Forgiveness, forgiveness, even if, even if...

Sometimes anger blurs your vision and stains backwards, colouring memories.

Now as the smoke clears, I remember that the child was lean. And that he had lost too much weight for a two-year old. And maybe he wasn't being greedy when he kept stuffing his face full of biscuits and murukku.

Maybe he was just hungry.

And because his hunger opened up gorges inside her, tore at her soft belly with fingernails of steel she was forced to beg:

Please, our phone line has been cut off, we don't have money to pay the bills, the milk has almost run out, my son is hungry...

No one likes to beg. Especially a person who's hitherto been mistress of her own fate. But things change when you're a stranger in a strange land with no job and a husband who has become distant and angry.

There is no bond here to secure lasting love or compassion. Most people look at her with contempt and turn away. If not to begin with, then eventually.

And when one door is slammed in her face, she knocks at another. And another. And another. Any number of doors.

There is no shame in begging so her son doesn't go hungry. So her son doesn't lose any more weight. If anything were to happen to him... but no, she will not think about that now.

Hate melts and forgiveness creeps in furtively like a dog through the links of a broken fence. My broken fence.

I'm guess what I'm trying to say is...

I'm letting it go.