The key turns in the lock, mechanisms whirring into place, and I scuff my shoes on the doormat outside our new apartment. The slab of particleboard painted white meets slight resistance as it swings open there is an assortment of shoes lining the wall, my parents' and my own, a mild disarray of balled up socks and shoelaces. There it is, a lifelong habit of changing out of our shoes and leaving them by the door, slipping bare feet into Bata sandals when we get home. Except here there are no Bata sandals here, only wall-to-wall carpeting, rendering those thin-soled slippers unnecessary.

I walk in through the door and it is the same routine. There is no smell of cooking coming from the kitchen, no hiss of browning onions on a skillet or the steady chop-chop-chop of vegetables being sliced. The aromatic candle that my mother insists on lighting after her weekend cooking frenzy sits benignly on the kitchen counter. Both of them out, my parents, and for the time being I am left to pace the three rooms of this tiny American apartment in my bare feet.

And then I see it.

A yellow Post-It note, pressed flat down on the surface of the dining table that doubles as my father's study desk, flutters almost imperceptibly in the draft my entrance has caused. I recognise my mother's familiar hand, the slight rightwards slant, the message in both Bengali and English. “Salad's in the fridge. Eat it with the chicken.” No sign-off, no X's or O's in the typical American style. Familial expressions of affection, as far as I know, are reserved for birthday cards and special occasions. Lunch is neither one of the two.

Still I feel an unfamiliar stirring. I pluck the Post-It off the table and smooth out a slightly bent corner. A somewhat overwhelming thought, that for the last nineteen years my mother has been doing just that, leaving me little notes, not always written down, but still indelibly stamped across the span of my life.

Perhaps she would say “Here's how you do it” as she angled a nail cutter above my three-year-old hand. Perhaps she stood by the bathroom door and watched while I shampooed my mop of hair for the first time. Perhaps she knows all too well the scrape of Teflon shoe straps, having strapped many a pair of Bata sneakers onto my feet so that my older brother could guide me across the cool mosaic floor. I wouldn't know, because I never asked her, how she came with a built in How-To manual in her head.

Or maybe mothers are magical like that.

“And the cow jumped over the moon,” she would read to me, my pajama-clad body clinging to hers as her milky white hands turned the pages. And when I came down with a cold, or woke up with a toothache, she would sit on the edge of the bed and lay her cool palm on my forehead. Instant anecdote, no matter how many moons passed. She knew just how much green chilli to mix in with my rice, and how I liked my tea. She knew the exact measure of cough syrup, the kinds of shampoos that would irritate my scalp. “No, you can't have that,” she would say to me, shaking her head at some item I wanted to purchase, and though I was loath to put away the candy bar or the Palmolive soap I knew, secretly, that she was right.

Before we moved there had never been notes. Messages were left with my brother, my father, the cook frying fish in the kitchen. “Your mother said you should do your homework before dinner,” these emissaries would relay to me, and I, occasionally unwillingly but mostly acceptingly, would do what my mommy told me to do.

Today is no exception. I take the salad out, the lettuce and cabbage and spring onions already mixed in. My favourite dressing, Thousand Islands, has been relocated to the front of the rack on the fridge. No doubt my mother's doing. The chicken is sliced, tossed in, mixed up, and while I carry my lunch into the living room I see the note on the kitchen counter. Benign, unassuming, unremarkable and at once extraordinary, and I stop in my tracks and tuck the note into my pocket. A keepsake.