“Want to know what I did my first year? Ate takeout, slept way too much, and watched every episode of Star Trek available on Netflix. Twice. I’m pretty sure going to group once a month was the only productive thing I did all year. Well, that, and I started seeing a therapist. Which is probably why I slept so much.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine you any other way than you are today.”

“I didn’t even practice yoga that year. I didn’t give a shit about it. Not that I could even settle for long enough to meditate if I wanted to.”

“How very un-yogi of you.”

He smirks. “So, do you feel any better?”

“Maybe a little.”

They drink tea for a while and watch the snow fall.

“Can you tell me about Sequoia?” she asks. He regards her, slightly taken aback by her directness. She notes the fullness of his eyebrows she doubts have ever been tweezed. The rusty tint of his brown eyes. The occasional hairless patch in his beard of week-old scruff.

He frees his hair from its half ponytail and shakes his head a few times. “That’s a big question. What do you want to know?”

Kavita remembers something she was wondering about earlier. “Do you look alike?”

“Sort of. We’re both tall and thin. Her eyes were a lighter shade of brown. She had short spiky hair and a gold lip ring. Her hair colour changed a lot. From pink to green to purple to platinum. When she died it was dark blue.”

“What did she do?”

“She was a muralist. She liked riding her long-board around town and spotting new canvases. She loved the idea of beautifying urban spaces. Some of her work was commissioned by the city in Chinatown. Remember how I told you she was more yin than me, more of an introvert? Well, her murals were like her way of reaching out and connecting with people. I think maybe it came from being so lonely.”

“I’d love to see them sometime. What did she like to paint?”

“She had a thing for koi fish and flowers. She painted a mural in my parents’ yard along the back of our house. It’s this psychedelic koi fish, kelp forest, botanical garden composition. Kind of hard to describe. But I’m glad we have it. Whenever I go home to visit my parents, it makes me feel like she’s still around.”

“I’d love to see that someday, too.”

“Your turn,” he asks, forcing a grin. “Tell me about Sunil.”

Suddenly she can appreciate the enormity of the question. How to distill her brother into a few spare lines? How to express all he was, all he means to her, in words?