Page 25 of Pillow Talk (Rally Romance #1)

F our days later, Shona checked on social media to see if the Rally Women in Business forum had a meeting that day. They didn’t. Today, then, was the day for a very different kind of meeting.

She slipped on her flat sandals and picked up her handbag. It was another scorching day so she wore a cool, cotton, sleeveless top and a short denim skirt.

She’d have to take a taxi to her parents’ house, where she figured her mother would be.

On the way there she thought of various ways she could broach the subject of their silence.

But every opening line sounded silly. When the taxi pulled up at the house, Shona still didn’t know what she was going to say.

She put one foot in front of the other and made her way to the door.

This would be the first time that she’d actually be ringing the doorbell of her family home.

Once upon a time this was her home, but today she felt like a stranger.

She pressed the bell again and waited. She heard her mother’s familiar footsteps before she opened the door.

‘Shona,’ she whispered.

‘Hi Mom.’

Her mother looked her up and down.

‘Are you okay?’

Shona nodded.

‘Come in. Don’t just stand there,’ her mother said.

The cool air in the air-conditioned home was a welcome relief; her heightened anxiety had made the heat unbearable as she waited on the doorstep. She followed her mother into the living room, where her mom sat down and waited for her to sit.

‘What’s happened? Is something wrong?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Of course something is wrong. I haven’t seen you in close to three months.’

‘But you’ve started your business? It’s doing well?’

Shona nodded.

‘But I’m here about us. Our family. Me,’ she said.

Her mother looked away.

‘Why haven’t you contacted me, Mom? You just wrote me off?’

Her mother quickly turned back to her.

‘No! Never! You’re my child. How can I write you off?’

Shona tried to keep the tears at bay.

‘But you didn’t call or come to see me,’ she said.

‘You’ll have to ask your father about that,’ her mother replied.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

Finally, her mother spoke.

‘Shona, come to the kitchen. I’ll make tea and we’ll talk.’

Shona nodded and followed.

She sat at the kitchen table while her mother put the kettle on and started to make her a chicken roti roll.

‘You’re far too thin. Is that Senthil taking you to fancy restaurants where the meals are finger snacks?’

That caught her off guard.

‘Senthil? Why would he be taking me out?’

Her mother clicked her tongue and gave her a knowing look.

‘Eat,’ she said placing the plate in front of her. She then started brewing the tea.

Shona took the first bite and wanted to cry. She missed her mother’s cooking.

‘Aruna told me about the conversation you had with her, so I understand your side. I know what you went through and I know how it feels,’ her mother said.

Shona looked up from her plate. ‘How would you know?’

Her mother put a cup of tea in front of her on the table, sat down opposite and drank from her own cup. After the first sip, she started talking.

‘Because I went through the same thing,’ she said.

Shona was about to ask for more information but her mother continued. ‘I felt trapped by that awful shop, and I still do.’

Shona put down her roti roll. ‘Then why didn’t you say something?’

‘Because I couldn’t,’ her mother replied, sounding defeated. She wiped away a tear.

‘Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ said Shona apologetically.

Her mother shook her head. ‘You didn’t. Now would you just keep quiet so I can tell you the story! And no interruptions.’

Shona smiled and nodded.

‘I fell in love with your dad during the summer when I turned 17. I was visiting my aunt, who wasn’t married and didn’t have children of her own.

We made big plans. We would get married and move away to my hometown where I would work as a hairdresser.

Your father had applied to college and was accepted to study to become a teacher.

He knew he would easily find a job in my hometown once he finished college because it was bigger than Rally.

The plan was never for us to live in Rally,’ she said.

Shona’s jaw was on the ground. Her father wanted to be a teacher!

‘I never knew your grandfather; he’d died the year before I met your dad. But I knew your grandmother. She was shrewd. Unnecessarily cruel and, in a way, very pleased that your father and I planned to move away once we got married,’ she explained.

Shona was about to ask a question, but her mother shook her head.

‘No interruptions. Dad left to go to college and I studied at beauty school. The plan remained in place. As soon as Dad graduated, we got married. My father had several properties in my hometown, so he gave us one to live in. We were married for about three months when everything changed.’

Her mother looked out the window. She blinked away tears and then turned back to Shona.

‘Laksh died. He was five years older than your father. A fit, healthy man, but his heart just stopped one morning. Your dad rushed back here. Your grandmother was devastated; Laksh was her life. The shop was his – the plan was always for him to inherit it and run it. He was the oldest son. Dad was like the spare, and he was the heir. The day after Laksh’s funeral, I made your father promise me that we would go back home in a couple of days. He promised and I believed him.’

Her mother wiped away tears with the back of her hand.

‘But he broke his promise. His mother guilted him into running the shop. One day when he got an order wrong, she said it should have been him who’d died instead of Laksh.

I told her off, but Dad didn’t back me up.

He never stood up for himself. It started to feel like it was me against them.

Dad just never said anything. I stuck it out for a few years and then my father died.

I went back home for the funeral. I planned not to return, but I found out I was pregnant.

My brother said he would support me, but that was no life for a married woman and a child. So I came back here,’ she said.

Shona wiped away her own tears. Sitting at this table, she could imagine her mother as a young woman filled with dreams and hopes.

‘Your father was so excited when he found out I was pregnant. We were still living with his mother, who continued to make my every day a living hell. You were born and she was appalled that you were a girl – a girl wouldn’t suit Shah her parents had almost split up because of her grandmother…

By the time she reached her apartment building it was just after 5pm. She took the lift because her legs felt like lead.

Once inside, she quickly undressed and stood under the shower. She began to weep. She cried for the pain her mother and father had experienced. She cried for her sister’s lost dream of becoming a professional dancer. She cried until she had no more tears.

She turned off the shower, dried herself, put on her favourite PJs and curled up in bed.

Rain hammered the pavement and lightning split the sky as Shona hurried into her apartment building. Afternoon thunderstorms were common in Rally during summer but this was the first of the season.

Her clothes were soaked through even though she’d almost made it back from the courier company when the heavens opened. As soon as she got inside, she kicked off her rubber sandals and struggled out of her soggy clothes while running to the bathroom.