What Matters  by Shivani Sivagurunathan 

The day Didi realised her husband had curated a nice little world of half-naked digital women for himself, it was almost time for her to attend her weekly lunch with her girlfriends. She was unable to progress towards the front gate. Instead, she stared at her reflection on the surface of their garden pond, built by him and for ten years, her delusional confirmation he was happy. She looked at her liquid face and wondered what she’d done wrong.

He was an excellent husband, the love of her life. She always felt like a pimply, soda-sucking teenager when she told her lunching ladies: my husband plants roses, fixes the car, changes lightbulbs, shops for food. Predictably, they told her she was lucky, she’d hit the jackpot, he was one in a million, all the cliches. No point going for lunch now. What would she say?

She watched her face, shimmering in the water. Daily, her told her she had the most unique facial dimensions he’d seen. But apparently, for the last eight years, he was saying the same thing to hundreds of women. She wasn’t benevolent, kind or compassionate. She’d read about women who forgave. She wasn’t one of them.

She decided to flush every memory, moment and incident of her ten year marriage down the pond. Forgiveness is hyped; forgetfulness is a true blessing. She smiled. Her reflected self smiled back at her. She peeled her reflection off the pond’s surface, folded it and tucked it into her purse. She would take it out with her and ask it questions. How can you truly know anyone? What do you do when everything you’ve known has ended?

But when she tried to move her feet, nothing happened. Behind her, her husband’s footsteps loomed.

“Didi, let’s put the past behind us and go back to normal,” he said.

Her reflection’s muffled voice escaped her purse. “Everything has a shelf life. Living depends on death. I plan to die before I die. And finally live.”

When Didi heard her reflection, the words created so much momentum she thought she’d die from too much happiness. She wanted to die before she died. If she died, what would be left? It was completely unknown, new. She wanted it.  

“We are over,” she told her husband, “I want to die before I die.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m going to die to myself and get to my real self, whatever that is. But does that even matter to you? The one solid thing I held onto was that I mattered to you. Since that’s bullshit, I’m going to make dying before I die something that matters.” She removed her reflected self from her purse and threw it at her husband. “That’s all you’re getting,” she said and stormed off.

It would take another ten years before Didi realised that she stopped living the minute she gave her reflection to him, and in the ten years she’d been with him, she’d only ever given him her reflection. In that moment, she forgave herself. Something large began to quiver inside her. She wondered if this was the beginning of the death she’d been waiting for. She almost wanted to call her ex-husband to tell him the news but she quickly realised he’d been dead two years. She sighed and very nearly welcomed a large gulp of regret into her throat for having wasted so much time on letting that man go, but she focused on the earthquake rising in her belly and waited for her death before death. It was exciting to think life could finally start to matter at 60.    

Shivani Sivagurunathan

Image by FranckinJapan from Pixabay – Garden pond reflecting the trees and sky with a landscaped border and trees.