The room was quiet in a way that felt wrong.
Morning light crept through the thin curtains, touching the cracked wall and the small table where yesterday’s empty bowls still sat. Dust floated in the air, glowing softly. The city outside was already awake—vendors calling, engines starting—but inside the room, time seemed stuck, holding its breath.
On the mattress by the wall lay their mother.
She hadn’t moved all night.
At first, the children thought she was just sleeping. She had been sick for days, her cough deep and rattling, her skin burning with fever. The night before, she had pulled the blanket tighter around herself and whispered, “Mama just needs rest.” She smiled at them, tired but gentle, and told them everything would be fine in the morning.
So they waited.
The youngest, Lina, woke first. Her stomach hurt the way it always did when there was no food. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking toward her mother out of habit. Mama usually woke before them, even when she was ill, to boil water or scrape together something small to eat.
“Mama?” Lina whispered.
No answer.
She slid off the mattress and padded across the cold floor. She tugged lightly at her mother’s sleeve. “Mama, I’m hungry.”
Her mother didn’t stir.
Lina frowned, confused. She pulled harder this time, small fingers clutching worn fabric. “Mama?”
Still nothing.
The older boy, Dara, sat up then, his face already tight with worry. He had learned, too early, how to read silence. He crossed the room quickly and knelt beside his sister.
“Mama’s tired,” he said, more to himself than to Lina. “Let her sleep.”
But his voice shook.
He placed his hand on their mother’s arm. It felt wrong—too still, too cool. He swallowed hard and shook her gently.
“Mom,” he said, louder now. “Mom, wake up.”
The middle child, Sopheak, stirred and sat up, watching them with wide eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Dara didn’t answer. He shook their mother again, panic rising fast and sharp in his chest.
“Mom! Please!”
Lina began to cry.
The sound filled the room, thin and desperate. She climbed onto the mattress, pressing her small face against her mother’s shoulder, sobbing. “Mama, please wake up. I’m hungry. I’m cold.”
Nothing.
The truth crept in slowly, painfully, like a shadow stretching across the floor. Dara had seen sickness before—neighbors, relatives—but he had never seen this stillness. He pressed his ear against his mother’s chest, holding his breath, listening for something he desperately needed to hear.
There was only silence.
His hands began to tremble.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no…”
Sopheak moved closer, her eyes darting between her brother’s face and their mother’s unmoving body. “Dara?”
He looked at his sisters then, really looked at them—Lina’s tear-streaked cheeks, Sopheak’s frightened stare—and something inside him broke. He wanted to scream, to cry like Lina, to crawl into his mother’s arms and disappear.
But he was the oldest.
He had to do something.
“Stay here,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ll get help.”
“But I’m hungry,” Lina sobbed.
“I know,” he said softly, brushing her hair back with shaking fingers. “I know. I’ll be back. I promise.”
He didn’t know if it was a promise he could keep.
He ran barefoot into the street, heart pounding, eyes burning. He banged on doors, shouted for help, his words tumbling over each other. Some people opened their doors halfway, startled, still half-asleep. Others turned away, afraid or unsure.
Finally, an old woman recognized the panic in his face and followed him inside.
She took one look at the mother and covered her mouth.
“Oh, child,” she whispered.
Soon, more people came. Someone called for an ambulance. Someone else brought bread and water for the children, pressing food into Lina’s hands while she cried and ate at the same time, confused and scared.
The siren arrived too late.
The men who carried their mother away spoke gently, but their eyes told the truth before anyone said it aloud. Dara stood frozen, watching the doorway where his mother had disappeared, feeling like the room itself had been hollowed out.
That night, the children huddled together on the mattress.
The room felt bigger without her, emptier. Lina kept reaching for her mother in her sleep, waking up crying when she wasn’t there. Sopheak stared at the ceiling, silent tears slipping into her hair. Dara lay awake, listening to their breathing, terrified of the quiet.
In the days that followed, the world moved on with a cruelty that shocked him. The sun rose. People laughed. Shops opened. Hunger returned, sharp and unforgiving.
Their mother didn’t.
Neighbors helped where they could—rice one day, soup the next—but help was uncertain, never enough. Dara tried to be strong. He stood in lines, asked questions, learned words he shouldn’t have needed to know yet: paperwork, shelter, temporary.
At night, when his sisters slept, he cried silently, pressing his face into the pillow so they wouldn’t hear.
He missed the small things most—the sound of her coughing in the night, the way she scolded gently, the way she always gave them the biggest portion even when she was sick. He replayed her last smile over and over, wondering if he should have known, if he could have done something more.
The guilt sat heavy on his chest.
One evening, Lina asked a question that stole his breath.
“Is Mama still sick?”
He knelt in front of her, eyes level with hers. “Mama… isn’t sick anymore.”
“Then when is she coming back?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. His throat burned.
“She’s… resting,” he said finally. “In a place where she doesn’t hurt.”
Lina nodded slowly, as if trying to understand something too big for her small heart. “When I’m hungry, can I tell her?”
Tears spilled down his face before he could stop them. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.
“I’ll listen,” he whispered. “You can tell me.”
Weeks passed.
Life did not become easier, but it became different. Dara learned how to cook simple meals. Sopheak learned how to soothe Lina when she cried. They learned how to survive without the warmth of their mother’s presence, even though every day felt like walking with something missing.
Sometimes, at night, they talked about her.
“The way she sang,” Sopheak said once.
“The way she smiled,” Lina added.
Dara listened, heart aching, but also warming. Their mother lived in those memories—in every kindness they showed each other, in every small act of care she had taught them without knowing it.
One morning, as the sun filtered into the room again, Lina woke and didn’t cry right away. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked at Dara.
“I dreamed of Mama,” she said softly. “She said she loves us.”
Dara smiled through tears. “She always will.”
They were still hungry. Still afraid. Still children who had lost too much too soon.
But they were together.
And in that fragile togetherness—built from grief, love, and the echo of a mother who never woke up—they found the strength to face another day.
