A Mother's Hunch

Mother was very fond of her. She couldn’t wait a moment longer and told me about it the very same day, right after she coincidentally met her at a nearby car service centre. I said I didn’t want to get to know this young woman I barely knew, but Mother said, “who knows, someday it might work out.” I held my ground, saying I would never dream of mustering up the courage to date some random girl Mother happened to find somewhere down the street.

Mother pictured her as a petite, fair, polite, demure lass from a state north of Terengganu. She shuffled daily between a rented house and her white-collar profession at the nearby general hospital in Dungun. By the time Mother walked over to the entrance, the girl’s genuine smile had already stolen her soul. From then on, she seeped into Mother’s heart with her impeccable manners as she spoke.

Their encounter sparked a merry conversation that drifted into awkward interrogation. She blushingly confessed, “no man has ever shown interest in me,” while the henna-painted ornaments on her hands caught Mother’s curiosity. She explained that they were from her role as a bridesmaid (pengapit pengantin) at her cousin’s wedding recently.

“You can befriend my son!” Mother blurted the unthinkable—or so she told me afterwards.

“Jange lah gitu, malu lah sayo…” she replied, demurely, in her thick Kelantanese accent. I felt embarrassed on my own behalf.

“He too has no special friend,” Mother said of my life. Almost true. “Just like you, he’s just got himself a job.” Nope, not true—I had already been sitting behind a desk for two years, while she had only been working six months. Mother later admitted she told her that I had just started a job after graduating from a local university. The girl replied, “malu lah sayo…” and “sayo blaja setakak STP jah…” Perhaps a self-esteem issue: I was a university graduate, while she was a village damsel who had finished high school. Mother said it didn’t matter. Neither of us in the family measured people by such worldly yardsticks.

Mother also told me that the girl’s mother, like her, was a single mother. But while Father had died, hers had found separation a better path to happiness. It happened when she was still small. Mother even mentioned that the girl’s car registration number was eerily similar to mine—a strange coincidence. She admitted no other young woman had ever drawn her interest before, but this one named Intan was different. Mother thought she might be the one. It was a mother’s hunch.

At one point, Intan said, “mitok maaf lah mok cik (I’m sorry, aunty).” It was during the body-roll of her Perodua Viva as she took a sharp corner, pushing Mother slightly against the door panel. Mother said it was fine. A few minutes later, Intan dropped her off at the entrance of our house. Mother’s car was left at the service centre.

Hours later, Mother recounted everything to me. She even gave me Intan’s phone number, telling me to let my heart decide. But I could not give her my word. By then, I was already drawn to someone else long before Mother ever met Intan.