Cupping her hands around her drink, she tries to pull away from her consuming inner world to observe the one that is unfolding around her with such sound and colour and motion. The din of the coffee shop—the competing conversations, the Christmas music, the keyboards tapping, the high-pitched squeal of the frother—fill her with too much sound, too many vibrations. All the activity feels alien, almost blasphemous, as though a personal affront to her devout state of mourning.

As Kavita blinks into her coffee, she knows nothing is wrong with her surroundings. The world is simply carrying on as it should, as it always has, without her noticing or questioning. She is what’s different. She is what isn’t quite right. She knows she has been spending too much time alone. Listening to the hoarse whispers of Anchor and Gloom. Watching home movie memories inside her head. Isolation is a precarious loop to be stuck in. At first, the intensity of her grief caused her to retreat into her cave of sorrow, for safety, containment. But now, it seems she has stayed in the cave too long, and it has mutated from haven to prison. Now the cave seems like the only place left on earth where she belongs.

She feels a strong impulse to leave. She wants to be back at home with Coal and her ivory throw and the anaesthesia of daytime television. She wants to be alone. When she’s alone, she is safe.

Another part of her wants to stay. So much has happened on top of Sunil’s passing. The incident in London, her parents’ separation, the house being sold, and now the upcoming holidays to confront. Pain on top of pain, burying her layer by layer like wet snow, a slowly-mounting weight crushing against her chest.

If she can just talk to Chi, she knows it will help. If just one person can tell her they understand what she is going through, and why she is struggling, she knows it will make all the difference. The difference between being alone, and not.

Kavita loosens her throat with a warm swallow. You always loved gingerbread lattes, she thinks to Sunil. And hanging out anonymously in coffee shops, reading your mystery novels. You probably would’ve ordered a biscotti too. No wait, a brownie. Should I get one for you? Place it by your urn? Her mother has allowed her to keep Sunil’s ashes, only because if she takes them with her to India, their relatives will pressure her to scatter them in the Ganges.

As Kavita debates whether or not to get Sunil a brownie, Chi finally arrives.