“Try to remember. What is wrong with you, Sir? Is that true the whole of your fault has already been forgiven by your mother?” she says while fixing the location of the blanket, which is starting to falter.
“High blood pressure can also be due to the influence of your mind,” the woman murmurs again. Her hands deftly replace. Then her soft voice asks what complaints my mother feels.
From where I sit, I keep watching the nurse’s movements. Maybe this is why my mother was very determined to set me up with her friend’s child, a nurse.
I still remember my mother’s words at that time. “Look at Jihan, Mus. She is beautiful, pious, and one thing you have to know; she is a nurse. Do you know the strengths of a nurse? Other people are being treated, let alone their parents. Do you know the advantages of a pious? An invisible God is loved and obeyed, let alone the husband.”
Ah, mother. You are fussy about things that you think are good, especially for your only child. But alas, there is no Jihan in my heart. I think Jihan is too shy, too feminist. Whereas I want a wife figure that I can talk to, discuss, even though debate. My household will appear alive with a critical woman, and that criterion rests with Reina. Jihan? He was too gentle, obedient; living with her would feel empty, I thought at that time.
After Reina, my lover, was rejected as a daughter-in-law by my mother a few years ago, my heart had never melted before a woman’s eyes. Maybe my heart has turned barren. Not enough to grow new shoots of love.
At that time, I had graduated from college and had gotten a permanent job as an accountant for a large company in Surabaya. Since she was a child, my mother, who studied at an Islamic boarding school, required me to marry a woman from a boarding school background. And the figure she chose was Jihan, the daughter of her fellow, the one whom I did not love to, and I rejected her. Reina, who I had been dating since high school, was later rejected by my mother. She was too rude and talkative for my mother, who liked tenderness. She refused my prospective choice, while I rejected her candidate choice. So I remain single at the age of thirty.
***
“Mom,” I call softly.
“What’s up,” she answers softly too.
“I’ll go out and buy a cup of coffee, okay?”
“Yes,” my mother’s answer remained soft.
I kiss her forehead gently.
“What are you talking about? It seems that you wanna going anywhere, Mus …,” she whispers. I chuckle. I think that my mother’s condition is better.
“Sleep, Mom, please,” I say as I walk away.
When I arrive at the canteen, immediately I open my cellphone that I haven’t been able to open for most of the day. Whatsapp chat notifications are rattling in my pocket. I choose a chat from the official group, and it turns out that it is about new tasks. A lot of works have to be done. After that, I contact my friends to confirm some data. Hence, I finish the coffee and immediately rush to my mother’s room.
I see the nurse is cleaning my mother’s body and clothes In front of my eyes. I wonder what has happened. I cannot handle my feelings knowing the woman who gave birth to me look weak helplessly, without me next to her.