The week following Sunil’s memorial, Kavita does little more than sleep. Occasionally, she wakes to check in on her parents or use the washroom or mindlessly eat a banana over the kitchen sink. Every other day or so, she somehow finds enough energy to shower and change into a fresh pair of pyjamas. Other than that, she prefers to drift in unconsciousness. What she hopes for every time she closes her eyes are dreams of Sunil, a message that he is all right wherever he is. What she dreams she can’t remember.

Sometimes she awakens startled, as if the house phone has rung or the alarm on her cell has beeped. Her heart flutters like a hummingbird in a cage. Her breath is rapid and shallow. Her gut blares like a warning beacon. Its message: Danger is imminent. Be warned, be ready. And her first waking thoughts: Mom and Dad. Where are Mom and Dad? When this happens, she rushes out of bed and checks each of their bedrooms. Once she sees that they are safe in their beds, the maniacal panic tapers, but not completely—a pool of it remains like a pesky sip of pop that lingers at the bottom of a bottle, fizzing. Then, drained of the little energy she has acquired in sleep, she stumbles back to bed and hides inside a tent of covers.

Her parents keep to the same unstructured sleep regime; her mother in particular, like a newborn, tires herself out with weeping until her swollen eyelids finally shut. Her father has taken to staring at things—walls, hedges—with the same purposeless focus of a housecat, often leaving Kavita to wonder when she catches him, not only what he is staring at, but why? Nirav spends most of the time playing video games in the basement.

After about a week of living like this, Kavita’s back aches and she knows it is time to leave her bed, if only long enough for the aches to stop their incessant moaning.

It is mid-afternoon—according to the cell phone—Sunday. She dresses in a forgotten pair of sweats she finds in her closet, then hobbles a path to the kitchen, hopeful they have run out of bananas.

The fridge shelves are stocked with leftovers and gifts of food from the memorial. From the top shelf, she grabs a Ziploc bag full of samosas and a jar of tamarind sauce. She bites off the pointy tip of the samosa. Her mother’s samosas are better, and this one is a little stale, but neither of these facts stops her from taking another bite.

Out of nowhere, Anchor pulls at her insides.

Eat up, you pig, it says, cool and clipped.