Twilight

She was really tired. She couldn't believe the month was over and that they had left and that everything had gone off well. They had liked the food for the most part, and the weather too. The stay was comfortable, with fresh towels in the bathrooms every second day, enough health food stocked in the fridge for an army of beauty contestants, fresh flowers in the vases, neatly-made beds, clean windows, the ACs and geysers in tiptop working condition everyday...the works. Everything done the way they approved of. Living in America all these years after all, they were obviously used to all of this. And that too her only son and his American born Indian wife... her bahu. She had to this this much and more...

She shuddered involuntarily at the memory of her last visit to America the last year. How long those 3 months had been. Had it not been for the baby arriving and taking up all her time, she would've gone mad. Nice girl her bahu, but you know how these Americans are... very particular about having things done their way. And those born and brought up there are after all, as American as any of them, aren't they? So she understood her bahu being different, but which is not to say that she understood well enough for things to be hunky-dory between them.

But then what in her life had ever been hunky-dory? Yes there were those very distant memories of her life growing up without a care, and the long summers spent idling and day-dreaming about life ahead. But for every year of blissful childhood, there had been all those others that more than made up...

She snapped herself out of her dreary thoughts and sat down to enjoy her cup of adrak chai.

As she sank into her favorite chair in the living room, her reflection in the brass-framed mirror on the wall caught her attention. Leaning on one arm of the chair, she came closer to the mirror and looked at her face closely, examining the lines. She was a grandmom yes, but not too old... at 52 there were Hollywood actresses auditioning for and getting the roles of femme fatales, and here she was - full of lines already. She smiled ruefully at her imagination, absent-mindedly running her graceful but not so youthful finger on the crow's feet next to her left eye.

She was glad. Relieved, really. This worked just fine for her... laugh-lines, crows' feet... these were perfect, they were just what she needed. She sighed and leaned away from the mirror and sank back into the soft depths of her rocking-chair, drifting into a labyrinth of memories and broken images of unfulfilled dreams.

She was old after all and really weary of the mask. Now the lines had come, and she could perhaps drop the mask. Perhaps.

They made her look like she'd been happy a long time. Like she'd really laughed a lot in her youth, and indeed she had. The lines had formed despite the lack of genuineness of the laughter.

She was a sad old woman, who felt older than her years. But she looked like she'd always been happy; perhaps at having aged gracefully, and at having a good home and family. Or maybe at something else, some private joke that she'd played on life.

And to her, that was enough. That was what mattered after all, didn't it? What it looked like on the outside...rather than what really was. In time you could convince anyone, even your own self.