ঠিক আছে ভাই, নাও *চ্যাপ্টার ৩* — এখানে গল্পটা আরও গভীরে যাবে, পাঠক একদম আটকে যাবে:
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*Title: The Mother Who Sold Rain*
*Chapter 3: The Price of a Palm*
Morning in the city came with the smell of garbage trucks and tea stalls.
Mother woke up before me. She was already sitting, her back straight against the hospital wall, looking at her hands. Both palms now. The left one had a thin, fresh cut. The right one was still wrapped in a dirty cloth from yesterday.
She didn't say anything. She just took out two bottles from her bag. Filled them with water from the hospital tap. Then, very slowly, she unwrapped the cloth from her right hand and pressed the knife.
I turned my face away. I couldn't watch. But I heard the small sound she made. Not a scream. Just air leaving her lungs, like someone had punched her softly in the stomach.
When I looked back, both bottles were pink. Lighter than yesterday. She was getting weak. The blood didn't flow as fast.
"We go to the same corner," she said. Her voice was hoarse. "People remember a face."
We went. The rich woman with gold bangles was not there. But other people came. A rickshaw puller. A school teacher. A young boy who said his sister was sick.
They all paid. 200 taka. 500 taka. One man gave 1000 and didn't even take a bottle. He just put the money in mother's hand and said, "Buy your son medicine, sister."
By noon, we had 11,400 taka.
Mother's face was pale. She was sweating even though it wasn't hot. She leaned against a wall to stand.
"Ma, let's go back," I whispered. "You're hurting."
She smiled at me. A real smile, tired but real. "I'm not hurting, beta. I'm working. Fathers work in fields. Mothers work with whatever they have."
That's when the police came.
Not for her. For a thief across the street. But one policeman saw mother. Saw the bottles. Saw the blood on the cloth wrapped around her hand.
"What are you selling?" he asked, not unkindly, just doing his job.
Mother froze. For the first time, I saw fear in her eyes. Real fear. Not of pain. Of being stopped.
"Water, sir," she said. "Just... water."
He picked up a bottle. Held it to the light. The pink was faint now, almost gone.
"You're scamming people," he said. "This is just tap water."
Mother didn't argue. She just looked down.
The policeman sighed. He was young. Maybe he had a mother too. He put the bottle down.
"Go home," he said quietly. "Before I change my mind."
We walked away fast. Mother's legs were shaking. We didn't go back to the corner.
We went back to the hospital pavement. She counted the money again. 11,400 taka.
Still not 50,000.
Night fell. Ayan was in the village, with our neighbor. Coughing alone. We were here, with money that wasn't enough.
Mother looked at her hands. There was no place left to cut that wouldn't make her unable to hold a bottle.
Then she looked at me.
And I knew, with a certainty that made my blood cold, what she was thinking.
She was looking at my small hands. My uncut palms.
"Ma..." I said, my voice breaking.
She pulled me into her lap, hugged me tight, and started to cry. Properly cry, for the first time since father died.
"No," she whispered into my hair, again and again. "No, no, no. Not you. Never you."
But we both knew the truth.
We were running out of things to sell. And the hospital would not wait.
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*End of Chapter 3*
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