cancer. But it hadn’t affected her then, back when the news broke to her in the confines of a sickly-looking doctor’s office. She regarded it with a careless manner, devoid of any emotion except giving way for a tiny smile to form for the small pet game in her hands.
It’s only death, she had thought. Everyone died at some point in life and she just happened to encounter it soon in the hand of cancer. It wasn’t the worst thing to happen in the history of humanity where far more people passed away rather unceremoniously, unsuspecting just like Sodsai here.
And Lilly didn’t know which was the better option—whether one needed to know or not to know, to be warned or to be unaware. If it was better to be wrapped in a false sense of assurance that life could be forever.
Lilly supposed she was grouped among the minorities where life stopped looking beautiful to them, just like how she stopped caring if the weather would be sunny all day. Although it was still fun to clock in to work and to scold and laugh along with her colleagues, the fun could only last long when the routine ended every time she came back to her house plunging into darkness.
She didn’t know what to do with the money she earned but Lilly wasn’t on the level of rich to be subscribing to the notion that money couldn’t buy happiness. She wasn’t so out of touch to not know and not foresee who she could have been if she didn’t work her ass off to be where she was right now.
But right now, she found herself questioning did all matter that much when the one person who understood her had gone. It would have been so easy to not weep after all she had gone through, after all the things that didn’t work out her way. It would have been so easy to just carve a smile and not succumb to this emotion called sorrow had it not been for the fact that Sodsai, her fake mother-in-law, hadn’t touched her heart so softly, so tenderly like this.
It happened so fast. She hadn't even stopped to think that she would outlive Sodsai, even going as far as entertaining the idea that she would have at least the old woman to cry beside her deathbed. They had been drinking and laughing just a few nights ago, and now Lilly could only pour the drink for them and watch the other one remain untouched as she emptied hers.
There was a new year they both were looking forward to, approaching fast like the cancer spreading in her body. Yet for the first time in the past 15 years of her life, Lilly found herself wishing that it would slow down to a stuttering halt. Found herself wishing that it could allow her to think about the kind of plans she could make, to say the secrets she hadn’t dared reveal and the lies she hadn’t dared confess.
A million scenarios were running through her scrambled mess of a mind of how Sodsai’s reaction would be if Lilly had told the truth to her. And the recurrent ones that stuck to her was a face of acceptance and perhaps a warm hug would follow after.
But she couldn’t know if that would be the case, could she now? And yet, there was an overwhelming sense of desire for her to believe so strongly that the mother wouldn’t be as mad at her as she rightly should be.
So Lilly let a tear or two slip past the wall of her eyes and spill the truth beside the wooden shelter where Sodsai lay within. She told her that life started to look beautiful and it could have been livelier if Sodsai was still around. That Lilly loved her as a mother and promised her that she would worry more and fuss over things, that she would weep in the presence of others. She would live to fight for a life that could be forever, live to dream that she would still be around once she reached Sodsai’s gentle age.
“Happy new year, mother," Lilly muttered. A bitter smile formed on her face and she clinked her glass to the untouched one belonging to Sodsai. Downing the whole glass, she got up from her position and left the coffin, bringing along the memories and promises she made to her.
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