More in this series:
She has stopped setting clocks by his arrival, but her body knows the rhythm.
Her Defence Colony apartment still smells faintly of the previous tenant's cooking oil. Eight months, and she opens windows that won't quite catch the cross-breeze she remembers from Brooklyn fire escapes.
"Tea?"
He nods, sets his phone face-down on her small table. The phone buzzes twice. He glances at it, leaves it buzzing.
"Interview this morning." She fills the kettle, her back to him.
"Marketing?"
"Wellness brand. They asked why I came back."
He scratches the palm of his left hand. "What did you say?"
"Family." The lie tastes bitter as the Earl Grey she measured into his cup. One sugar. No milk.
In the bedroom, he breathes against her neck in a way that suggests hurry. She counts ceiling cracks—seven thin lines radiating from the light fixture. When he asks if something feels good, she makes a sound that could mean anything.
Afterward, water runs in her bathroom. She arranges peacock-painted cups on a tray, the ones from Jaipur that cost more than she should have spent.
"She makes tea differently."
“You mean I make tea differently”
He doesn’t answer. Towels his hair, sits across from her rather than beside. "Most people do."
"Sugar?"
"One teaspoon."
His phone lights up. He turns the phone over again.
"Tuesdays work better than Thursdays," she says.
"Thursdays I have..." He stirs his tea though nothing needs stirring.
"Client meetings."
"Something like that."
She refills his cup though it's half full. "Your son looks like you."
He stops stirring. "You saw—"
"When your phone lit up. He's tall."
"Twelve. Plays for his school team."
"Cricket's important here."
"More than it should be."
The tea is still too hot to drink. Outside, an auto-rickshaw screams from the street below. He checks his watch—the expensive one that catches light differently than the gold band on his ring finger.
"Next week?" she asks.
"Tuesday's better."
"I know."
After he leaves, she sits in the indent his weight left on her couch cushion. Through the window, children chase a ball between parked motorcycles. Their laughter rises with the dust they kick up.
Her phone shows a text from her sister in Calcutta: "Meeting people?"
She types "Getting settled" and deletes it. Types "Yes, slowly" and deletes that too. Finally sends: "Learning the rhythms."
This is true. Tuesday rhythms. Earl Grey rhythms. The rhythm of pretending thirty minutes plus tea equals something…
Well.
Something.
She washes the peacock cups, places them back on their shelf. The apartment returns to its waiting state—air conditioner grumbles, silence that grows heavier than hot summer air.
In another life, she thinks, washing the same spoon twice, different choices would feel possible. But Delhi heat makes everything shimmer like mirages, and she has learned to look through dust and smog.
The phone buzzes again. Her sister, persistent: "Are you happy there?"
She stares at the message for several minutes before typing: "Why the fuck after eight months would you suddenly ask me that?”