Diary of a Sister

I did not intend to engage myself in any deep thoughts that day. I had spent day after day thinking about tomorrow, what would happen, how it would happen, and if we were still there with our integrity unscathed once this was ended. COVID swept the world and watching it from Jakarta, the city we lived in, we once thought it was a thing for the faraway places. Today, Indonesia had one of the worst statistics of COVID. Over two years, COVID had cost my Brother his business, the pillar of our family economy. Our horizon of a bright future shrunk into a point before it diminished.

Dark clouds formed and dashed towards us, standing up close at our face forming a big wall, blocking any future views. From looking forward to riches, we were constricted to sightseeing into tomorrow. From thinking about where to vacation, we wondered what to eat tomorrow. Not that our life quality had been reduced to that of the destitute's, but if we had to live for another two years weathering COVID and all its variants without any income, then we had to consume our savings prudently. So prudent that sometimes we felt like the destitute.

My mind was always engaged, to survive. But today, I wanted to give myself time off from thinking. I wanted to read a book of my choice, from its front to back covers, three hundred pages in one day, to be interrupted only by the essentials. I wanted to be taken to a world that was not mine, within which my dream of a bright future might resume, or my worries replaced with the thrills of a spy trying to overturn the politics in a third-world country.

My name is Dessara and my morning started well. I had had a good night's sleep and breakfast was peaceful. It was a Sunday, my eleven-year-old son Bo did not have his zoom class, he was helping his seven-year-old sister Bea make her breakfast cereal. Most of the time they fought over small things like who should pour the milk first. Children. But not today. Jude, my six-foot-tall husband, promised to take care of lunch and dinner, most likely he planned home delivery for lunch and instant noodles for dinner. Pathetic, but I was determined to have this day for me to unwind.

"Mama, can we have McDonald's chicken for lunch?" Bo asked with hopeful eyes. Fast food in the good old days was considered when we didn't want to spend much on food. Today, it was a treat. Something that must be planned a week prior. Fast food would cost two times more than home-prepared or other comparable restaurant meals.

"Yes Mama, yes Mama, pleeease," now Bea chimed in. I wasn't sure she really wanted McDonald's chicken, but I was sure she chose to align her wish with her brother's because today they were soul mates. You could tempt me with many things, and I was rather sure I would stand tall against them. But the two pairs of my pleading children's eyes in harmony was too much. I crumbled at their feet and declared my surrender,

"Alright, alright." Then they shackled and took me prisoner to their kingdom of charm.

Having their wish granted, they let me go. I picked the thickest book from my library shelves, one that I had read many times over. I devoured page after page. I was absorbed in a different world.

"Mama! Mama! Somebody is ringing our bell. It must be our McDonald's!" Bo shrieked excitedly, running out of the playroom to where I was lounging with my book, followed by his sister who had been following him all morning. He tugged at my sleeve impatiently, yanking me out of my fantasy.

At lunchtime, my planned me-time ended. I book-marked my book at page one hundred and ninety-eight and put it down. Jude took the delivered food inside. The smell was strong and tempting. As Jude opened the boxes, Bo and Bea were trying to get a look at what was inside. They knew it was chicken, but they still scrutinized it with the curiosity of ... children. All of this was not to be missed, nothing beats the show of my two "monkeys" who got excited over a few pieces of chicken and a bag of French fries.

For us, Jude ordered some fried noodles from a nearby canteen. But the now-rare sight of my two children enjoying their McDonald's fried chicken stopped me from doing anything. I couldn't eat lunch and missed the feeding time.

Bo munched on his McDonald's chicken wings oblivious to anything else but the tasty, salty sensation of American fast-food culture. Bea picked on her French fries one by one while busily blabbering about her Roblox game to whoever was patient enough to listen to her long description. It was Sunday discount day from the delivery company, I got the 30% off package deal on McDonald's, making a rare-treat possible today, and I instantly became the hero mother to my two children, who had been secretly wanting American fast-food treat for weeks.

I thought I was not to be involved with deep thoughts today. But witnessing the happiness of my children inevitably brought about an unpleasant fact.

I was the youngest of three siblings. Dallo was the eldest and I referred to him fondly as my Brother, and Dungi was the middle son whom I would never call a brother anymore. We used to be tight as siblings but drifted apart as we each started a family of our own, especially after I married lastly to Jude. My Brother and I remained tight on one camp, Dungi on another of his own. When our mother died, the breakup with Dungi finally materialized.

Bo was now into his second chicken and Bea was still talking about her Roblox game. It was so merry and so long, my mind drifted. I contemplated what Dungi and his family were currently doing based on the rumor I heard. They were vacationing on one of the paradise Gilis (islands) in Lombok on that same day. Staying at a five-star hotel, dining on steak, lobster and whatnot, pampered by the luxury that just a couple of years back was not a stranger to us when our whole family was still intact, when my mother was still alive and amongst us, and my Brother Dallo still commanding a mighty income, financing all the fun and togetherness this family once enjoyed.

"Birthdays are celebrations over nothing but being born. While gratefulness is a right response, lavish celebration over achievement of nothing is irresponsible." That was a line my Brother always repeated to show his disdain over lavish birthday celebrations. Probably he was an old school who believed that celebrations must always be over some achievement. While I agreed with him intellectually, not so emotionally. I always held merry birthday celebrations for my Bo and Bea, but nowhere near the style of Dungi's, showering his wife Pilos with luxury, shedding money like he was some investor of Facebook.

Money that belonged to us.

Then my mind switched to my Brother Dallo. What's he doing right now in his eighty-square-meter apartment? Is he, too, having lunch like us? Is he watching a movie? I felt a rush of warm emotion and the feeling of being safe whenever I thought of him. If Dungi was the South Pole, then my Brother was the North Pole, if Dungi was a matter of any kind, then my Brother was its anti-matter. And so were my feelings, if one created the feeling of animosity and fear, the other of calmness and joy.

The thought of him calmed me down, for a few moments, then I was back to witnessing Bo who kept on munching on his now bony McDonald's chicken, stripped of all meat, juxtaposed with the image of Dungi and Pilos drinking wine, feasting on overpriced meals and acting the wannabes. I was drowned in tears of anger, shuddered with disgust, for that was our money they were spending.

Our money.