07-09-2026, 09:23 PM
Chapter 25 (Continued)
1 December 2025 – Monday
The lift in the office building was already full when I reached it. Someone was talking about a client call. Someone else was holding a paper cup of tea that smelled too sweet. I stood at the back with the tiffin bag against my leg and looked at the floor numbers changing. Four. The doors opened. The same glass, the same carpet, the same low hum of air-conditioning that never fully removed the Monday feeling.
I swiped my card. The security man nodded the way he nodded every day. I walked to my desk near the east windows.
Rohan was already there. Vikram came two minutes later. They said the usual things. Weekend finished too soon. Inbox is full. Delivery is close. I said yes and opened the laptop.
Mr. Sinha was more agitated than Friday.
I saw it before he even came to our cluster. He was moving between the glass cabin and the other desks with a file in his hand. His shirt sleeves were rolled. He spoke shorter sentences. A delivery date that had felt far in November was now sitting on this week. People on the floor were quieter when he passed.
He stopped at our row around ten-thirty.
“Sunny. The revised sheet from Friday. Is it in the shared folder or only in mail?”
“Both, sir. I put it Friday evening.”
“Open it. Show me the sprint numbers again. I don’t want another old figure going to the client.”
He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Friday was still in the cabin with us. I opened the file. The numbers were correct this time. I had checked them twice on Friday after the meeting and once more in my head on the bike this morning, in the gaps between the dream and the tadka. He looked. He nodded once.
“Good. Stay on this module today. No half work. We are close to delivery.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left. Rohan looked at his screen. Vikram typed. No one mentioned Friday out loud. That was enough.
The morning, somehow, went relatively well.
I say relatively because the work got done. Two smaller tickets. Comments on a shared document. A short call with Sameer from the other group about an API that both teams touched. My hands knew the keyboard. My eyes stayed on the screen longer than they had on Friday. From the outside it would have looked like a normal Monday.
I even answered a doubt on the group chat without delay. A junior from another tower had tagged three of us. Vikram was on a call. Rohan was at the pantry. I wrote the steps in simple lines and sent them. The junior replied with a thank you. For ten minutes I felt like a person who works in an office and not like a person who had locked his own door from the outside knowing what the afternoon was for.
From the inside it was not so clean.
Every time I paused, the third-floor flat came back. The peach nighty. The flour on her wrist. The way the dream had put Azad Sahab on our bed and then taken him away when she shook my shoulder.
I drank water. I did not look at the clock every minute. Only every few minutes.
At twelve-forty people started moving toward the pantry. Vikram asked if I was coming. I said I had brought lunch. He nodded and went. Sameer passed my desk, saw the steel boxes, and grinned the same way he had on Friday.
“Home food again. Lucky.”
I smiled a little. He left.
I stayed at the desk.
I opened the tiffin.
The sabzi was exactly as she had said — dry, extra jeera, the smell that belonged to our kitchen and not to this floor. The roti was still soft. I ate slowly because eating slowly gave my hands something to do.
I preferred to sit alone.
The pantry would have meant talk. Talk would have meant my face. My face was not ready.
My body temperature felt high. Not fever. The other heat. The one that had started in the bathroom at dawn and had not fully left. Anxiety sat in my stomach under the food. I kept thinking in simple questions that had no simple answers.
Would he be there by now?
He had said that last night in the kitchen. Afternoon. Before the boy comes. Keep the door ready.
It was lunch time here. At home, it was the same lunch time. If he had gone up, he would already be in our room.
Would they be doing it?
The question arrived in those words. I did not dress it up.
I saw yesterday’s kitchen without trying. Her back against the fridge. His hand on her raised wrist. The clean underarm. The kiss that was not a small kiss. The way her mouth had opened. The way the blouse had pulled over the upper curve of her breast. The way she had said yes for today.
Then the hotel came.
I had tried for days not to let those videos sit in the front of my mind at office. Today they came anyway. White sheets. Her hair fallen forward. Her mouth on him. The way she had looked up once at the camera, or at him, I still did not know which. The sound that the phone speaker had not fully caught. I had watched it only twice and then locked the phone and felt sick and hard at the same time. That feeling returned now, at a desk, with dal on my spoon.
Then the dream.
The peach nighty on the floor. The payal. The thick vein. Her saying inside. His face turning to the bathroom slit. Come out, Sunny. This is the new rent.
I put the spoon down.
I was hard under the desk. Fully. The kind that makes the formal pants feel too thin. I sat forward so the table would hide it. I looked at the monitor as if the code could save me. The cursor blinked. I did not type.
I took out my phone.
WhatsApp. Her chat. I did not message. I only looked at the last seen.
Through the morning it had been moving.
I had checked once after reaching, when I sent her the line I had promised — reached. She had replied with a single okay and a folded-hands emoji she rarely used. Last seen then was 9:41.
At 10:20 it was 10:18.
At 11:05 it was 11:02.
At 12:10 it was 12:07.
Every five minutes, more or less. Online, offline, online again. A person who is in the house with a phone nearby. Packing. Bathing. Messaging him. Messaging me. Waiting.
I ate two more bites. I checked again at 1:15. Last seen 1:11.
Then I went to the washroom because sitting with that hardness was becoming stupid. I did not do anything there. I only stood, breathed, washed my face, and came back. The heat did not fall by much.
At 2:10 I checked again. Last seen 2:00 PM.
At 2:25 it was still 2:00.
I put the phone face down. I told myself she was bathing, or the phone was on charge, or she had kept it inside the almirah while she slept the way she had said she could not sleep.
At 2:40 it was still 2:00.
At 3:30, when the afternoon tea trolley passed our row and someone asked if I wanted cutting chai, it was still 2:00.
That was when the worry changed shape.
She had said in the morning, maybe she would sleep. She had also said once she bathed, sleep would not come. So which sentence was true now?
If she was sleeping, the last seen could stay still. People sleep with the phone under the pillow and do not touch it. She had done that many nights.
But Azad Sahab would not leave her so easily. Last night he had said the waiting was bullshit. He had said tomorrow he was not asking. He had said he would make up for the days. A man who speaks like that does not sit on the chair and watch a woman nap.
Unless she was truly that tired.
Sleep had not come for her last night. I had seen it on her face. Dark under the eyes. The way she packed the boxes with flour on her nighty, dedicated and slow. If he had come, how would she manage him today? Would she tell him she is tired? Would he listen? Last night he had not liked being postponed.
I stared at the last seen as if it would move if I stared enough.
It did not.
2:00 PM.
I tried to give the frozen time ordinary meanings. Phone battery dead. Phone left in the bathroom. Phone on silent under a pillow. Network in our building sometimes dropped for no reason; the lift motor and the old wiring made strange things happen. I told myself all of that. None of it sat properly. She charged the phone every night. She did not leave it in the bathroom. She had been online every few minutes from morning until two. A person does not go from that rhythm to zero unless the hands are busy or the body is away from the phone on purpose.
I put the phone in the drawer for ten minutes. Then I took it out again. Still 2:00.
The module in front of me was simple. I made it look finished. Inside, I was only doing one calculation. If he went up at two, he could still be there at four. If he went up at two, the phone would not move. If she was under him, she would not check WhatsApp. If she was asleep beside him, she would not check WhatsApp. Both pictures lived in the same last seen.
The floor had women. It had always had women. I had never made a habit of watching them. Project talk, lift talk, that was all.
Today my eyes went anyway.
Not first to the girls near my age. There were two in the next cluster, both newly joined, both in jeans and simple tops, both laughing at something on a phone. I saw them and felt almost nothing. The strange part was the other direction.
I looked longer at the older ones.
A woman from accounts, maybe fourty- forty-two, in a cream kurti, standing at the printer. A team lead from the far side, late thirties, hair tied, speaking to a man with her arms folded, the blouse sitting close on her when she breathed. I did not know their names well. I still looked. The looking had a reason I did not like. After months of watching Ma’s neckline change, after last night’s kitchen, after this morning’s dream, my eyes had learned a shape. Full. Settled. A body that had already lived a life. The younger girls looked unfinished next to that. I felt the wrongness of the thought and I still did not stop the thought.
Then I saw Nair ma’am.
She is HR. She interviewed me in June, in a small cabin with a glass wall. I remember her questions more than I remember my answers. Why this company. Why this city. Are you comfortable with shifts if needed. She had been strict and also easy in the same conversation. Extrovert. She laughed once when I said I was not much of a social person, and then she wrote something on her pad.
She is around thirty-eight or forty. Married. There is a small ring she never removes. She is fit in a way office women who walk and eat less are fit. Dusky skin. Not fair. Nowhere close to Ma in the face. Ma’s face is softer. Ma’s body is heavier in the chest and hips. Nair ma’am is tighter, more held in. Still, the body, curves and fullness are there. She wears clothes that fit. Not vulgar. Fashionable. Today it was a rust-coloured fitted kurti and black trousers that sat close on her hips. The kurti had a neck that was not low, but the cloth was not loose either. When she walked, the shape was clear.
She moved across our floor in the afternoon. She stopped at two senior desks. She spoke, smiled, checked something on her tab, and moved again. People sat up a little when she came. Strictness does that. Then she went back toward her cabin at the end of the corridor, the one with the frosted glass and her name on a small plate.
I watched her till the cabin door closed.
I did not imagine her the way I had imagined Ma. I only noticed that my eyes had chosen her over the girls, and that the choice said something about the months at home that I did not want to say in words.
I went back to the screen.
Last seen: 2:00 PM.
By five I had packed the smaller work.
The delivery pressure was still in the air, but my part for the day was in the folder. I put the empty tiffin boxes into the bag. I checked the phone again.
Still 2:00 PM.
Three hours without a touch. In our house that was not normal. She used the phone too much now. Messages. Reels. His chat. Even on Saturday when she stayed in, the screen had kept lighting. A last seen frozen at two meant either sleep or a room where the phone had been put face down and left.
I opened the maps app. Traffic toward home was showing less time than usual. Twenty five minutes. Sometimes it was forty - forty-five. If I left now I could reach before five thirty. Fairly earlier than usual timing of six-six thirty.
I stood. I slung the bag. I was almost at the lift lobby when my phone rang.
Mr. Sinha.
“Sunny. Have you left?”
“I am at the lift, sir.”
“There is a file the client asked for. Old logs. Can you pull them and send if you have not gone down yet. It will not take long. I don’t want to look for someone else now.”
Friday sat in the request. The wrong numbers. The cabin. You are not fully here today.
“I have not left, sir. I will do it.”
“Good. Send it to me and to the shared mail. Then you can go.”
I went back to the desk. Rohan had already left. Vikram was shutting his laptop and raised his eyebrows.
“Forgot something?”
“Sir wants a file.”
“Ah. Delivery week.” He picked up his bag and left.
The task was small. It was also buried. Old folder names. Wrong dates. A log that should have been tagged and was not. I found it. I checked it. I zipped it. I mailed it. I waited for the sent confirmation. Mr. Sinha replied with one line: received.
One hour gone.
The clock on the corner of the screen said 6:02.
I left.
The basement smelled of hot engines. My bike was where I had left it. I strapped the tiffin, put the helmet on, and rolled up the ramp into the evening.
Traffic had increased.
The maps had been honest at five and were lying now. The signal near the metro held a long chain of brake lights. A bus blocked the left lane. Scooters tried to slip through and failed. I kept the engine steady and the questions moving.
Would he have left by now?
Six o’clock was late for an afternoon visit if he wanted to be downstairs before the building filled. Ammi would be awake again. The maid was still not back. He had a shop, another building, calls. A man like that does not stay till night on a Monday unless he decides to.
What would have happened.
The sentence did not stay clean. Kiss. Smooch. The hotel mouth. The dream. The closed last seen. I saw our bed in the daylight that would have been in the room at two and three and four. I saw the thin curtain. I saw the windows. I saw her phone on the folding table, unused.
A car horn behind me made me move. I had been sitting after the light turned green.
The flyover was slower than morning. The station road was worse. I did not check the phone at signals because putting one foot down and taking the phone out with the helmet on was stupid. I wanted to. I did not.
At one signal I could not help it. I pulled the phone out under the helmet strap and unlocked it with one thumb. Last seen still 2:00 PM. No new message. No missed call. If she had finished and wanted to look normal, she would have at least opened the app. The frozen time meant the afternoon was still sitting on the phone, or she had not yet become the woman who sends okay and folded hands.
A man on the next bike looked at me holding the phone at a green light. I put it away and moved.
By the time our lane came into view the sky was the colour of early night, not late evening. Shop lights were on. The vegetable vendor was still calling. I turned into the compound at 7:05.
I parked in the usual strip.
That was when the other feeling started.
Two children were still kicking a ball. The watchman was on his chair. A woman from the second floor was crossing with a milk bag. A man I did not know well was locking a scooter. None of them said my name. None of them pointed. And still I felt as if every person passing was looking at me with a sentence already prepared.
We know.
We heard.
She was loud.
He stayed long.
Your mother.
I removed the helmet. The compound air was warmer than the road. I locked the bike. I stood for a second with the tiffin bag in my hand and looked at the windows of our floor. The grill was dark from here. I could not tell if the tube light was on.
Was he still upstairs?
If I opened the door and found him, what would I do. Nod. Say namaste. Put the bag down. Wait for him to leave. Speak. Not speak. The acceptance I had given on Thursday was for the truth, not for a script. I had no line ready for a man standing in our room at ten to seven with my mother’s smell on him.
I walked toward the stairs.
1 December 2025 – Monday
The lift in the office building was already full when I reached it. Someone was talking about a client call. Someone else was holding a paper cup of tea that smelled too sweet. I stood at the back with the tiffin bag against my leg and looked at the floor numbers changing. Four. The doors opened. The same glass, the same carpet, the same low hum of air-conditioning that never fully removed the Monday feeling.
I swiped my card. The security man nodded the way he nodded every day. I walked to my desk near the east windows.
Rohan was already there. Vikram came two minutes later. They said the usual things. Weekend finished too soon. Inbox is full. Delivery is close. I said yes and opened the laptop.
Mr. Sinha was more agitated than Friday.
I saw it before he even came to our cluster. He was moving between the glass cabin and the other desks with a file in his hand. His shirt sleeves were rolled. He spoke shorter sentences. A delivery date that had felt far in November was now sitting on this week. People on the floor were quieter when he passed.
He stopped at our row around ten-thirty.
“Sunny. The revised sheet from Friday. Is it in the shared folder or only in mail?”
“Both, sir. I put it Friday evening.”
“Open it. Show me the sprint numbers again. I don’t want another old figure going to the client.”
He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Friday was still in the cabin with us. I opened the file. The numbers were correct this time. I had checked them twice on Friday after the meeting and once more in my head on the bike this morning, in the gaps between the dream and the tadka. He looked. He nodded once.
“Good. Stay on this module today. No half work. We are close to delivery.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left. Rohan looked at his screen. Vikram typed. No one mentioned Friday out loud. That was enough.
The morning, somehow, went relatively well.
I say relatively because the work got done. Two smaller tickets. Comments on a shared document. A short call with Sameer from the other group about an API that both teams touched. My hands knew the keyboard. My eyes stayed on the screen longer than they had on Friday. From the outside it would have looked like a normal Monday.
I even answered a doubt on the group chat without delay. A junior from another tower had tagged three of us. Vikram was on a call. Rohan was at the pantry. I wrote the steps in simple lines and sent them. The junior replied with a thank you. For ten minutes I felt like a person who works in an office and not like a person who had locked his own door from the outside knowing what the afternoon was for.
From the inside it was not so clean.
Every time I paused, the third-floor flat came back. The peach nighty. The flour on her wrist. The way the dream had put Azad Sahab on our bed and then taken him away when she shook my shoulder.
I drank water. I did not look at the clock every minute. Only every few minutes.
At twelve-forty people started moving toward the pantry. Vikram asked if I was coming. I said I had brought lunch. He nodded and went. Sameer passed my desk, saw the steel boxes, and grinned the same way he had on Friday.
“Home food again. Lucky.”
I smiled a little. He left.
I stayed at the desk.
I opened the tiffin.
The sabzi was exactly as she had said — dry, extra jeera, the smell that belonged to our kitchen and not to this floor. The roti was still soft. I ate slowly because eating slowly gave my hands something to do.
I preferred to sit alone.
The pantry would have meant talk. Talk would have meant my face. My face was not ready.
My body temperature felt high. Not fever. The other heat. The one that had started in the bathroom at dawn and had not fully left. Anxiety sat in my stomach under the food. I kept thinking in simple questions that had no simple answers.
Would he be there by now?
He had said that last night in the kitchen. Afternoon. Before the boy comes. Keep the door ready.
It was lunch time here. At home, it was the same lunch time. If he had gone up, he would already be in our room.
Would they be doing it?
The question arrived in those words. I did not dress it up.
I saw yesterday’s kitchen without trying. Her back against the fridge. His hand on her raised wrist. The clean underarm. The kiss that was not a small kiss. The way her mouth had opened. The way the blouse had pulled over the upper curve of her breast. The way she had said yes for today.
Then the hotel came.
I had tried for days not to let those videos sit in the front of my mind at office. Today they came anyway. White sheets. Her hair fallen forward. Her mouth on him. The way she had looked up once at the camera, or at him, I still did not know which. The sound that the phone speaker had not fully caught. I had watched it only twice and then locked the phone and felt sick and hard at the same time. That feeling returned now, at a desk, with dal on my spoon.
Then the dream.
The peach nighty on the floor. The payal. The thick vein. Her saying inside. His face turning to the bathroom slit. Come out, Sunny. This is the new rent.
I put the spoon down.
I was hard under the desk. Fully. The kind that makes the formal pants feel too thin. I sat forward so the table would hide it. I looked at the monitor as if the code could save me. The cursor blinked. I did not type.
I took out my phone.
WhatsApp. Her chat. I did not message. I only looked at the last seen.
Through the morning it had been moving.
I had checked once after reaching, when I sent her the line I had promised — reached. She had replied with a single okay and a folded-hands emoji she rarely used. Last seen then was 9:41.
At 10:20 it was 10:18.
At 11:05 it was 11:02.
At 12:10 it was 12:07.
Every five minutes, more or less. Online, offline, online again. A person who is in the house with a phone nearby. Packing. Bathing. Messaging him. Messaging me. Waiting.
I ate two more bites. I checked again at 1:15. Last seen 1:11.
Then I went to the washroom because sitting with that hardness was becoming stupid. I did not do anything there. I only stood, breathed, washed my face, and came back. The heat did not fall by much.
At 2:10 I checked again. Last seen 2:00 PM.
At 2:25 it was still 2:00.
I put the phone face down. I told myself she was bathing, or the phone was on charge, or she had kept it inside the almirah while she slept the way she had said she could not sleep.
At 2:40 it was still 2:00.
At 3:30, when the afternoon tea trolley passed our row and someone asked if I wanted cutting chai, it was still 2:00.
That was when the worry changed shape.
She had said in the morning, maybe she would sleep. She had also said once she bathed, sleep would not come. So which sentence was true now?
If she was sleeping, the last seen could stay still. People sleep with the phone under the pillow and do not touch it. She had done that many nights.
But Azad Sahab would not leave her so easily. Last night he had said the waiting was bullshit. He had said tomorrow he was not asking. He had said he would make up for the days. A man who speaks like that does not sit on the chair and watch a woman nap.
Unless she was truly that tired.
Sleep had not come for her last night. I had seen it on her face. Dark under the eyes. The way she packed the boxes with flour on her nighty, dedicated and slow. If he had come, how would she manage him today? Would she tell him she is tired? Would he listen? Last night he had not liked being postponed.
I stared at the last seen as if it would move if I stared enough.
It did not.
2:00 PM.
I tried to give the frozen time ordinary meanings. Phone battery dead. Phone left in the bathroom. Phone on silent under a pillow. Network in our building sometimes dropped for no reason; the lift motor and the old wiring made strange things happen. I told myself all of that. None of it sat properly. She charged the phone every night. She did not leave it in the bathroom. She had been online every few minutes from morning until two. A person does not go from that rhythm to zero unless the hands are busy or the body is away from the phone on purpose.
I put the phone in the drawer for ten minutes. Then I took it out again. Still 2:00.
The module in front of me was simple. I made it look finished. Inside, I was only doing one calculation. If he went up at two, he could still be there at four. If he went up at two, the phone would not move. If she was under him, she would not check WhatsApp. If she was asleep beside him, she would not check WhatsApp. Both pictures lived in the same last seen.
The floor had women. It had always had women. I had never made a habit of watching them. Project talk, lift talk, that was all.
Today my eyes went anyway.
Not first to the girls near my age. There were two in the next cluster, both newly joined, both in jeans and simple tops, both laughing at something on a phone. I saw them and felt almost nothing. The strange part was the other direction.
I looked longer at the older ones.
A woman from accounts, maybe fourty- forty-two, in a cream kurti, standing at the printer. A team lead from the far side, late thirties, hair tied, speaking to a man with her arms folded, the blouse sitting close on her when she breathed. I did not know their names well. I still looked. The looking had a reason I did not like. After months of watching Ma’s neckline change, after last night’s kitchen, after this morning’s dream, my eyes had learned a shape. Full. Settled. A body that had already lived a life. The younger girls looked unfinished next to that. I felt the wrongness of the thought and I still did not stop the thought.
Then I saw Nair ma’am.
She is HR. She interviewed me in June, in a small cabin with a glass wall. I remember her questions more than I remember my answers. Why this company. Why this city. Are you comfortable with shifts if needed. She had been strict and also easy in the same conversation. Extrovert. She laughed once when I said I was not much of a social person, and then she wrote something on her pad.
She is around thirty-eight or forty. Married. There is a small ring she never removes. She is fit in a way office women who walk and eat less are fit. Dusky skin. Not fair. Nowhere close to Ma in the face. Ma’s face is softer. Ma’s body is heavier in the chest and hips. Nair ma’am is tighter, more held in. Still, the body, curves and fullness are there. She wears clothes that fit. Not vulgar. Fashionable. Today it was a rust-coloured fitted kurti and black trousers that sat close on her hips. The kurti had a neck that was not low, but the cloth was not loose either. When she walked, the shape was clear.
She moved across our floor in the afternoon. She stopped at two senior desks. She spoke, smiled, checked something on her tab, and moved again. People sat up a little when she came. Strictness does that. Then she went back toward her cabin at the end of the corridor, the one with the frosted glass and her name on a small plate.
I watched her till the cabin door closed.
I did not imagine her the way I had imagined Ma. I only noticed that my eyes had chosen her over the girls, and that the choice said something about the months at home that I did not want to say in words.
I went back to the screen.
Last seen: 2:00 PM.
By five I had packed the smaller work.
The delivery pressure was still in the air, but my part for the day was in the folder. I put the empty tiffin boxes into the bag. I checked the phone again.
Still 2:00 PM.
Three hours without a touch. In our house that was not normal. She used the phone too much now. Messages. Reels. His chat. Even on Saturday when she stayed in, the screen had kept lighting. A last seen frozen at two meant either sleep or a room where the phone had been put face down and left.
I opened the maps app. Traffic toward home was showing less time than usual. Twenty five minutes. Sometimes it was forty - forty-five. If I left now I could reach before five thirty. Fairly earlier than usual timing of six-six thirty.
I stood. I slung the bag. I was almost at the lift lobby when my phone rang.
Mr. Sinha.
“Sunny. Have you left?”
“I am at the lift, sir.”
“There is a file the client asked for. Old logs. Can you pull them and send if you have not gone down yet. It will not take long. I don’t want to look for someone else now.”
Friday sat in the request. The wrong numbers. The cabin. You are not fully here today.
“I have not left, sir. I will do it.”
“Good. Send it to me and to the shared mail. Then you can go.”
I went back to the desk. Rohan had already left. Vikram was shutting his laptop and raised his eyebrows.
“Forgot something?”
“Sir wants a file.”
“Ah. Delivery week.” He picked up his bag and left.
The task was small. It was also buried. Old folder names. Wrong dates. A log that should have been tagged and was not. I found it. I checked it. I zipped it. I mailed it. I waited for the sent confirmation. Mr. Sinha replied with one line: received.
One hour gone.
The clock on the corner of the screen said 6:02.
I left.
The basement smelled of hot engines. My bike was where I had left it. I strapped the tiffin, put the helmet on, and rolled up the ramp into the evening.
Traffic had increased.
The maps had been honest at five and were lying now. The signal near the metro held a long chain of brake lights. A bus blocked the left lane. Scooters tried to slip through and failed. I kept the engine steady and the questions moving.
Would he have left by now?
Six o’clock was late for an afternoon visit if he wanted to be downstairs before the building filled. Ammi would be awake again. The maid was still not back. He had a shop, another building, calls. A man like that does not stay till night on a Monday unless he decides to.
What would have happened.
The sentence did not stay clean. Kiss. Smooch. The hotel mouth. The dream. The closed last seen. I saw our bed in the daylight that would have been in the room at two and three and four. I saw the thin curtain. I saw the windows. I saw her phone on the folding table, unused.
A car horn behind me made me move. I had been sitting after the light turned green.
The flyover was slower than morning. The station road was worse. I did not check the phone at signals because putting one foot down and taking the phone out with the helmet on was stupid. I wanted to. I did not.
At one signal I could not help it. I pulled the phone out under the helmet strap and unlocked it with one thumb. Last seen still 2:00 PM. No new message. No missed call. If she had finished and wanted to look normal, she would have at least opened the app. The frozen time meant the afternoon was still sitting on the phone, or she had not yet become the woman who sends okay and folded hands.
A man on the next bike looked at me holding the phone at a green light. I put it away and moved.
By the time our lane came into view the sky was the colour of early night, not late evening. Shop lights were on. The vegetable vendor was still calling. I turned into the compound at 7:05.
I parked in the usual strip.
That was when the other feeling started.
Two children were still kicking a ball. The watchman was on his chair. A woman from the second floor was crossing with a milk bag. A man I did not know well was locking a scooter. None of them said my name. None of them pointed. And still I felt as if every person passing was looking at me with a sentence already prepared.
We know.
We heard.
She was loud.
He stayed long.
Your mother.
I removed the helmet. The compound air was warmer than the road. I locked the bike. I stood for a second with the tiffin bag in my hand and looked at the windows of our floor. The grill was dark from here. I could not tell if the tube light was on.
Was he still upstairs?
If I opened the door and found him, what would I do. Nod. Say namaste. Put the bag down. Wait for him to leave. Speak. Not speak. The acceptance I had given on Thursday was for the truth, not for a script. I had no line ready for a man standing in our room at ten to seven with my mother’s smell on him.
I walked toward the stairs.
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