Coal is curled up on the couch, twitching in dreams. She sits beside him, pulls out the library books from her bag, and selects A Widow’s Story. As she considers the title, she realizes that there’s no common name for what she is now—her new bereft identity—or possibly there is, but if so, she has never come across it. In the world, there are widows and widowers. One need only say “I am a widow” and somehow people understand with sympathetic hmms and ahhs. There is an understanding of the loss of one’s “better half” “right hand” “life partner” “soul mate” but what about the loss of a soul brother? There is widowhood. There is an understanding of that lonely journey. Even divorcées have a label to communicate the challenges of their life state, despite the failure of their relationships.

What about the sibling bereft? What about her and Sunil’s twenty-five year relationship, that should have been seventy-five years, eighty-five years? What about the promise of living together for most of their lives, side by side? Hasn’t she lost a life partner too? Is her loss somehow lesser, her pain less devastating, because she is not a parent, a wife? What is her “—hood” or “—dom?”

I am brotherless, she thinks, the quiet pronouncement heavy and unmoving as a boulder as it sits at the centre of her mind. Can there be a lonelier state? Brotherless. Another way of saying she is cleaved. She is alone. She is like Yami crying a river of tears at the loss of Yama. But there is no common empathy, no common language, for her grief path, that endless black tunnel. It exists inside her, in perhaps the only place where it matters, or is seen.

Pinned by the boulder, Kavita sits, staring off into mid-space. Sometime later, Coal crosses her lap, padding her gently out of her stupor. Her dazed eyes follow his movements as he leaps off the couch and makes his way over to his food bowl. As he crunches satisfyingly on kibble, she remembers with the groan of her own stomach, Nirav will be home soon.

As she rinses romaine lettuce and chops red peppers, her stomach’s earlier groan builds to a growl. She pours a glass of water into its hungry mouth, then flicks on the television to drown out its futile begging.

The evening news is on. She briefly considers changing the channel, to avoid anything triggering, but feels out of touch, so keeps it on for the sake of curiosity. She continues chopping the red pepper, semi-aware of the newscast in the background. The chopping is nearly done when she hears the top story. Hears the news anchor say the word suicide and feels her insides spasm as if speared. Letting go of the knife, she lifts her startled gaze to the screen.