Page 34 of Status Undefined
“Give it here.” Keren saw me struggling and came to my aid.
She went into my Instagram account and uploaded the clip as a story. It all happened so fast. I tried to grab the phone away from her but she turned away, finished what she was doing, and then gave it back.
“There. Now he’ll be able to share the clip as soon as there’s good enough reception. Oh, and you should answer your followers. You’ve got tons of notifications.”
“I don’t have any followers other than Daniel.”
“Then you’ve got tons of requests from people who want to follow you – me included, by the way.”
Reluctantly I pulled up Instagram and tapped the little red button at the top. Keren wasn’t kidding. There were hundreds of requests – probably from followers of Daniel who had seen our photo. I had no intention of approving any of them but it was incredible to realize how many people were interested in what Daniel and I were up to. I didn’t get why. I looked at the DMs and saw so many expressions of support – some bordering on fan-like. People wanted to be like us – a couple living the good life in Thailand – apparently. Maybe they were even jealous of my relationship with Daniel. How naive they were. I felt sorry for them.
One of the profile pictures stood out for some reason. It was hard to see who it was from the little picture, but I had a weird feeling. I opened the message, sent a week earlier and read:
“Amitush! It’s Mom. How are you? I saw you on a friend’s phone. Can we talk?”
January 1
(visa expires in 13 days)
“Babe?” Daniel saw me staring at my phone.
The surrounding noise seemed to have subsided. All my attention was focused on one short message that I had spent years waiting for.
“What’s up?”
I handed him the phone and translated the message.
“Oh my god! Is it really her?”
I nodded, and he looked at it again.
“I wonder which of my followers is her friend. Are you going to reply?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say. “I’m going home.”
“Hang on. We’ll all come with you.”
“No. You should stay. Really. I need some alone time.” I stood up and headed for the exit.
I’d only gone a few steps when a familiar hand touched my shoulder and pulled me back into a warmhearted hug.
“Keep me posted. You don’t have to go through this alone. I’m here for you, okay?”
I nodded into his chest, and he let me go.
We exchanged a tight smile and walked in opposite directions.
I had to make a decision about something that had been a major issue in my life since long before I got to Thailand and met Daniel or Keren – and I needed to do it alone.
I went home, undressed and climbed into bed. I read the message from my mother again. I tapped the picture to look at her profile, but there were no images. Maybe she had set up an Instagram account just to contact me. How could I be sure it was her? Maybe someone was messing with me. It didn’t seem like something my father would do, but I had to be sure.
“Yes. I have to call her,” I told myself aloud, to summoncourage. In her time zone, wherever she is, it’s probably still last year, I thought. Weird. On a symbolic level, it felt like I was about to make a phone call to my past. My relationship with my mother had been frozen in place for many years; I’d been through so much that she knew nothing about. I had changed so much; I wasn’t the same person that she knew before. How could one phone call merge my past and present selves?
I stared at the green call button on the screen. All I had to do was tap it.
I stayed like that, frozen, until it started to get light outside.
It took everything in me to tap that green button. I did it fast, so I didn’t have time to back out. It was like bungee jumping off a bridge (not that I had any first-hand experience of that). It rang. No answer. I decided to count five more rings and then hang up. I was relieved but also let down because it had taken so much courage to even try. It rang five more times, and I was about to hang up when a voice I had not heard for many years said hello.
