It was truly a manic Monday having to get Vicky ready for school after more than a fifteen-day break. By the time Anu managed to get him onto the car, she was ready for a nap. There was school transport, but Anu or Sanju would have to sell organs to include that in their expenses.

They had visited the school over the weekend and Sanju was over the moon. He took pictures of the building from all angles and shared them to the family WhatsApp group. Unfortunately, Anu was a part of that group. Padma aunty immediately sent friendly smilies and thumbs-ups. ‘Send a picture of you and Vicky at the school,’ she wrote.

There was a reason behind Padma aunty ignoring Anu even on WhatsApp. When on her travel, she uploaded a thousand pictures a day. Anu got so tired of seeing photos of Padma aunty in different salwar kameezes and the same sneakers, she had stopped downloading them. That Padma aunty had figured out and was now on a mission to ignore Anu digitally. Breaking away from her thoughts of Padma aunty, Anu parked on the roadside and walked inside the school building. It looked so much like a five-star hotel, Anu instinctively started to look for a pool. Vicky looked bewildered. When she asked the receptionist for his class, she gave a curt smile and called a coordinator. Vicky looked at the beautiful, smiling woman who offered him her hand. ‘Come on. Let me show you to your class.’

Vicky eyed her suspiciously and then declared. ‘I will go with my Mumma.’

Anu felt unnecessary tears sting her eyes. She always left him in his class and then went to hers. ‘Mumma isn’t working here, Vicky. You go with ma’am.’

‘But you should work here. I can’t go to school if you don’t.’ Vicky wasn’t making it easy. The coordinator distracted him with the 3D picture of a lion and signalled Anu to leave.

Anu decided to hang around in the area for the next four hours. What if Vicky got upset and they called her? Walking into a Coffee Day, Anu dug out her book. A Poirot mystery. Agatha Christie was her comfort read when she was upset.

So, what was she going to do now? How was she going to spend her time in that beautiful alien land called Verdant Green where the house still did not feel like home?

Anu shut the book after a few futile attempts to read it. She was done feeling unhappy. She could reserve that for when they went bankrupt, which could be a few months away. Until then, she was going to have a good time. Just then her phone rang. It was Sumitra aunty.

‘Anu! I have some good news.’

‘Tell me soon, aunty! I could really use some!’