The Life We Borrowed

The bell rang at exactly 1:47, and I was already halfway out of my seat before Mrs. Nur finished saying *waalaikumsalam*. My friends laughed. I didn't care. The gate was hot against my palm when I pushed it, the metal burning the way it does in October, and I ran the whole way home even though nobody was chasing me.

Our house sits at the end of a narrow alley off Jalan Kartini, the one with the cracked paving stones and the neighbor's cat that always sleeps on the motorbike seat. I know which stones wobble. I know which ones splash when it rains. My sandals slapped against them, and I counted them the way I always do, twenty-three steps from the corner to our gate.

"Assalamualaikum," I called out, pushing through the front door that's never locked.

"Innalillahi," Mama's voice came from the kitchen. "You're sweating like a goat. Wash your feet first."

I kicked off my sandals and went straight to the TV. The remote was wedged between the sofa cushions the way it always is, and I pulled it out, pressed the red button, and there it was. The cartoon with the blue cat. The one where the mouse always wins.

Mama came out with a plate of rice and fried tempeh. She set it on the table without looking at me. "Eat first. Then TV."

"I am eating."

"You're watching TV."

"Both."

She sighed the way she always sighs, the one that means *I've given up but I want you to know I've given up*. I ate with my eyes on the screen. The rice was warm. The tempeh was crispy at the edges, the way I like it. I didn't say thank you. I never did. She never asked me to.

---

The afternoon stretched long and lazy. I went out after Asr, the way I always do, and the alley was full of kids. Rian was there with his new ball, the one his father brought back from Jakarta. It was shiny and white and had the Nike logo, and we all pretended we didn't care.

"Pass it here," I said.

He passed it. I kicked it hard, and it went over the fence into Pak Haji's yard. We all froze.

"Your fault," Rian said.

"Your ball."

We climbed the fence anyway. Pak Haji's mango tree was dropping fruit, and we grabbed two before his dog started barking. We ran. The ball was forgotten. We split the mango with our hands, the juice running down our wrists, sticky and sweet. It was the best mango I've ever eaten. I didn't know that then.

---

Maghrib came, and I went home. The TV was off. Mama was reading Quran at the table, and Baba was in his chair, scrolling through his phone. He looked up when I came in.

"Study," he said. Not a question.

I went to my room. My desk is by the window, and if I lean back far enough I can see the moon between the power lines. I opened my math book. Fractions. I hated fractions. The numbers blurred, and I thought about the mango, about the way Rian's face looked when the ball went over the fence, about the blue cat on TV.

I did three problems. Then I drew a spaceship in the margin.

---

Dinner was rice and fish and sambal that made my nose run. Mama asked about school. I said fine. Baba asked about the test. I said I'd study. He nodded and went back to his phone. The TV was on again, the news, and the anchor was talking about a plane crash somewhere far away. I didn't listen. I pushed the fish bones to the side of my plate and thought about nothing.

"You're quiet," Mama said.

"I'm tired."

She reached over and touched my forehead. Her hand was cool. "No fever."

"I'm fine."

She pulled her hand back and went back to eating. I watched her for a second. The way she chewed. The way she looked at Baba's plate to make sure he had enough. I didn't think anything of it. I just watched.

---

I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, the one with the leaky faucet that drips all night. The sound of it is the last thing I hear before I sleep. Drip. Drip. Drip. Like a clock that's too slow.

Mama tucked me in. I was too old for it, but she did it anyway, pulling the blanket up to my chin and kissing my forehead. She smelled like soap and the kitchen.

"Sleep well," she said.

"You too."

She turned off the light. The door clicked shut. The drip started. I closed my eyes.

---

And then I opened them.

The ceiling is different. White. No cracks. No water stains shaped like islands. There's an air conditioner humming, and the air is cold, too cold, and I'm lying on a mattress that's too soft, and the blanket is too thick, and I don't know where I am.

I sat up. My heart was pounding. The room was dark, but I could see the shape of things. A desk. A laptop. A phone charging on the nightstand. The screen glowed, and I saw the time. 3:47 AM.

I'm thirty-one years old.

The dream was still on my skin. The mango juice. The drip of the faucet. Mama's hand on my forehead. I could feel it all, the way you feel a song after it stops playing. I pressed my palm against my chest. My chest that's bigger now. My hands that are bigger now. The calluses on my fingers from typing, not from climbing fences.

I got out of bed. The floor was cold. I walked to the bathroom, the one in my apartment, the one with the faucet that doesn't drip because I paid a man two hundred thousand rupiah to fix it last month. I looked in the mirror.

Me. But older. Tired. The kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix.

I turned on the tap and splashed water on my face. It didn't help. The dream was still there, sitting in my chest like a stone. I thought about Mama. She's still alive. She's in the house in Bandung, the one with the cracked paving stones, and she's probably asleep right now, and she doesn't know that I just spent an afternoon with her, an afternoon that happened twenty years ago.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub and cried. Not loud. Not the kind of crying that makes you feel better. The quiet kind. The kind that just leaks out of you while you stare at the tiles.

I have a good life. I have a job. I have a phone that cost more than my father's monthly salary. I have a laptop and a savings account and a plan for next year. I have everything I dreamed about when I was nine years old, sitting at that desk, drawing spaceships in the margins of my math book.

But I would give it all back. Every rupiah. Every gadget. Every promotion. I would give it all back for one more afternoon in that alley. One more mango. One more *assalamualaikum* at the front door.

The tap dripped. Just once. Then stopped.

I wiped my face and went back to bed. I didn't sleep. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, and the ceiling stared back.