Nothing More than Mere Strangers

  The random people we walk past on the streets, the unfamiliar faces; we coined a term for them: strangers.

  Little children would often rattle on to their uncles and aunties how mummy and daddy told me to never accept things from strangers, no matter how tempting the sweets, chocolates and candies were.

  “Mummy always said, you don’t know the strangers, you don’t know what they might be thinking of, you don’t know what they want to do,” my niece chimed, her eyes sparkling.

  I smiled back at her, my fingers running through her long, silky hair, mimicking her combing of her little doll’s blond tangles.

  Strangers. You don’t know them, you don’t know what they might be thinking of, and you don’t know what they might want to do.

  Strangers. Are they only what we have stereotyped them to be; the people we have never met before?

  I didn’t even realize I had been crying until little Stephanie tugged at my shirt, handing me a paper napkin. Her smile reached her eyes as she tucked the tissue into my hand.

  “Don’t cry, aunty,” she pouted, slipping her hand into mine. “Mummy also said that when pretty ladies cry, they don’t look as pretty anymore.”

   “Stephanie sure listened well to her mummy, huh?”

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  Ten years ago, if anyone asked me whether I thought of myself as a good mother, I would say yes immediately.

  My family was a happy one with four: my son, my daughter, the children’s father and lastly, me. My children were aged twelve years apart, Xavier being the older brother to little Annie. When Xavier was little, Jason and I cared a lot about giving him the best. It hardly mattered how many hours were spent working in front of the computer, typing document after document till my fingers cramped and my eyes grew strained. There was always the helper or Jason’s mother to take care of our little boy.

  Then, Annie came into our lives. When I first held her in my arms, proudly showing Xavier his baby sister, I finally realized how fast my son had grown up. When did he grow so tall? Did he always dress in black from top to toe? What is that band that he has their name scrawled in pen ink on the back of his hand? I turned to see Annie waving about excitedly, innocent to this new world. I told myself, I missed out on Xavier growing up; I won’t make the same mistake on Annie.

  After I made up my mind to quit my job, Jason took up the offer to work overseas. The pay was higher and we definitely needed the money for the second baby. Staying at home, I watched Annie grow up bit by bit. I felt a little bad that Jason had to miss out on it all, but the video calls every weekend made up for it.

  It brought a smile to Jason’s face every time he saw our little princess wave excitedly at him, shouting through the microphone how much she missed him. We never took much notice how Xavier would stand awkwardly at one side. We always believed he would come round; he would warm up to us sooner or later, and we would make up for the years we failed to spend with him one day.

  If not spending time with Xavier was a mistake, choosing to spend more time with Annie was a much bigger mistake.

  Annie liked her older brother a lot. As soon as she learned to hobble about, she started following Xavier almost everywhere, around the house. The adults cooed over how adorable the sight was, a three-year-old little girl tottering after her older brother, giggling, occasionally tripping in her haste to match his strides. 

  Xavier found it annoying. Aged fifteen, he hated how the little giggling blob dressed in pink would be trailing after him, watching him, amused at the slightest of things.  

“Stop following me!”

“Xavier, that’s no way to speak to your baby sister,” I warned sternly.

He simply looked away and carried on with whatever he was doing.

  Then, I realized I didn’t even know what he had been doing.

“Did you spill the hand soap all over the sink, Annie?”

My hands on my waist, I stared at my little girl sternly.

“I didn’t mean it, mummy,” Annie replied, lowering her gaze.

Xavier snorted. Throwing him a disapproving glance, I chided my six-year-old, but I was not really angry. I was smiling as I told her off. I told her off playfully, failing to notice Xavier snort again.

  Unequal treatment, Xavier termed it. I would scold and nag at him for messing anything up. But to my little princess, I would never raise my voice.

  Annie never stopped following her brother about. He would always get irritated and yell at her, but she never minded and simply continued to shadow Xavier. After a lecture or two about how he should treat his sister better, Xavier would often run out of the house to catch a breather. When he came back, I would tell him off one more time about his attitude. But it soon grew to a point where I often found myself ignoring how Xavier shouted at Annie each time; I was growing tired of saying the same things.

  Complacent, I called it, but always felt it was too mild a word to describe my apathy to the relationship between my children.

  Xavier finally lost it one day.

“How many times do you want me to tell you to get out of my room?”

His voice was rough and his tone told of how irritated he was.

“But Xavvy, I want to see you do your work…”

In comparison to Xavier’s, Annie’s voice was soft and gentle, telling everyone how much she admired her older brother.

“Are you an idiot? You can’t even pronounce my name right. Get out, I don’t want to see you, I hate you! Get out of my sight right now!”

I put down my magazine and started towards his room at the other end of the living area.

“But I love you, Xavvy.”

I smiled and stopped in my tracks. Annie never failed to melt the hardest of hearts with her little words. Suddenly, I was alerted by yells and cries.

“I told you to get out, didn’t I? I told you, I told you!”

I barged into my son’s room immediately. What I saw was something I never expected in my life.

Someone was hitting my little girl. He was holding his metal water bottle and bringing it down on her head repeatedly. He was bludgeoning her. He was kicking her. He was punching her. She was no match for him. Which seven-year-old girl would be able to overpower a nineteen-year-old teenage boy?

Blood was trickling from an open gash on her forehead and there I stood, rooted to the ground, too shock to know what to do.

“I told you!”

Those three words jolted me awake.

I ran forward and pried Xavier away from Annie.

“Xavier, Xavier! What are you doing?”

Another kick was delivered to Annie, who had long fallen unconscious.

“Stop, stop it! Stop it!”

He pushed me aside, turning to face me, the metal canister still gripped tightly in his hand. Our gaze locked momentarily. I saw his face, his expression, his eyes. They were dark, cold, unfeeling and reflected hate, anguish, resentment. They were coal black, burning with rage. Where were the soft brown orbs that he inherited from his father? Is he really Xavier?

Who was this man standing before me? Who was this man who hurt my daughter? Do I know this man?

He threw the bottle at Annie’s chest with all his strength. Blood was flowing from the open gash on her forehead and a little of it was trickling from her bruised lips.

  I never knew what possessed me to press the digits to the authorities on my phone and connect the call. My heart broke when I saw Annie wheeled onto the ambulance, but it broke even more as I saw Xavier one last time as the ambulance doors closed, taken away by men in uniforms, his eyes still shining with anger and hatred.

  In televised dramas, the parent would usually worry over the child lying before him or her in the ambulance, begging the higher beings above to save the poor child. It was not the case for me, however. I was simply staring into space, wondering where Xavier had gone. Then it struck me, I never really knew my own son.

“Oh goodness, June, goodness,” Janet ran over and enveloped me in a hug.

I didn’t even know how to respond to it.

“Oh dear, June… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she cried, drying the tears I didn’t even know were falling from my eyes.

I looked up at her and then realized I had been spacing out for nearly two hours, in the waiting area of a hospital.

“Wha… What are you sorry for?” I asked.

“June, I’m so sorry,” Janet cried more.

  Why would she be sorry when she did nothing wrong?

  Why would she be sorry when it was Xavier who took little Annie away?

  Why would she be sorry when I was to blame for it all?

“Have you called Jason?” Benjamin asked.

“Yeah,” Janet sighed.

“Don’t worry so much. Things would get better by itself.”

“I hope so. Have you tucked Stephanie into bed?”

“Yeah, she’s sound asleep.”

  Tears started to fall again. I wouldn’t have Annie to tuck into bed anymore.

  Right now, if someone asked me the same question, “Do you think you’ve been a good mother?”

  I think I would cry and reply no.

  I really love how Stephanie smiles. It is a little like Annie’s, but she smiles a little less brightly.

  “See, Aunt June, you look so much better when you’re not crying,” Stephanie giggles.

  “Stephanie, you’re a really clever little girl, you know?”

   “Mummy often says that to me, too. And because I am smart, she says that no strangers would dare to take me away. So I don't know why she keeps telling me to be careful,” she laughed more at her little joke.

  There was a smile on my face, but no one would know how broken my heart was on the inside.

  Strangers. You don’t know them, you don’t know what they might be thinking of, and you don’t know what they might want to do.

  Strangers. They aren’t only the unfamiliar faces.

  They could very well be someone so close to you, yet you never knew.

  Just like how I never really knew Xavier, never knew what he was thinking about, never knew he might do this one day.

  Often, I find myself wondering, the day that Xavier is released, would I have the courage to face him? Or would I just let him fend for himself and maybe someday, we would meet each other on the streets as unfamiliar faces to one another, random passers-by in each other’s life, as something no more than mere strangers?