Pockets

By Sahana Prabu

Posted on August 1, 2025

Cover Image Title: Tucked in

Title Image by: Nathan Savone

Classification: Photography

Specifications: Resized from 2250 pixels x 3000 pixels

Year: 2025

Trigger Warning: Please note that this narrative may contain references to distressing language, including Eating Disorders (EDs).

97 years ago, a new apartment was being built near the woods where hills turned into climbing roads.  From abandoned fields grew apartment buildings. When it was dark, the fireflies swept through the wind like floating yellow sapphires. This apartment would be called The Whitebridge Apartments.  On the 2nd story of one building, a mother with her 7 year old and a 2 year old daughter moved in. And how victorious the apartment felt for the mother with a salary that came out of sewing hems to dresses. But everyone has dreams. The mother wanted a large blackboard and a box of white chalk that would be heavy enough to fill both her hands.. She wanted a tuition room and history textbooks, and a crib for her youngest  that would dangle right next to her desk as she taught. The past came with humanizing revelations. It intrigued this mother of 2 enough to dream of teaching it. One day. 

The day would come soon, she hoped. Until then, she and her seven year old took turns washing the dishes in the evenings. Meanwhile, the 2 year old kept choosing spoons, forks, and really anything that fit through the gaps of the balcony railing to throw.

Late March, spring arose from its torpor.  The eldest daughter was at school while the mother and her two year old were at work. The mother sewed, the young one crouched on a high chair pinching dirt with two fingers. It occurred to the mother how the fan in their compact lounge creaking woke her up  twice earlier that night. While it was still fresh in her mind, the mother borrowed the telephone at work and dialed the leasing office.

“Hello,”

“Yes, my fan. It keeps waking us up. The noise. Yes, it’s gotten worse for us. Can someone fix it please?”

A week passed after the phone call, yet the people from the leasing office never arrived to fix the creaking fan. The mother was on her day off that day. The afternoon sun smiled all teeth.  The eldest daughter was at school. While the mother was asleep. Apparently, that afternoon, a knock appeared on the door. Followed by another knock. And another. It was a man in orange, appointed by the management to repair their creaking fan. Another knock. But the mother was too fast asleep to hear it. The man in orange kept knocking. Patience is a thin line. And therefore, the man in orange took out a key that happened to unlock any apartment door and stepped through with muddy boots and all. He didn’t see the baby behind the chair. He didn’t see this baby waddle out the open door. Nor did he see this baby pad down the stairs. One soft barefoot at a time.

The man in orange had finished replacing the fan with a polished one by the time the mother awoke. A shadow loomed over her. Her heart lurched and she jolted upright. She stared up at this man in horror even as her eyes bore the remnants of sleep.

“Who…”

The man in orange stepped back. His words bubbled and tripped. “Ma’am, I knocked. I promise you I knocked. No one answered and I had a key.”

The mother scrambled out of bed and pushed past him. Something unsettled her. She shuffled over to the kitchen, scanned the closet, and the single bathroom and the bed she’d been sleeping on. She ran out into the woods barefoot. Her voice quivered as she screamed out for her baby daughter. The man in orange kept stammering. Although the mother refused to believe it, he had mentally confirmed. He coaxed the woman to call the cops. 

“Ma’am please,”

“Ma’am,”

“Ma’am,”

“Ma’am,”

The mother did call the police. Yet, the facts remained the same; the 2 year old was never to be found again. Since then, the mother couldn’t tell when her vision was swimming and when it wasn’t. She starved herself, and she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed when she found the silver forks and napkins thrown out the balcony. She skipped work and stared at the walls.

Then, she sued.

3 days after her daughter went missing, the mother sued the apartment management. She didn’t leave out the man in orange, either. She took her case to the local courtroom. It reeked of damp paper. The mother had poured every last piece of herself onto her case. She recounted the same story folds and manifolds to the officers, lawyers, anyone who bothered to listen. 

“I called,” she announced hoarsely in the courtroom. “I called a week before. If they had come when they said they would, this wouldn’t have happened.”

But here is what the mother didn’t know: the case decision had been predetermined even before she stepped into the courtroom. And there, in the pockets of the lawyers and judges, sagged an envelope cover with thousands of dollar bills. The envelope was neatly folded with care, and on the front was a stamp with bleeding ink. It read “The Whitebridge Apartments.”

Now, you would think, if only there had been a doorbell. If only the apartment hadn’t been in the middle of a shaggy forest. If only patience wasn’t such a scrawny white line.

[ Writing Editor: Paul A. Shannon. ]