“Are you sure you can’t make it?” Sheila asks her husband over a video call, late on a Tuesday night. She strokes her 6-month-old son’s head, as he sits snuggled up on her lap, struggling to get to the level of the phone. “You haven’t seen your son since he was born.”
Sheila knew that being married to a soldier in the army was not meant to be an easy feat. She braved through the trauma, injuries, long-distance, but she couldn’t shrug off the ache in her heart at the thought of her son growing up without a father.
“I’m sorry Sheila, I don’t mean to disappoint you,” he said sadly. Sheila shook her head and wiped her tears. She scooped the baby higher up in her arms and made him wave goodbye to his father. That night, she slept uncomfortably in a much too small bed, next to her son, because she felt too lonely to be alone.
That’s why when she was woken up by a sudden sound, she was disoriented and bewildered; until she realized it was the doorbell. She stretched her aching muscles, ready to give the milkman an earful for being late, but she was caught off-guard at the sight of someone she wasn’t expecting. Someone who could never disappoint her. It was surely not the milkman.
Picture credits: Canvas
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