Prose 37 Pirani
away from her family, living in an empty house with a husband who didn’t cherish her family’s gifts as she did. And she thought of the rug that now shared a house with an energetic toddler and a dog. She told herself she wouldn’t cry, and she didn’t. Instead, she forced herself to climb the staircase, finish cleaning upstairs and start working downstairs. As she diligently vacuumed the steps that led to the first floor, all she could see in her mind was the rug in its new house, in a place where it didn’t feel as though it belonged. While she wiped down the kitchen counter with a rag, her mind wandered to her family back home who were all likely sleeping at this hour. She took out the trash, mopped the kitchen floor and wiped the windows. She climbed onto the stool to clean the large window in the kitchen through which the sun was streaming. She tried to concentrate on her cleaning, channeling her emotions into her strokes. And as she drew her hand from the window, her elbow knocked into something hard. As though in slow motion, she saw herself watch something blue topple from the sill, plummet down and shatter on the cold, hard tile. It was the vase. It took her a moment to realize what had happened. And then her breath quickened and caught in her throat. She fell to her knees beside the broken glass and her chest ached with her heaving sobs. Romaisa cried and cried, her cheeks dripping with tears and her face warm. She couldn’t believe she had broken it. She had managed to save it from her husband and the haphazard hands of the toddler, but she hadn’t been able to save it from her own hands. And so she cried harder. When she stopped crying, it was not because she felt better, but because she knew that Adeel would be home soon, and she didn’t want him to see the mess. She stood up on weak knees and took up the broom. Gingerly, she gathered the blue shards into a large pile and carefully swept them into a dustpan. But she didn’t throw them away. She retrieved a pillowcase from the linen closet in the hallway and poured the cascade of shards in. Then, as though taking extra precaution to conserve the broken bits,