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Reeva felt a warmth spread over her at the thought of Lakshmi’s mum. She was everything Saraswati was not—soft, affectionate, caring—and Reeva had spent most of the last decade wishing they could swap mothers.
“I know you’re fantasizing about my mum,” said Lakshmi. “Stop it; it’s creepy.”
“Sorry. I just can’t get over the Nick thing. I feel so... rejected.”
“Hey, he didn’t reject you. He changed his mind because he realized the weirdness of the situation. Let’s take him at face value. He didn’t want to come in your mouth during such an emotionally challenging moment for you. That makes him polite. It’s cute. You can chill.”
“Okay, you have gone full circle. And how am I meant to bechill when it’s midday, he left at six a.m., and Istillhaven’t heard from him?”
“Because that’s only six hours ago. I know you’ve got an anxious attachment style, but you need to try and calm down.”
“That is very much easier said than done. How would you feel if it was you?”
There was silence as Lakshmi thought about it. “I just can’t imagine a man ever stopping me during oral sex, sorry. It’s literally impossible. Oh, hey, Lee. Just chatting to a client. Yep. Sure.” She lowered her voice. “Got to go, babe. Call you later.”
—
Reeva opened thebedroom door and stopped. The duvet was covered in a giant heap of stuff—clothes, books, old toiletries—and her sisters were on either side of it, carelessly chucking more stuff onto the bed. The bed she was going to have to sleep in later that night.
“Uh, what are you doing? And whatever it is, why are you doing it on my bed?”
“Dad’s bed,” corrected Sita. “Good of you to finally show up and help.”
“Help... destroy his room?” asked Reeva.
“We’re looking for clues,” explained Jaya, who sat cross-legged by the bed going through its drawers. “There must be something in here somewhere to help us figure out what happened.”
“We left the wardrobe for you,” said Sita, who seemed to be emptying the contents of a chest of drawers—old wallets, batteries, and... was that a rope?—onto the bed.
“Right.” Reeva sighed, making her way over the bulging wardrobe. She wrinkled her nose at the musty smell. “What exactly am I meant to be looking for in here? Other than mothballs.”
Sita shrugged. “Anything. And you can put the clothes in charity bags while you’re there. We may as well start clearing the house out while we hunt for secrets.”
“Oh-kay,” said Reeva, rolling up her sleeves and resigning herself to following her younger sister’s orders. So much for her planned day of catching up with TV shows and reading the new literary thriller that was all over social media.
For a while, the sisters worked in semicompaniable silence and Reeva lost herself in her task. The more she inhaled the scent of her dad’s clothes—the mustiness combined with laundry detergent and an unfamiliar scent that must have been his own smell—the more he became a tangible person in her mind. It felt surreal to think he’d actually worn these pale blue shirts, navy polos, and gray jumpers. When she came across a faded, well-worn jumper with a hole under the armpit, Reeva found her eyes tearing up. She couldn’t explain why, but there was something so sad about it. She wished she’d known him so she could buy him jumpers for Father’s Day and mend his clothes. She turned away from her sisters and buried her face in the jumper. The longing in her chest felt unbearable. She so desperately wanted to know the man who’d worn these clothes. What had he been like? Would he have loved his daughters? Would he have loved Reeva?
“Can we not hire someone to do this?” asked Jaya. “Like, pack up his stuff and get rid of it?”
Her sister’s complaint broke through Reeva’s reverie. Jaya was anxiously checking her long shell-pink nails as she gingerly folded sheets: the epitome of influencer cliché.
“If you want to pay for it, sure,” said Sita. “Be my guest.”
“I can probably get it for free if I post about it,” said Jaya, her face brightening. “I could do a whole thing: ‘Uncovering Family Secrets, hashtag Who Is My Dad?’ ”
Sita turned to glare at her. “You’d better be kidding. This is our private family business. We’re not telling the world about it.”
“I agree with Sita.” Reeva could not remember the last time she’d said those four words. She shook her head and tried not to overthink it. “We should definitely keep this quiet. Especially when we know so little. Our parents clearly hid it from us for a reason, and I’m not sure I need anyone else to find that out before we do.”
Jaya sighed. “Ugh. Fine. Guess I’ll get back to the sheets. I don’t know why he had so much bed linen when he lived alone. Weird, right?”
Reeva shrugged. “I think he just didn’t believe in throwing anything away.”
“Agreed,” said Sita. She held up a wad of papers and tickets. “He keptcinematickets. And these, uh... Are these coupons?” She paused. “Our dad... cut out coupons in the newspaper.”
“You can do that? For what?” asked Jaya, baffled.
“A food processor,” said Sita. Her voice was different—softer and quieter. Reeva instinctively turned away so Sita could have her moment in private. She knew exactly how Sita felt; seeing these human details about their dad evoked a triple sense of longing, pathos, and regret.
