Seven years later

I sit in the hearse beside my father's younger brother. He doesn't say anything, just raps my knuckles gently in tender acknowledgement of our shared loss. It's imperceptible—the gesture–so fleeting that it might have gone unnoticed if I weren't holding myself together by the threads of such tiny moments.

I don't meet his gaze. In fact, I've been avoiding meeting anyone's eyes since my father's death last night. I look at the space between my knees instead, at the pattern of light filtering through the window as the hearse moves. Outside, people linger in the lawn, then scatter like ants disturbed by salt.

What would their eyes say to me? I wonder. Or worse, what would mine betray to them?

What would they see? What if they found something they weren't meant to find?

Calm. Peace. Relief. Words too still, too quiet, too wrong to belong here. And yet. What if they didn't find sorrow where it should be? What if they didn't find grief? What if they found nothing at all?

I blink and take in the calmest profile of my father I've ever seen. It's the longest I've been able to look at him without disgust rising like bile in my throat. His lips are pursed. Rigor mortis has set his face into something almost unrecognizable—rigid, stone-like. The shroud covers his lifeless body, but it doesn't obscure the stark finality of what's left.

I try to commit the image to my memory.

'Don't look too long,' I am told by my uncle.

I don't blink. I want to remember that someone capable of inflicting such suffering—leaving scars that could last a lifetime—could collapse in an instant, like a fragile thread caught at both ends and snapped by an unstoppable force.

I need to remember the way the leering, lusting face of a predator looked when the last flicker of life abandoned it, just eleven hours ago in that hospital bed.

I need to remember.

I turn away before I am forced to.

The gurus in white are chanting, their voices threading together like a hymn, like music that doesn't soothe but hums beneath my skin. I blink, and a tear slips free, landing on my arm. It stays there, cold and unwelcome, until I swipe it away with the edge of the white fabric draped over my shoulders.

I sniff, a sharp sound cutting through the rhythm of the chanting, and then the hearse lurches to a stop. The world goes quiet for a moment, the kind of silence that feels too dense to wade. I step out and move to the bamboo bed, gripping one side while waiting for the others to take their places. The weight shifts as the load is shared, but it presses down on me all the same.

I walk forward, my steps unsure, my legs too steady for how unsteady I feel. The lead guru moves ahead, guiding us with practiced ease. I follow, silent, my mind empty save for the weight of my father—not just his body, but the entirety of him, dragging behind me like an invisible chain.

The rites blur together, cold water running over me as I'm bathed, the sharpness of it prickling my shaved head. I shiver, but I don't stop. Don't hesitate. I do as the guru says. My mind is a locked room.

I take the earthen pot, the cool, rough clay pressing against my hands, and I move around the pyre. My steps circle, one after another, until the guru's voice cuts through. I toss the pot over my shoulder as he instructs. It crashes behind me. And then I light the pyre.

The flame catches with an ease that feels unfair, the fire eating away at everything in front of me as I stand there, repeating the words the guru speaks. Words that feel like someone else's. Words I will never remember.

*****

Twelve days later

I stand with my hands pressed together in namaste, my head bowed low. I don't look at their faces. I don't need to. I hear the murmurs of "Om Shanti" as they file out, their voices soft, heavy with pity or discomfort or whatever people carry with them to these things. I nod deeper without looking up, a silent acknowledgment that feels more like a habit than a choice.

In the garden, Mom moves between rows of people, ladling food onto their plates. Her movements are smooth, mechanical, the perfect picture of composure. She doesn't stumble, doesn't hesitate. I watch her and wonder if she's truly alright—or if she's simply perfected the art of seeming so, honed over years of practice.

Not a single tear. Not a restless night. Not a crack in her voice when her sisters hugged her, their arms tight and desperate, their faces wet with pity. They thought she might need their support. But Mom only held still, stiff as stone, and let them crush her into their arms.

She didn't touch her alcohol, not even once. That's what keeps circling back to me. Thirteen days of mourning, I remind myself. Maybe that's why. Maybe she's following the rules, biding her time.

Yes, I tell myself. That must be it.

Because people in this house don't change. They only harden. Fracture. Splinter.

I force myself to turn back to the person in front of me, ready to nod, ready to offer the reflexive "Om Shanti" that's already on the tip of my tongue.

But then I see them.

A familiar pair of brown eyes staring right into mine.

Maithili.