Boxes started swallowing our Punjab home, piece by piece. Down came the Kerala landscape posters, one after another. Spices vanished from the kitchen shelves slowly. Each morning prayer spot grew emptier until nothing remained but a velvet case holding what once stood on the altar.

  Papa moved fast. Goodbyes full of tears? Not his way. Those boxes meant steps forward, nothing more. Off to Thiruvananthapuram - four weeks to handle what needed doing - then onward by air

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  "Thiruvananthapuram?" Shwetha whispered to me while we were packing our clothes. "Does that mean we have to see George and Franklin again?"

  Stillness took hold. Not a word left me about what happened - the crude joke, the silence that followed the calls. In their eyes, he stayed polite. The one who dialed each year when my birthday came around.

  "We won't see them, Shwetha," I said, my voice firm. "We’re going there to see our relatives, not the neighbours. I’m done with that.