Everyone in the family knew what she meant when she said she was fine.

“I’m fine.”

She said it while chopping beans.

She said it while folding clothes.

She said it when her husband asked whether the electricity bill had been paid, when her daughter called from college, when her son sent a photograph of a broken scooter.

“Amma, are you tired?”

“No, no. I’m fine.”

They all knew this meant approximately nothing.

It could mean she was tired. It could mean she was annoyed. It could mean she had forgotten to eat lunch. It could even mean she had spent twenty minutes looking for the spectacles that were sitting on top of her head.

Still, nobody pushed.

In families, sometimes a person’s usual answer becomes part of the furniture. You stop noticing it.

One Sunday, everyone was in the kitchen.

The pressure cooker had just finished its second whistle. Her husband was looking for the coriander. Her son was asking whether there was anything to eat before lunch. Her daughter was standing at the counter scrolling through her phone.

“Amma, you okay?” her daughter asked.

“I’m fine.”

Then she stopped chopping.

She looked at the beans. Looked at her daughter.

And said, “Actually, no.”

Nobody moved.

It was such a small sentence. But it seemed to require a completely different family.

Her husband put down the coriander.

“What happened?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing happened.”

“Then?”

She looked embarrassed.

“I’m just tired.”

Her daughter put her phone away.

Her son took the knife from her hand.

“Give it.”

“I can do it.”

“I know.”

He started chopping the beans badly.

She watched him make pieces of wildly different sizes.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.”

“You’re ruining them.”

“Then supervise me from the chair.”

She laughed.

Her husband brought her tea. Her daughter cleared the table.

Nobody gave a speech. Nobody told her she needed to take care of herself.

They simply made lunch without her for once.

She sat at the kitchen doorway with her tea and watched her son destroy the beans.

After a while she said, “A little smaller.”

He nodded.

“Like this?”

“No. Smaller.”

He sighed.

“Fine.”

She smiled.

For the first time that Sunday, she looked fine.

Read this when you’ve been saying “I’m fine” because explaining feels harder.

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