AAM

by Kavya Patel

Warm, gentle, cracked, brown hands lay me on a bed of dry dirt. You’ll never grow, you’ll never go anywhere. The ground beneath me unearthed. The dirt concaved over me, and I felt myself still. Shhh, don’t listen to them. You’ve already done so much. You’ve created life. I felt the cold settling of water sinking into the surrounding dirt, into me. I shivered and felt sated. I could feel my roots and leaves budding, taking in this meager landscape and making it my home.

The warm, gentle, cracked, brown hands came every day. They sat next to me, whispered about a home far, far away, one they could never return to. They sang me songs of a life unfulfilled, full of regret. They sang songs of hope, for all that their children would one day do, but especially for their daughters. Because it was the daughters for whom the hands were most scared. The daughters at whom the hands were most mad. The daughters for whom the hands dreamt the most. They sang and sang because that was all they could do.

The warm, gentle, cracked brown hands were born in a small village about 100 miles south of here. But they say that their life really started 15 years ago when they married a charming young man. He promised the hands the world: a life of stability, children, a family. But the hands had lived enough life to know that the good could never come without the bad. So they endured the nasty mother-inlaw, creeping father-in-law, and a not so stable stability. The children came fast, three daughters, until the mother-in-law said enough is enough. The daughters kept coming but they were never given the permission of life. Until the one fetus, the final fetus, the only fetus that really, truly ever mattered was finally, finally conceived. His cry was the hands’ first moment of relief.

The little ones spent their days running around, kicking up dirt through the

courtyard. Slow down, the warm, gentle, cracked brown hands would say. If anything, the little ones sped up. They made the hands so, so proud. They sped through the home, coming in, going out, footsteps growing heavier and heavier as time passed. Until one day, they stopped coming back. Go out and plant your own trees. It went back to just the warm, gentle, cracked brown hands and I.

And then, the warm, gentle, cracked, brown hands stopped coming. Everything felt so dry. I was left parched for days, hearing the soft murmurings of a crowd mourning the warm, gentle, cracked, brown hands, just as I did. And then: cool, cautious, hardened, brown hands. Mumma, I miss you.

The cool, cautious, hardened, brown hands came every other day, busy with the children and husband they said. It was hard, remembering to water me amongst the cooking, and laundry, and cleaning, and schooling, and praying, and I just- I’m so tired, the cool, cautious, hardened, brown hands said. Mumma raised me to run, but I feel like I’ve been crawling. What is this? Curious, little, brown hands came with the cool, cautious, hardened brown hands and without. The days without were a little rough on me, but I endured, for the sweet tinkling of their laugh, for the funny recitations of the happenings of a kindergarten classroom, for the long-winded statements. I will be an astronaut president who writes books and draws and saves animals. Okay, little one, I believe you. Because we want to.