FAITH

                                          

                                      

  Faith ran barefoot across the patch of sun dried grass that comprised of half the courtyard.The visitors had had to wait a minute longer than required. As Matron of St.Jude's Boarding School,Shillong, she wouldn't normally be running such errands. But most of the managing staff were to return later that week and this was an on-the -spot admission.

  She reached the large iron gate and unlocked it. And then held her breath. The broad-leaved trees cast a shadow on their faces. A dark haired man stood there, holding a little girl by the hand. Faith smiled tremulously. "I'm sorry for the delay, Sir. Please do come in."

  He picked up his dusty traveler's suitcase and stepped onto the premises of what had been her home for the past nine years of her life. The winter Sun smiled on his handsome face and reflected off the pools of darkness that were his eyes. Something unquiet stirred in the depths of her heart.

  Pulling her veil lower onto her face she directed the man silently to the Principal's office. He spoke in whispers to the little girl holding his hand. And she couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, but it seemed like he was trying to calm her fears about the new place and the people. When she was within earshot, he was reassuring the girl that he would be back before Christmas and that was when Faith realised nothing had changed. Rob was the same reassuring man he had been ten years ago.

 Faith remembered the first time she had seen him. He was dressed in cricket whites, waiting for his turn to bat- a crusader leaning on his sheathed sword. A gentle Knight in a world then crowded with possibility. No opportunity cancelled, no prospect rendered void. Almost instantly she had fallen in love with him.

 But Rob had other plans. Faith being the Pastor's daughter had not had much of a choice but to watch as he boarded the train that would take him away from her.
"Good Lord, Faith!
 You don't have to cry!
 I'll be back in December."

 Nine Decembers had passed since that day.
Startled, she realised they had reached the Principal's office. Rob was finalising his daughter's admission. His daughter. Faith reminisced the times they had thought of all the names of their unborn children and ended up laughing together. She felt like laughing all over again.

She had learnt a few things in her time -one was to live with grief, or rather to live without it, beyond it. She had been alone a long time now. Existing, she thought, not only beyond grief, but also beyond love. Intimations of the past lay all about her and in her solitude, she chose to remember, to forget, to rearrange. Only very rarely, was she caught unawares, as of now. It left her shaken and gasping, clutching at the walls of her mind for support.

 But now Rob was coming downstairs with the girl. She stood at the end of a long winding staircase, almost ready to flee, when he stopped her. "Matron! I want you to take care of my little Rose. I don't want her to miss her Mummy while she's here." he smiled. The girl clung to him in a way that would have made the earlier version of herself cry.

 "And Daddy, wont you miss him too?" questioned Faith, when the girl's father had gone on ahead. The child looked down at her feet. "Daddy's always beside me in everything I do, wherever I am. I never miss him"

And Faith understood.

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Jan 2009