BooksBarbecue
Back Side by Side Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Half Title Page
  3. SIDE by SIDE
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Epigraph
  6. Part I: Fall
  7. 1.
  8. 2.
  9. 3.
  10. 4.
  11. 5.
  12. Part II: Crawl
  13. 6.
  14. 7.
  15. 8.
  16. 9.
  17. 10.
  18. 11.
  19. 12.
  20. 13.
  21. 14.
  22. 15.
  23. 16.
  24. 17.
  25. 18.
  26. 19.
  27. 20.
  28. 21.
  29. 22.
  30. 23.
  31. 24.
  32. 25.
  33. 26.
  34. 27.
  35. 28.
  36. 29.
  37. 30.
  38. 31.
  39. Part III: Rise
  40. 32.
  41. 33.
  42. 34.
  43. 35.
  44. 36.
  45. 37.
  46. 38.
  47. 39.
  48. 40.
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the Author

Lifting her gaze to the night sky, Kavita lets the ache seep in. As she stares at the gaps between the stars, she asks him: Where are you? Are you safe? Are you at peace now? Did you see how we searched for you? To us, you died today. But only because we were the last to know. How naïve she was to think the police would visit them with good news. But she had. So had her parents. When one of the officers said they had found Sunil, the joy she felt, the relief she saw shining in her parents’ eyes, at last, not tears of dread, but tears of celebration. The nightmare was over. They had found him. How naïve she was to not let the officer finish his sentence. Yes, they had found him. That is, they had found his body. What remained of it. They were so sorry.

With those simple words, their world detonated, and fell apart around them—a private apocalypse.

“Come on,” Nirav says. He rises to his feet and reaches out one hand. “It’s time to go inside. Long days ahead.”

A day longer than this one? Nirav helps her to her feet, and holds her around the waist as they walk up the driveway, a sharp pang through her belly as they cross Sunil’s empty parking spot. They are halfway to the house, when she realizes it is no longer her home. If the house is anything now, it is a keepsake box robbed of treasure, a music box without a song, a shell that forgot the sound of the ocean. Without Sunil to give it a warm, beating heart, what was once home has now become nothing more than a painful memory of what home used to be.

When she finally makes it to bed, still dressed in her clothes, Kavita cocoons the duvet around her, and gives her body of stone to the mattress. A black lake of exhaustion seals itself around her. At last, she closes her aching eyes to this awful day, expecting that when she opens them again, she will be greeted by the white glow of the hereafter, and Sunil’s beautiful face.

2.

Hell isn’t fire. It’s waiting. It’s the ticking of a clock. An incessant metronome that lasts for ten days. Every dash of sound, a measurement, like a step, that marks the distance between the last time you saw your loved one and wherever they are now.