Sweet Child of Mine

“You're late.”
She was sitting alone in the waiting room. The water flask hung around her neck, the bright straps of the pink Barbie bag contrasting with her light blue uniform. The braid I made on her hair this morning was messy. She didn't look scared at all; she probably had grown accustomed to my habitual lateness. Instead, a glint of disappointment shone in her eyes.
“I'm sorry,” I said, holding her close, and feeling somehow guilty, yet trying to justify my lateness, I whispered the word 'traffic' in her ears. I knew she would forget this as soon as we reached home. But the thought of my disappointing her time and time again broke me to pieces. I held my baby girl's hand and took her out.
“Ice-cream?” I summoned every last drop of my willpower and asked her; an attempt at overcompensation. Her face lit up.
Rushing from office to her school during my lunch hour always made me late. I'd drop her home and go back to office, but I'd be late there as well. This has been occurring over the past year, since her father and I parted ways. We tried, for her sake, to keep going. But the was truth masked behind the thousand lies that had shadowed our marriage for the eleven years. Eleven years of overlooking the signs. Eleven years of pretence. Eleven years that I'll never get back. Eleven years flushed down the toilet.
Except, I had what he didn't. I had Aryana.
Aryana, my beautiful 7-year-old. Plump cheeks and dark, puppy eyes that revealed more than they could hide. A scar on the right corner of her forehead from the time she hit her head on a window ledge at her dadu-bari when she was 3. A melting smile that she tried to conceal, for her upper left incisor was missing. A deep sigh when disappointed, nostrils inflated. Open-hearted guffaws when happy. Puffy eyes as tears found their way down, silently. She was the spitting image of her father.
My child. My sweet, sweet child. Every day with her is a new experience. I never quite grew used to her charm.
On our rickshaw rides home, she always tells me what she learned in school and I always listen with awe. Today, over a lemon-flavoured lolly ice-cream, Aryana tells me that they learned the names of the planets. She pronounced a few names incorrectly, but I didn't have the heart to kill her enthusiasm by correcting her.
When did she grow up so much? I wonder. Amidst my job at the bank and my online cupcake business, I barely had time enough to see her grow a day at a time. Every few months, the realization that I was missing from her life at a crucial stage dawns upon me, and it kills me. Aryana already had a parent missing from her life; I couldn't allow her to lose the other too. But I need both the job and the business; I need the money... for her. Her father sends a monthly cheque, but I'd relied on him for way too long to know he isn't reliable, even though he had a soft spot for his daughter.
At 35, I do get proposals – some willing to accept Aryana too. Yet I refuse. One broken marriage was enough. But despite the failed marriage and all the other failures of my life, I look back and I see my one true achievement. Aryana. My life, my strength. If anything, my daughter has taught me a simple life lesson: being a single mother isn't easy. But with her sitting beside me on the rickshaw licking her ice-cream with her already-green tongue, and blabbering about school in between, I know I'm the happiest person alive.
Aryana is my safe harbour.