Instead of getting ready immediately, Daisy sat on the bed in a crouched position with her knees bent. The girl ruffled her hair in frustration, feeling utterly exhausted by fate, with the present life. The image of the dark past returned to her mind, making her feel so sick that she wanted to repeat it well so that she wasn't in the condition she was in now.
____
Flashback On
Uhhhhh... Uh-huh...
Deven cough several times, often even coughing it also bleeds. The woman was lying on a medium-sized bed with a yellowish-white bed sheet, with Daisy who continued to stare at her.
"Are you alright, mom?" Daisy asked innocently.
Deven took a breath that felt tight, even her body temperature was erratic, not clear. Her face was pale and slightly sweaty, her hair looked tousled like it was rarely combed, and even her body looked so thin.
"Mommy is okay….come here, come closer to mommy," she said, stretching out her hands.
Daisy approached Deven, put her head in her mother's arms, and hugged her. She looked at her mother worriedly, felt her breath quicken and her body trembled.
"Hold my hand," Deven shouted.
Daisy immediately intertwined her fingers with her mother's, still looking at her with more fear and sadness.
"You have to promise, you will be a respectable girl, always be careful, and don't accept random men as your love," Deven exclaimed with her breath already feeling increasingly tight. "You have to promise to love yourself more than loving a man who doesn't necessarily love you the way you love him….You must be a great woman so that no man dares to demean or do anything to you."
Daisy just kept quiet, didn't know what to say but her hands started to tremble, and keep intertwined her fingers with her mother's.
Deven took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, closing her eyes and sobbing. She kissed Daisy's face, then hugged her tightly.
"You have to promise... Take care of yourself and someday be a good mother..be a wife of a man who accepts you as you are ... Don't trust men easily," Deven whispered in tears, in breaths that were starting to feel tighter. "You have to fight against the harshness of this world. Do your best.. and never give up. never leave God, because God always helps us," she continued.
"Yes, Mom. I promise," Daisy whispered with a shaky voice, looking worriedly at her mother.
----
Little Daisy was comfortable in her mother's arms but suddenly she felt no movement or breath from her mother, even her mother's hand was not holding her hand tightly anymore. She lifted her head, then let go of the hug and immediately sat down looking at her mother worriedly.
"Mommy...mommy..." Daisy gently patted her mother's cheek, trying to wake her up but to no avail. Her mother was just silent with a puffy and dull face even paler.
"Mommy... Mommy, wake up!"
Daisy kept trying to wake her mother by shaking her body, hugging her, and pressing her ear to her chest as if she wanted to hear her heartbeat. The little girl also put her index finger on her mother's nose to feel her breath but she didn't feel anything.
Fear, and worry, that's how Daisy felt. She realized that her mother was dead, was not breathing and her heart was no longer beating. she began to cry, then hugged her mother tightly.
"Mom, you have to wake up. Mommy, don't leave me!" Daisy said in tears, her world seemed to fall, imagining how she would continue her life in a world full of cruelty and falsehood without her mother again. She let go of her arms, again trying to wake her mother but of course, her mother could not get up because she was dead.
"Maybe mom can still wake up if I continue to hug her….maybe God will help me and hear my prayer so that God doesn't take my mother," Daisy whispered in tears, then lay back down using her mother's arms as a pillow, then hugged her tightly. The girl looked at her mother's pale and puffy face when she gently rubbed the pulse of her cheek. "Mom...Mommy has to wake up. I'm scared...I'm so scared!"
That night, Daisy continued to hug her mother without letting her go for a second. The poor little girl kept praying for God to wake her mother again because right now the only God she believed in was only the God she believed in that could help her wake her up.
The next day...
Daisy woke up and glanced at her mother who was still silent and not breathing either. The little girl sat up and looked at her mother's face which was getting paler, her hands were very cold, and she could even feel her mother's body getting stiffer.
"Mommy, Now what should I do? I don't know what to do... Why did you have the heart to leave me... Why doesn't God answer your prayers and my prayers?" Daisy asked in unbearable tears. She didn't know what to do because, in that simple house that only had one room and was far from the neighbors, she was only with her mother. no one else, no one she knew, for they had recently moved there after being forced away by Fernando from their old house.
Knock... knock... knock...
Daisy heard a knock on the living room door. She quickly wiped her tears and crawled out of bed. The poor girl walked out of the room, finally arriving at the living room and opening the main door.
Check...
"Hey, Daisy. Where's your mother?" asked a woman who looked the same age as Deven.
"Mommy... Mommy is in the room and not moving anymore," replied Daisy, looking up at the woman who was wearing a gray casual suit combined with a maroon jacket.
The woman was immediately worried, then rushed to the only room in the simple house. Daisy also followed the woman by jogging until she finally arrived at the room.
"Deven..!"
The woman immediately sat on the edge of the bed, then held Deven's body which was already stiff, staring at her very pale face. undeniably, she knew that the woman before her was dead.
"Oh my God, since when was your mother like this?" She asked, turning to Daisy who was standing by the bed.
"Since last night," Daisy replied, bending her face. "I thought she would wake up after I hug her all night, but she didn't wake up again," she continued crying again.
The woman immediately got off the bed and then approached Daisy and hugged her, trying to calm her down. After that, she asked the residents for help with Deven's funeral procession.
Daisy couldn't help but be silent when several residents came to help with her mother's funeral procession. She sat on the edge of the bed, letting them remove a few things other than the clothes on her mother's body.
"This is your mother's necklace," said a man, handing her a black and brown butterfly-shaped necklace.
Daisy immediately took the necklace, then looked at it. she bowed her head again while crying, occasionally glancing at her mother who was taken out of the room to be bathed and then buried by the residents.
_____
In the afternoon after the funeral procession was over, Daisy returned home with the woman who had been with her for a long time and several residents who felt unable to leave her alone.
"There's no way she lives alone in this house, there's no one to meet her needs, take care of her….she's still too young to live alone here," said a man dressed simply in black pants and a red t-shirt.
"I want to help her. But my situation is also quite concerning...I'm just a washerwoman and I take care of my twins," said a middle-aged woman wearing a black dress suit.
"Neither can I," said another man.
"Then let me take care of her because I'm quite close to her mother," said the woman who first found Deven dead.
"Then take good care of her. One day you will gain wisdom for taking care of an orphan girl like her," said one of the men.
The woman nodded, then approached Daisy who was sitting on a chair. She crouched down in front of the languid little girl, then took her hands.
"Sweetheart, I hope you will live with me..we leave this house and I promise to give you a better life," she said.
Daisy was still silent because she was still thinking about her mother, who was still beside her yesterday but is now buried.
The woman sighed, then said, "ah. maybe you are confused about how to call me. I'm Nicole, you can call me mom because from today on I will take care of you like your mother."
Daisy shook her head because she felt that no one could replace her mother even though the woman in front of her looked so kind.
"Daisy, you better come with madam Nicole. It's better than you living here alone….You have to prove to your late mother that you can be a good girl and grow up and be successful," exclaimed the middle-aged woman while gently rubbing Daisy's head.
"I promise, I will do whatever is best for you including paying for your school..we live in the city... I have a house there and I also have some children there. You can be their friend and you won't feel lonely anymore….I can even take you here to visit your mother's grave if you miss her," Nicole said with a sad look.
Daisy remained silent and pensive. She remembered the last sentence her mother said, remembered that she promised to follow everything her mother said. The little girl forced herself to follow the advice of the residents to join Nicole in moving to another city.
Flashback off