Member-only story
Three Years of Solitude
He is three.
My eyes are reflected in his. People say he has my face, and I wonder if I still have one left.
He is three.
I taught him how to count and how to walk. He taught me how to smile.
Every day, we leave the house before sunset. We turn right and walk within our two-kilometre radius. We read the houses numbers out loud, and we run, and we laugh like there is nothing wrong with this world. We return home knowing that the next day we can go left.
He is three.
I order a new toy for him to replace the closed playground. A book to replace the storytime at the library where we spent our Fridays. A new t-shirt that he will probably grow out of it before anyone gets to tell him how cute he looks in it. I order anything for him just to enjoy a guilty pleasure when the postman rings the intercom announcing a delivery, and I will pretend, for the few seconds before I answer, that a guest is visiting.
My mother’s face appears on my phone’s screen. His smile stretches, “Teteee!” he calls for his grandmother. She smiles, and her eyes are full of unleashed tears.
“If only I can hug you, my dear. If only.”
He asks for his grandfather, and the camera is moving around my childhood house until it stops at a bed with an old man lying in it.
“Jedddo!” He screams in joy.
He doesn’t know Jeddo is sick and can’t move and can’t remember him, but he blows kisses anyway while counting to ten before he gets distracted by the sound of the TV. He forgets about the imaginary creatures living on my phone as soon as I end the call, but I don’t.
He is three, and he never got hugged by them.
They never had his tiny hands wrapped around their necks.
They never saw him before he had teeth; before he had hair.
They never had a piece of his first or second or third birthday cake.
He is three.
We leave the house before sunset. This time, we go left.
He sees our friendly neighbour smiling back at him. He points and shouts, “Khalooo!”
