Raindrop [✅]

Part 2

I woke up to the sound of my parents' quarrelling. I thought of it as my wake up alarm because the quarrelling goes on every single day. I popped up on one elbow and looked to the outside of the room through the slightly opened door. My mom was pointing her finger at my dad's face, and she kept on shouting. My dad, on the other hand, did not forfeit. He shouted back. I had a feeling like they were competing in a high note singing competition.

Tired of their screaming, I put my other palm on the mat and pushed myself up to a sitting position. I stared at my cute baby brother. A dark-skinned infant sleeping peacefully with an old rug wrapping around him. He took after my parents in almost every way, skin, eyes, nose and lips. It seemed I was the only one with fair-skinned in the family. I had no idea who I took after but my mom told me that my grandmother was originally someone from the city. She fell in love with my grandfather when they bumped into each other at Bokor Resort. So, I assumed I took after my grandmother's complexion.

With just six-month old, my little brother is so small and delicate. But with lack of nutrients, we were all small and emaciated even for our ages. Still, I had always been thinking that he was the cutest baby in the world.

I got up and went to pick up a metal basin full of water from the edge of the window at the kitchen, and splashed my face with its container with my head leaning outside of the window. We used dew to wash our face in the morning because we needed to be conservative with water as much as we could. Then, I bent down to pick a Dutch over out from under my kitchen counter and cleaned it with a towel nearby. I had to make porridge for breakfast, and to do so, I needed to get the water from the big jar downstairs. Still, I did not want to go out while my parents were about to kill each other; so I tiptoed to the door and listened. The sound did not subside, and my mom kept on sniveling until she lost her voice. I stared at the clock. It is 7:00 in the morning. I could not hesitate anymore or else my dad would be more furious if the breakfast came late.

I inhaled deeply, caught a door knob with my quivering hand and stepped outside. My dad was the one who caught the sight of me first because he was standing in the opposite direction while mom was giving her back to me. He stopped shouting and looked at me with his scary eyes that I could feel my knees buckled. I ran quickly down the stairs and started my morning chores. I was pouring the water into the Dutch over to wash the milled rice when, unsurprisingly, the fight continued. But what really caught my attention was the mention of my name.

"Why do you have to pick a fight with me every day? Why don't you just find a resolution?" my dad said.

"A solution? What is it then? If I had known it, I wouldn't have let us suffered this much" my mom replied angrily.

"You know very well what the solution is. Why don't you just sell Sonita's ring? I think it worth hundreds of dollars. We may at least be able to fight the starvation in our family for months." calmly said by my dad.

"No. No matter what happens, I will not sell this ring. Besides, you will just use the money to buy that stupid alcohol and get yourself drunk rather than spend the money wisely on the family's matters. So, no selling anymore. Period." my mom finalized the fight.

I dropped my attention from their fight back to my chores. I was making a fire out of broken branches when I saw two big feet descending from the stairs. I did not have to peer to notice whose they belong to; it was clearly my dad's. I immediately adverted my eyes from the stairs and continued igniting the sparks from the wood. Even though I did not look at my father's direction, I knew he was glaring at me. Lucky for me, he just walked away without coughing a word. I had no idea why my dad hated me so much. I had done many things I could in order to please him yet it never satisfied him. I sighed and busied myself with the porridge. After it was done, I put them into two bowls, and carried them upstairs to my mother and little brother along with the soy source.