Left

She looked absently at the coffee that poured from her toppled mug and watched as the dark brown fluid seeped its way into her notebook’s pages. They had no use now.

She slowly placed her phone down on the counter and sniffed. A tear fell from her eye, and then another, and another. Soon, she was violently sobbing.

“She died last night,” came her mother’s voice from earlier, half consolatory, half accusingly. “We’ll make arrangements here. Just tell us when you’re coming back – if you are, that is.”

She cried harder as she remembered the small hands of the child she loved, the child she gave birth to 10 years ago, the child she left behind in order to provide for.

The coffee had already soaked through most of the pages of her small notebook. Her writing was smudged now, unreadable. But it didn’t matter anymore. Not when the recipient of her daily impassioned letters would never be able to read them anyway.

“Yaya? (Nanny?)” Just then, the little boy she was taking care of appeared at the doorway. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and yawned.

She righted her mug and wiped her tears away. Closing her stained notebook, she turned to the boy with a sad smile and moved to take care of the child she left for in lieu of the child she left behind.

–
Image source: deviantart.com/curlystarling/art/Spill-203673105
First written November 26, 2017.
#57