matching the promise

 

black-and-white kaufmanns stare from the photo frame
like they’re still watching out for him,
like love is a job you clock into
even when the grandkid smells like sidewalk rain
and cheap cereal.

they raised their orange-haired boy
while his mother stayed busy
auditioning new disasters,
moving boyfriends through the house
like furniture she never planned to keep,
her eyes glazed with prescription halos,
smiling at nothing,
arguing with the air.

his father…
a voice on postcards,
an actor in europe,
handsome in another language,
applauded by strangers
while the kid learned the real lines at home:

don’t ask,
don’t need,
don’t break.

the kaufmanns had a way of making it look simple…
coffee, soup, quiet.
their hands were ordinary,
which is the only miracle
he ever trusted.

now he’s 51
and the apartment is a small museum
dedicated to the people who didn’t leave.
red rugs…rich as old blood,
soft as forgiveness,
dragged from their home into his
like he stole warmth from the past
and nobody called the cops.

their end tables sit there,
square-shouldered,
holding up lamps and loneliness
without complaint.

sometimes, late…
when the city makes that tired animal sound
and the radiator coughs,
he wraps himself in their towels,
those thick old towels
that once dried their elbows, their backs,
the ordinary wetness of living.
he wraps up like a man hiding from weather
that ended decades ago
but still finds the cracks.

the inheritance was supposed to be his…
a number the kaufmanns tucked away
like a clean shirt
for the boy’s future.
but his mother blew it
the way some people blow out candles…
without making a wish,
without thinking the dark counts too.
money turned to smoke,
then to silence,
then to phone calls he stopped answering.

now he lives like an ascetic
not because he’s holy
but because hunger is familiar
and control is a small throne.

he accumulates money
the way monks count prayers…
not for joy,
not for a vacation,
not for redemption.
just to match the number
his grandparents intended.
to make the universe obey
one small promise
it tried to break.

he keeps receipts like rosaries,
watches the total rise
and feels…what?
not triumph.
not peace.
something like standing outside a house
that burned down
and building it again
out of arithmetic.

he’s estranged from his mother
and his father too…
two ghosts who are still alive
which is the worst kind of haunting.
some nights he thinks about calling
just to hear the lie
that passes for love in their mouths.
but he doesn’t.

he looks at the kaufmanns instead…
those black-and-white faces
steady as a pay stub,
patient as bread,
and he knows exactly
what he owes them:
not forgiveness.
not closure.
not a grand speech.

just the stubborn, daily act
of not turning into his parents…

the ones who vanished,
the ones who spent him down to nothing.

so he pulls the red rug straight,
sets the end table square,
wraps the old towel around his shoulders
like a coat passed down
from a better world,
and he makes a life
out of what remains:

quiet,
coffee,
numbers,
and the hard, unglamorous love
of staying.
​

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© Sreedhari Desai