Under the olive tree

"See? I told you you'd break it! You broke it!"

"I didn't break it. It's too fragile! Why is it so fragile?"

"You always do this, Amma. You take my heart, you try to reshape it like yours, and then you shatter it. Every time. Every time!"

"I just want the best for you."

Amma is dead. But absence is only one of her many ways to stay.

Three notebooks, a handful of gold jewelry, a faded shawl, and a single day to grieve her departure—that is all she has left behind. If I cleared them away like dust from a windowsill, the world would forget she was ever here.

But the kitchen remembers. The tea leaves wait to be boiled, the orphaned cloves mourn for her, the cinnamon sticks sigh, and the powdered spices long to be stirred into a new curry that would earn Amma praise and soothe her pride. Each scent and each silence is like a shard. They echo an imperfect image of her.

Far away, an olive tree beside a river remembers her too.

I sit beneath it, staring at her spidery handwriting in a green notebook. The words crawl out of the page and try to choke me. The faded ink can no longer silence her. She sits beside me—quietly. It has been so long since we have said anything to each other. Gentle as a memory, a little girl with wild curls appears. She rests her head on my lap, as if she always belonged there. Amma sighs. Or perhaps weeps. It has been so long since we have wept together.

The little girl is exhausted. She looks like Amma but doesn't smell like her. Amma always smelled of onions, turmeric, sweat, and tears. The little girl smells like new grass. Or Jasmine. Should I still call her Amma?

The olive tree sways in the southern breeze. The girl never wanted to be Amma, a wife, or an aunty. She only wanted to be an olive tree—rooted yet free, basking in sunlight, laughing beneath stars—untouched and untamed.

"Why do you always try to reshape it?"

"To make it less like mine. To make it stronger."

"What is wrong with it being so fragile?"

"Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name. Your name—Oporajita. I named you on a bright morning, the moment I felt you inside my womb. I knew you'd be a girl. I knew you would be undefeated."

"What was your name?"

"I don't remember anymore."

"Noorjahan. Your name is Noorjahan. Noorjahan means light of the world. You are the light of this world."

The olive tree sways with joy. The golden hour lingers. The girl on my lap stirs, breathing softly, eyes closed. In this moment, she becomes both my mother and my daughter.

Tonight I will mother her, and before she disappears again as Amma, she will reclaim her name. She will be the light of this world.

Faria Rahman is a writer currently living in Tokyo and exploring the many layers of diasporic life. Writing from afar allows her to piece together fragments of home, one story at a time.