It began with the mirror.
She stood in front of it for a long time that morning. Longer than usual.
I was in the kitchen when I heard her voice.
"There is a strange woman in my room."
My heart stopped.
I rushed to her bedroom.
She was pointing at her reflection.
"Ma," I said softly. "That's you."
She looked frightened.
"No," she whispered. "She's old."
The word shattered something inside me.
She moved closer to the mirror, touching her own face carefully, like she was examining a stranger.
"When did she get these lines?" she asked.
I walked behind her and wrapped my arms around her thin shoulders.
"You've always been beautiful," I whispered into her hair.
She didn't hear me.
Her eyes were fixed on the woman staring back.
"I had a daughter," she said slowly. "She was small. She had big eyes. She used to hide behind me when she was scared."
"That was me," I said, my voice trembling.
She turned.
She studied my face like someone trying to read a language they once knew fluently.
"You look… kind," she said gently.
Kind.
Not daughter.
Not Aarohi.
Just kind.
That day I understood something unbearable.
She wasn't just forgetting who I was.
She was forgetting who she was.
That night, I removed the mirror from her room.
Because sometimes the truth is crueler than the disease.