What Stephan saw, left him dumbfounded. From the time he came inside the room, he did not notice the canvas. Now that he saw it, he felt strange.
"Amelia"
"Huh?" Amelia answered absentmindedly as she was still telling stories about her Grandma to Brad.
"Amelia!!" This time Stephan called her in a high pitched voice.
"Yeah. What happened?"
"Look at this!" Stephan pointed at the canvas which stood by the window.
"How is this possible?"
"I dunno."
They looked at each other, disbelief lacing their face. But Amelia's eyes widened suddenly. She inched closer to the canvas and raced her hands through it. She felt it clearly. There were three letters underneath those colorful strokes, and it was, "M U M." Amelia was astonished at the discovery. She immediately ran her fingers through the other part of the canvas to find any other leads, but found none. She looked at her husband staring at her with his eyes wide open. He asked, "You know this art?" It sounded more like a statement than a question.
"I do. And I taught him." She pointed at Brad who was lying peacefully on his bed.
"What is written?"
"Only one word."
"What is that?"
"MUM"
"He wanted to pass on a message to you. Don't you find this unbelievable?"
"For God's sake, Stephan! Don't you think what you are saying is ridiculous? He has a fucking symbol on his forehead! Try to understand. Nothing is unbelievable anymore."
Stephan was once again dumbfounded at his wife's outburst. He was wondering whether it was those times of the month when women have mood swings. His wife's mood changed faster than the speed of light. He felt sorry for his son in advance.
He tried to calm himself down and questioned, "What did you deduce from this?"
"I guess, he is trying to communicate with us, but he might not be able to come forward for the time being so he passed on this message." Amelia deduced quite correctly without having read the letter. While she was sharing her deduction with her husband, she suddenly remembered something and immediately realization hit her. She eyed her husband who was still standing at the doorway with batted breath. She called him. "Honey, can you pass that to me?"
"What is that?"
"I don't know, but we will know soon." Stephan passed the letter which Amelia kept inside the drawer. Amelia opened it and read the whole content. She was sure this was written by Brad. It couldn't be imitated by someone else. Brad missed her. Droplets of tears fell from her beautiful doe-shaped eyes.
"Oh Brad! My boy! Mum loves you a lot too. If you can hear me, please wake up fast. Mum misses you too. Mum will always be there for you, my child. Get well soon." As she was saying these things, she clearly felt that her left hand which was resting just beside Brad's head were moist. She confusedly looked at Brad's face and saw that there were tears at the corner of Brad's eyes. The moisture was yet to evaporate and it formed a straight water line. She was touched. She understood that Brad could hear her and missed her too. She stroked Brad's head and said, "Rest well my son. I'll come back soon." She then gestured her husband to follow her.
"What do you think?"
"I think we should visit the East Village."
"Why should we visit the East Village?"
"Don't be silly Stephan. You know very well that there are some secrets in our family, and only Grandma knows about it."
"But.. but…"
"No buts. We are going and that's final."
"At least tell me what is written in that letter. At least I have the right to see it, right?"
Amelia passed the letter to Stephan, who in turn read it very carefully. He noticed something and his eyebrows furrowed with worry. When Amelia saw her husband looking carefully at the letter with a face full of worry, she couldn't help but ask, "What happened, Honey?"
"Did you notice this line?"
"What is it?" Amelia asked.
"See this part – 'But believe me Mum, you should wait for at least half a month. Please don't do anything that you'll regret later.'" Stephan showed the letter to Amelia and pointed at the last line of the second paragraph.
Stephan pointed at another line again. "See this one too – 'Mum, I feel that you have gotten thinner. Mum, you need to eat and rest more. Don't torture yourself."
"How the hell did he know that you have gotten thinner?" Stephan looked at his wife and asked.
"Maybe… Maybe he can see us." Amelia stuttered a bit. How would she know? But she was touched at Brad's thoughtfulness.
"But he can't move!" Stephan refuted.
"Then, he must have thought that I will worry about him, so, he said those lines." Amelia guessed.
"That might be the case. Then, what about the first one?" Stephan asked holding a cigar in his right hand, and the letter in his left.