His Favorite Window

“Si, it is time to sleep.” Si’s Mom nudged her for the third time. It was five minutes to 9 pm, but Siyona didn’t seem sleepy that night.

“I have some work to do.” She replied nervously, trying to hide something from her mother.

“Is it office-related?” Mom asked suspiciously, even though she was not supposed to ask a 23-year-old daughter about her life.

“It is personal,” Si replied shortly, realizing that her mother was being too nosy day by day. Was it because she had no other children, or had loads of expectations and responsibilities towards Siyona?

“Okay.” Mother said without expressing her irritation towards Si’s messy behavior.

“Can I ask you something?” Mom asked, and Si broke into a silly laugh. “You didn’t ask the first time, Mom. And now, it is too-formal formality!”

Mother smiled wanly and replied, “Can’t help being a mother of the only child, dear.!” Si could notice the heaviness in her mother’s voice, but she didn’t wish to break down at that moment.

“You have another child. He is alive, Mom.” Si replied emotionlessly.

“In another world,” Mom didn’t try to look into Si’s eyes while saying this. Instead, she picked up a cushion and pretended to make it fluffy like she always did when she felt sad and nostalgic about her elder son.

“What were you going to ask me, Mom?” Si tried to change the topic and get back to the question, though she prayed Mom didn’t ask her about personal stuff or her dating life.

“I have often seen you sitting by that window. It was your brother’s favorite window. Why do you do that, Si?” Mom asked without blinking her eyes.

“Do you mind if I ….”

“No, no. You are free to sit anywhere in this house, dear. It is your house too. But that window. You never liked that window when you were a child. You called it the dark place as you couldn’t see anything outside. But since your brother disappeared…” Mom sobbed for a few seconds and added firmly, “You have liked that window since your brother died.”

“He didn’t die, Mom.” Si screeched. “He left us.”

“Without a letter, without a note. And without any physical body. It is certainly called dying.”

“Mom, will you please try to understand?” Si begged her, but it sounded more like anger. “Ray has not died. He is alive. He is there, somewhere where we cannot go, and he cannot return.”

“Enough of your fantasy world, Si.” She held her hand to Si and intended to stop the conversation.

It was not the first time that they had this type of conversation. They had arguments, wailing, conflicts, and even banging furniture items whenever they talked about Ray’s disappearance or death, whatever it was.

“I think you like that. First, your brother disappeared, and now, you not scared of that window. You’re all being merry and happy sitting by the window still waiting for some kind of magical being to deliver you a pizza.” He Mom stomped her foot and waited for Si to argue further.

“That was a good one. I liked the pizza part.” Si replied with a broad, sarcastic smile, wishing she never started the conversation on the heated topic.

“Have fun, Si. You seem to be happy since he left us forever.” Mother gritted her teeth, and it seemed that she didn’t want to stop the conflict anyway.

Si glanced at the watch and decided to keep quiet as she had an important task after ten minutes. Till then, she wanted her mother to halt the conversation completely and sleep in her bedroom.

“I can’t believe you all were happy even when we were upset for him. I have never seen you worried about him or feeling sad that he is not with you here. I thought you liked your older brother, but it seemed that you simply resented him….” Mother continued, and Si planned not to open her mouth, no matter how furious she was listening to her Mom’s non-existential talks.

“And your father, he doesn’t speak a word since the Police reported that they couldn’t find Andy. My husband is a poor man; he can’t express himself; he keeps all his emotions and feelings to himself for these many years. But look at you, all happy and glad sitting by the window most of the nights…”

And then, after a few minutes of blabbering, her Mother headed to the bedroom and shut the door with a loud bang as if the door was Siyona.

Si felt relieved that there was no one in the living room to intervene for the next few hours. Her father had been to another town for a couple of days. She raised the curtain and noticed that the mildew had spread like a bedsheet on the complete glass window.

“Wow,” She said to herself and waited for something to appear. If someone had seen her at that moment, they would think Si is waiting for her lover to appear at the window. But it was not a lover. Instead, she could see a few lines that emerged out of nowhere on the window surface. It looked as if someone was writing with their finger.

“How are you? How are Mom and Dad?” She read the message loudly.  

“We are doing well. Mom was upset again tonight. Dad is out of town.” She scribbled on the window mildew with her finger. It was painful after a while, ‘Thank god, the smartphone screens are better than this style of communication.’ She said to herself.

Andy used this type of communication to talk to people in Si’s normal world. It was called ‘talking through favorite things.’ And for Andy, that window, the ‘Three Musketeers’ book and the toy plane he had when he was four, all these were his favorite things.

The earlier message disappeared, and a new one seemed to occur, “Tell her I have not died. I live in another world, the one beyond the Forest wall.”

“She won’t understand, Andy.” Si wrote tiringly. It was not the act of writing on the window but the fact that Andy had not died and Mom was not ready to admit it.

“How’s it? How’s life?” Si wrote; she felt stupid as she had never visited Andy’s world before.

“It’s been great here. But I won’t return, Si. Convince her that this is my life and I can’t come back to your world. It is a rule.”

“I understand.” Si scratched gloomily, wishing she never knew about his true secret.

“You are angry with me? I can talk with you. I am alive, aren’t you happy about that?”

Si thought for a while and wrote, “When people die, we believe that they are happy in the other world and don’t feel bad all the time. But in your case, you have chosen to separate from us forever. And it really feels bad.”

Si had tears when she pressed the window for the last time with her finger. It was enough. He had to budge and return. She couldn’t continue with this once-in-a-six-month conversation with her loving brother. She never resented him; she loved him.

“I can’t return, Si. And I don’t want to return to your world. If you want to think I have died, you are free to believe in it. We get to talk like this,” his words seemed to appear with a solid message that he had no motive to return to his family.

“Bye. Take care, Andy.” She wrote her last message, shut down the curtain, and returned to her bedroom.

In the morning, when Si was in the kitchen setting the coffee machine, her mother entered from the garden and pursed her lips.

She rested on one of the kitchen stools and waited for Si to pass the coffee mug as usual.

“What if I told you that Andy has died, will never return, and I will never sit by the window again?” Si asked with moist eyes.

Her mother noticed the sadness in her daughter’s eyes and embraced her. “We will never talk about it, Si. Never, I promise. You are a wonderful daughter.”

For a second, Si felt that her mother knew everything that she had been hiding about her brother. She knew it very well.