Kavita pauses, briefly. “I guess I don’t.”

Her mother arches her eyebrows as if to say, exactly.

“What difference does it make what we tell them?” her father interjects. “It won’t bring back my boy.” He holds his forehead. “My baby.…”

Staring across the table, Kavita watches her parents, their slumped bodies and pained faces, aware of the broken pieces floating inside them, tearing at them with jagged edges, because her body holds the same broken pieces, too. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” Leaning back on her chair, she rubs a line up and down her forehead, wishing for insight. “Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.” It is her job to get them through this ordeal without causing any more harm than has been caused already.

“A private cremation,” her mother continues as she dabs her cheeks. “The next day, we will have a memorial here. We will bring my beta home.” Her chin quivers, uncontrollably. “He has been away from us for too long already.” Her mother clamps her eyes shut, as she slowly shakes her head from side to side, in disbelief of their reality, and of the plans she has been forced to make, tear after tear dropping into her lap without a sound.

Kavita has witnessed her mother cry many times in the last ten days, and it is awful every time, but at least during the days of Sunil’s disappearance, there was always hope to stop them. Now there is nothing but this awful reality to face. There is nothing but her mother’s tears and the bleak knowledge that Kavita will never be able to make what has gone terribly wrong, right again. Helplessly, she tells them, “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.” But of course, it won’t.

After compiling a list of people Kavita will have to call, her mother goes to lie down and her father goes to sit in the backyard, as though with Sunil’s death the last stitch holding them together has snapped and at last they are free to fall away from each other. But Kavita can’t think about her parents’ failing marriage now. There’s still too much work to do.

She scans her list again. Writes a note reminding herself to call the police inspector to find out when Sunil’s body will be transported to Ottawa. Scribbles another reminder about calling her office to arrange bereavement leave for the rest of the week. After that, she will use up her sick days and unused vacation, which should buy her another month. Once that runs out, she will have to reassess. What else? she thinks. What does she know about funeral planning? Frustrated, she pushes the list away and decides to check on Nirav. She finds him in her bedroom, already dressed in work clothes, packing up his things.

“What’s going on?” she asks.