I watch the milk in the aluminium pot froth into a tea-specked mountain, and turn off the flame. Then I pour it through a mucky strainer with a plastic orange handle. Mother never threw a thing. Looking around I see everything as it was the last time I was home, two years ago; the stained cutting board with juices from vegetables and meat etched deeply into its grooves, the dented steel tumblers that have lost their shape, the plastic dish-rack whose original colour is long forgotten beneath hardened grime. Now that she's gone, I can throw all these things and not worry about her yelling and insisting that there is still more life left in them.
Father is sitting on the worn-out cot, with its frayed lattice coir base, ready to give way any day. He hasn't changed much either. He is smoking a beedi slowly. His dark leathery skin hangs, making him look like a large bag that is only half packed. Without glancing up at me, he reaches out mechanically and takes the glass from my hand. Our fingers graze lightly, and I watch his bloodshot eyes for a reaction or acknowledgement, feeling pathetic for wanting what will never come.
Mother died. I got the call last night. I can't seem to figure out what's worse, finding out about my mother's death from a neighbour or not knowing the cause. The coroner at the government hospital told Father that he would have to pay a thousand rupees to do an autopsy, so he concluded that she collapsed from a heart attack.
I told the woman I work for that I had to go back home for my mother's funeral. Her face crinkled with concern as she asked about what happened while trying to figure out how she would manage the cooking, cleaning and her child, without me around. I promised I'd return in a few days. I asked her for an advance, but she said her husband would not like it. "You must be careful with money Mala. Your family will take everything from you and leave you with nothing," she told me in a manner she's fond of employing in conversations with me, like a maternal protector who always knows better.