I was already late.

My cab was waiting downstairs. My laptop bag was on one shoulder, my phone was in the other hand, and I had checked the time four times in the last two minutes.

“Amma, I’ll miss the meeting.”

She was at the kitchen counter, wiping a steel dabba with the corner of an old towel.

“I know,” she said.

Then she opened the lid.

“Take this.”

“I have chutney at home.”

“This is different.”

She put the dabba into my bag before I could argue.

Then she picked up two lemons from the plate near the window.

“And these.”

“Amma.”

“The ones you bought last week were not good.”

She said it as though this was urgent business.

I laughed.

“Anything else?”

She looked around the kitchen.

“Wait.”

She opened the fridge.

“No. Don’t give me anything else.”

“There is some palya from lunch.”

“Amma, I have food.”

“Then eat this tomorrow.”

She packed that too.

This happened every time.

I could go to my parents’ house for twenty minutes and come back with enough food for two days.

Sometimes it was two dosas wrapped in foil.

Sometimes a handful of curry leaves because, according to her, “these are fresh today.”

Once, it was a small packet of turmeric.

“Why are you giving me turmeric?” I asked.

“Yours is finished.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged.

“I know.”

I never understood how she knew.

After I had a child, it became worse.

She started packing things for my daughter too.

Small bananas. Homemade laddus. A frock she had bought months before because “it looked like her.”

Even after I said we had everything.

“I know,” she would say.

She packed it anyway.

One Sunday, I was leaving in a hurry again.

My daughter was sleepy. The cab driver had called twice. I had one slipper on and was looking for the other.

“Take this,” Amma said.

She held out a small steel container.

“What is it?”

“Open it at home.”

“Why?”

“Because if you open it here, you’ll say you don’t want it.”

I laughed.

“Fine.”

I took it.

At home, I opened the lid.

There were three pieces of jaggery inside.

That was all.

I called her.

“Why did you send me jaggery?”

“You like it.”

“I do?”

“Since you were little.”

I looked at the three pieces in my palm.

“Amma, I haven’t eaten jaggery in years.”

There was a pause.

“Hmm,” she said.

Then, after a moment:

“Still take it.”

She died two years later.

The first few weeks were full of people.

Calls. Visitors. Food being sent to our house. Messages that began with “Take care.”

Then everybody went back to their lives.

One evening, I was cleaning the kitchen.

I opened the cupboard and found one of her steel dabbas.

Empty.

I held it for a while.

Then I put it back.

The next morning, I packed my daughter’s lunch.

Before closing the bag, I looked around the kitchen.

There was half a lemon on the counter.

I put it in.

My husband looked at me.

“She won’t eat it.”

“I know.”

I closed the bag.

Later that afternoon, when my daughter came home, she pulled the lemon out.

“Why did you put this?”

I almost said, “Because you might need it.”

Instead I said,

“No reason.”

She put it back in the bag.

“Okay.”

And carried it upstairs.

About the Author

I’m the writer behind The Quiet Things, where I write about love, family, memory, healing, regret and the quiet moments people rarely put into words.

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