Patty doesn’t know what to say. She asks Kavita to please pass on her condolences. Kavita says of course she will. But there’s more, Patty goes on: paperwork needs to be filled out by the executor of Sunil’s estate. (Kavita.) He had a life insurance policy. There’s a section that will have to be filled out by his doctor. As Patty prattles on about forms, Kavita wonders if Dr. Jones already knows about Sunil’s death. Did the police tell him? And before that, did he ever wonder what might have happened to his distressed patient when Sunil didn’t show up to his follow-up appointments with the social worker and psychiatrist?

Kavita tunes back into the conversation she is supposed to be having with the woman from hr. Patty is sorry about all the paperwork. It can be exhausting. One last thing, about the life insurance: Kavita is the beneficiary. Did she know?

No, Kavita replies, cold. She didn’t know. The thought of benefitting from their tragedy sickens her. Money has no value. It can’t resurrect, or change the past, or answer the phone, or laugh until it hurts. If an insurance company is going to give her money, all it will ever do is remind Kavita of what she has lost, and more significantly, of what Sunil has lost because of her. Perhaps that is the money’s true purpose.

Kavita feels a familiar weight, an unyielding downward pull, as she did when she first opened her eyes to this awful day. Like an anchor, she thinks.

“Kavita?”

She wonders if her brother named his torment, the way she has named hers. Or did he make the mistake of calling it Sunil?

“Hello?”

I don’t want money.

“Are you still there?”

I want Sunil.

“Did she hang up?”

SunilSunilSunil….

Digging her nails deeply into her palm, Kavita focuses on the sharp pain, the captive heat burning in her flesh that won’t know the release of broken skin. This pain she can handle. This pain she knows she deserves.

“I’ll get the forms to you as soon as I can.”

There is still so much to do. But Kavita can’t think straight. A short break, she promises, as though a grief foreman is keeping time. She paces the room while kneading a knot in her lower back. Listening to Chi smoke over the phone has wakened a latent desire in her. She has been craving a menthol ever since. No, a whole pack. She quit smoking when she started dating Nirav, but he won’t be home for hours. She will buy some gum, too.

Kavita pulls on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, and grabs Sunil’s rakhi from her nightstand, stuffing it into her pocket. On her way out, she checks in on her mother. Her bedroom is dim. Kavita hears soft snoring. Grateful, she gingerly closes the door.