To The Place I Belong

SYLVIA

The ‘whys’. That rings a bell in me. Hadn’t I been telling Jane the same thing? But certainly Ethan you can answer better than this. I want to know why and I won’t rest in peace if I don’t know your ‘why’.
He didn’t look at me but down at his pizza and said, “Perhaps someday, when I know it, I will be able to tell you.” And he stifled a meek laugh when I almost frowned in a jocular way.

All was going fine, and then this ball had to come in. I don’t know. Everything’s fine but I can’t picture a ball with me dancing in it. Surely I could make a good spectator but not a good participant. On top of all that, I was assigned a partner, Ethan. Of course there has to be a partner. How silly of me!
But what about the dress? Good Lord!
Okay I have a lot of energy and interest to be invested upon the term paper. Maybe I can think about it tomorrow.
Next week Saturday, was our fresher’s. Surely Myra and Isabel can help me out with the dress. But when I reached home and equipped Jane with the details of a Fresher’s being organised with a ball in it, she almost fainted with excitement.
She gasped and kept pestering me for what I would wear. A ball meant a nice long dress. No the problem with us girls doesn’t end there. We need to be equipped with a matching shoes and matching hair do. In short I would be butchered.
“Darling, what colour would suit you the most on such a day? Have you given a thought to it?”
“No, I haven’t the slightest little idea, Jane.”
“But I think royal blue would suit you perfectly or emerald green? What say?” she asked me with delight.
I rolled my eyes and said, “ Oh Jane, I don’t know. I have a whole week ahead of me to think about it. Why waste time?”
“No” she said thinking something else. “Oh no. No no no.” She was really serious this time and I could not help but wonder if she had done something wrong and whose effects were irrevocable so much so that she was repenting.
“What?” I asked taking her hands in mine in concern. “What’s up Jane?”
“How could I be so foolish! Jesus Christ! Red!”
I looked at her really perplexed.
“What?”
“Red is the colour that suits you like a princess. Absolute Princess!” she said with jolly glittering eyes and for a split second I thought she would almost cry. “Just imagine how happy your mother would have been today and your sister-”
I hugged her immediately from saying any further. I stroked her back saying “Oh Jane I haven’t got a marriage proposal. It’s just a petty Fresher’s, Jane.”
“So what!” she shrugged me off . “You must not rob Ethan of the prospect of being to a ball with a girl in red dress. No I won’t let it happen. So when you go out for shopping with your girls make sure you have bought something in red or you don’t get to set your foot in this house.”
“What?” I said in disbelief. “I don’t believe you Jane!”

Jane had her motives set and she would not let me falter. She kept on bantering about it the entire day, occasionally asking about this and that, about Ben and George, about my shoes and hair do. So when it wasn’t going to be over I knew I had to castigate her. Nevertheless she kept grumping like an old woman.
Jane was growing old. Grave fact. Indeed. My dad too. And honestly, we don’t know what hell of a fight he has to put up with. The chemo therapy went on but he was weaking day by day and strange thoughts clouded up my mind whenever I found myself in solitude.

Next week Monday when I returned home early I found dad clearing up a mesh of wires in the house. Screw drivers and nut bolts lay here and there, and he took all the interest in the world to fix up a switch board like kids solving a jig saw puzzle. The radio was on full volume and Jane was busy cooking.
“Hey dad! What happened, what kept this old man home?”
He took a glimpse at me, both of his hands were occupied and a screw driver was hanging about in his mouth like dog’s bone.
Jane answered it for him from the kitchen, “He decided to take a day off from work and screw up the switch board with the screw driver.”
Dad smiled vaguely while Jane motioned me with her eyes to the ash-tray. I saw cigarette smouldered in the tray. I could smell freshly burnt cigarette. It was September, yet I felt heated up like the summer of April, ready to burst in.
“So  you took off on a Monday morning to bring yourself one step closer to death. Is it?”
He looked perplexed at first and then put up an innocent child’s face to say “What have I done?”
“Stop acting NOW! Can you cut off the drama?” I took up the ash tray and brought it closer to his eyes “What is this?”
He dropped the nut bolt and screw driver and managed, “Syl, listen, just one won’t do any harm. It’s the first one of the month!”
I nodded “Of course it is, and also your last one. Where is it ?”
“Where is what?”
“Where’s the packet? Don’t you dare try and fool me? You get that?” I called out to Jane next, “Where is it?” Blood pounded in my head as Jane said “Behind the cushion”
I dashed forward before dad could rescue it and threatened him, “That was the last one.” I went straight up to my room and bolted the door, and threw the packet in the bin.
With rage throbbing in my head, I flung myself on the bed and saw the messages in my phone arriving swiftly, from Ethan:
3:30 p.m ? Today?
I typed without delay, knowing the location already:
Okay!