Chapter 3: The Corner

Rony's eyes remained locked on Sri's face for three more heartbeats. Then, without any warning or transition, he pushed his chair back. The legs scraped against the floor—a harsh, grating sound that cut through the warm atmosphere like a blade.

He stood up. Just like that. One moment he was there, connected, present. The next he'd severed whatever thread had been holding him to the table.

Nobody spoke.

Rony turned away from them all. His movements had that same underwater quality, like he was pushing through something thicker than air. He walked toward the living room, each step deliberate and slow.

Raj watched him go, that brief flicker of unease in his chest intensifying into something closer to dread. The way Rony had stared at his mother—it had felt wrong. Too intense. Too focused.

Uncle Prakash's expression crumbled. The hope that had lit up his face just moments earlier extinguished completely, leaving behind only exhaustion. His shoulders sagged forward. He stared at his half-eaten dinner like he'd forgotten what it was for.

Rony reached his corner—that same spot he'd occupied all afternoon—and lowered himself to the floor. He pulled his knees up, wrapped his arms around them, and pressed his forehead down. Back to the beginning. Like the dinner table interaction had never happened.

The dining area fell into heavy silence.

Uncle Prakash picked up his fork, set it down, picked it up again. He wasn't eating anymore, just moving the utensil around aimlessly.

Sri broke the quiet first. "That was progress though, wasn't it?" Her voice sounded deliberately optimistic, like she was trying to convince herself as much as her brother.

Uncle Prakash looked up at her, then toward Rony's hunched form in the living room. "I suppose so. He made eye contact. He ate something. That's... that's more than he's done in weeks."

"It is," Sri agreed. She folded her hands in her lap, her own dinner forgotten. "These things take time."

"I know. The doctors keep saying that. Dr. Mehta says that." Uncle Prakash rubbed his face with both hands. "But knowing it intellectually and living through it are very different things."

"I can't imagine how hard this has been for you."

"Some days are better than others." He pushed his plate away slightly. "Today was actually a good day until you saw him in the corner. He'd gotten up in the morning without me having to wake him. He drank his tea. Small things, but they matter."

Sri nodded, her eyes still on Rony. "He will heal. It just takes time."

"Time," Uncle Prakash echoed. The word sounded hollow.

They finished dinner in near silence after that. Sri made a few attempts at conversation, bringing up neutral topics about the house and the neighborhood, but the energy had drained out of the room. Uncle Prakash responded with short answers and distracted nods.

Raj ate mechanically, tasting nothing. He kept glancing toward the living room, toward his cousin's motionless form. That stare. The way Rony had looked at Sri with such unwavering focus. It replayed in Raj's mind on a loop.

He wanted to say something to his mother. Wanted to point out that the interaction had felt off somehow. But what would he say? That Rony had looked at her too intensely? That didn't make sense even in his own head. The boy had barely spoken or moved in days. Making eye contact was progress, just like Uncle Prakash said.

Still. Something about it sat wrong in Raj's gut.

Sri helped Uncle Prakash clear the table while Raj carried the dishes to the kitchen. They worked together to wash and dry everything, putting items back in their proper places. The domestic routine provided a welcome distraction from the tension.

"Thank you for being here," Uncle Prakash said quietly as he dried the last plate. "Having family around helps more than you know."

"We're happy to help," Sri replied. She glanced at Raj, including him in the statement.

Raj nodded, though he wasn't sure how much help he was actually being. He felt useless, standing around while his mother and uncle dealt with Rony's grief. What could an eighteen-year-old contribute to something like this?

The evening passed slowly. Uncle Prakash excused himself to his study to handle some work emails. Sri settled in the living room with a book she'd brought, though Raj noticed she spent more time glancing at Rony than actually reading. Raj tried watching television with the volume low, but couldn't focus on anything.

Rony never moved from his corner. He stayed hunched in the exact same position, like a statue of grief.

Around ten o'clock, Uncle Prakash emerged from his study, looking even more tired than before. "I'm heading to bed," he announced. "Long day tomorrow. Early meetings."

"Goodnight, bhaiya," Sri said, standing up to hug him.

"Goodnight. Your room is the second door on the left upstairs. Fresh towels are in the bathroom cabinet. If you need anything—"

"We'll be fine," Sri assured him. "Get some rest."

Uncle Prakash nodded, then looked toward Rony. His expression tightened with worry, but he didn't say anything. Just headed upstairs, his footsteps heavy on the wooden steps.

Raj stood and stretched. "I should probably sleep too."

"Raj, could you take the bags up to our rooms? I'll be there in a bit." Sri's eyes had drifted back to Rony.

"Sure." Raj hesitated. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just want to sit here a little longer."

Raj collected their bags from where they'd left them near the entrance and carried them upstairs. The second floor was smaller than the ground level, with three bedrooms and a bathroom arranged along a narrow hallway. The second door on the left opened into a modest guest room with a double bed, a small dresser, and a window overlooking the back garden.

He set Sri's bag on the bed, then took his own to the third room—another guest bedroom, even smaller, with just a single bed and a nightstand. The room smelled faintly of mothballs and disuse.

Raj changed into his sleep clothes and brushed his teeth in the bathroom. Through the hallway window, he could see down into the living room. His mother still sat on the sofa, her book closed on her lap. She was watching Rony with that concerned, maternal expression she got when she worried about someone.

Raj returned to his room but left the door slightly ajar. He climbed into bed but didn't turn off the light. Something made him want to stay alert, to listen for his mother coming upstairs.

Minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

Raj got up and peered out into the hallway again. Sri hadn't moved. She was still down there, keeping vigil over Rony like she could heal him through sheer force of presence.

He went back to bed, lying on top of the covers. His eyes felt heavy but his mind wouldn't settle. That dinner table moment kept circling back. The way Rony had grabbed that piece of roti while staring at Sri. The intensity in his cousin's previously dead eyes.

Raj must have dozed off at some point because when his eyes opened again, the house had fallen into deeper quiet. He checked his phone—11:47 PM. He sat up, listening.

No sounds from downstairs. No movement in the hallway.

He got up and opened his door wider, looking toward his mother's room. The door was closed but no light showed underneath it. Good. She'd finally gone to sleep.

Raj was about to return to bed when he heard something. A soft sound from downstairs. Not quite a voice. More like a murmur.

He moved to the hallway window and looked down. The living room lights had been dimmed but not turned off completely. Just enough illumination to see shapes and shadows.

His mother was still there.

But she'd moved. She was no longer on the sofa. Now she sat on the floor, several feet away from Rony's corner. Not too close. Giving him space. But present.

Raj frowned. What was she doing?

He couldn't hear what she was saying from up here, just the low murmur of her voice. Continuous and steady.

He should go to bed. Let his mother handle this however she thought best. Uncle Prakash had said not to pressure Rony, to let him engage on his own terms. Sri was being sensitive to that.

But Raj didn't move. Something kept him at the window, watching.

Downstairs, Sri sat with her back against the wall, her legs tucked to one side. She'd been sitting here for almost twenty minutes now, just talking. Soft and low, like she was telling bedtime stories.

Rony hadn't acknowledged her presence. Hadn't moved or looked up or given any indication he knew she was there.

But she continued anyway.

"When my mother died, I was twenty-three," Sri said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Already married to Raj's father. We'd moved to the city by then, and I couldn't get back in time. I got the call at three in the morning that she'd passed, and by the time I reached the village, they'd already completed most of the rituals."

She paused, remembering. "I felt so guilty. Like I'd abandoned her. I kept thinking about all the times I could have visited but didn't because work was busy, or the travel seemed too exhausting, or there was always next month, next time, later."

Rony remained motionless. Just a hunched shape in the dim light.

"The grief was like drowning," Sri continued. "Every morning I'd wake up and for one beautiful second, I'd forget. Then I'd remember, and it was like hearing the news all over again. Fresh pain. That went on for months. Maybe even a year."

She picked at a thread on her kurta, giving her hands something to do. "People kept telling me it would get better. That time heals all wounds. I hated hearing that because it felt dismissive, like they were minimizing my pain. But they were right, in a way. Not that it healed completely. More like... I learned to carry it. The weight didn't get lighter, but I got stronger at bearing it."

A slight shift in Rony's posture. So subtle she almost missed it. His head had tilted a fraction, just enough that his ear was angled toward her voice.

He was listening.

Sri's heart ached. This poor boy. Trapped in his grief like she'd been trapped in hers. But he was so young. Eighteen was too young to lose a mother.

Though was there ever a right age for that? She'd been twenty-three and it had devastated her. Her brother had been twenty-seven and had handled it with stoic silence that probably wasn't healthy. No age made losing a parent acceptable.

"Your mother and I only met a few times," Sri said, shifting topics slightly. "At family weddings, mainly. But she was lovely. Always smiling. She had this way of making everyone feel welcome, even people she'd just met. And she adored you. I remember at your thread ceremony—you were what, ten? Eleven?—she couldn't stop talking about how proud she was of you."

Rony's fingers twitched. Such a small movement, barely noticeable. But Sri caught it.

She continued, keeping her voice steady and calm. "The last time I saw her was about two years ago at your grandmother's eightieth birthday celebration. She and your father had organized everything. The decorations, the food, the guest list. It was beautiful. She made it special."

Sri glanced at Rony. His eyes had moved. Not all the way up to meet hers, but no longer fixed on the floor. He was staring at the space between them now.

"Grief is strange," she said softly. "It makes you feel isolated even when you're surrounded by people who love you. It makes you feel like no one could possibly understand what you're going through. And in a way, that's true. No one can understand your specific pain because no one else had your exact relationship with the person you lost."

She leaned her head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. "But pain itself? Loss itself? Those are universal. Everyone experiences them eventually. We're all connected through suffering, as morbid as that sounds."

Several moments of silence passed. Just the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the distant sound of a car passing outside.

Then Rony moved.

His eyes lifted fully. Slowly, deliberately, they tracked upward from the floor, past the space between them, rising until they locked onto Sri's face.

The same intense stare from the dinner table. Focused. Unwavering. Present.

Sri's breath caught slightly. There was something in that gaze. Something that went beyond grief. A kind of hunger, though for what she couldn't quite identify. Connection, maybe. Understanding. Comfort.

She held his gaze, not wanting to break the fragile thread of communication that had formed between them. "You're not alone in this, Rony. I know it feels that way. But you're not."

His eyes stayed fixed on her face. Not blinking. Not moving. Just staring with that same disturbing intensity that had made Raj uneasy at dinner.

But Sri didn't feel uneasy. She felt compassion. This boy needed support, needed someone to reach through his isolation and remind him there was still life beyond his grief.

Instinctively, she reached toward him. Her hand extended across the space between them, moving slowly so as not to startle him. Her fingers touched his shoulder—the one closest to her—and settled there gently. Offering comfort through touch.

"You're not alone," she repeated, even softer.

Rony's hand shot up.

Fast. So fast it made Sri flinch slightly. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, just above where her hand rested on his shoulder. His grip was firm. Not violent or aggressive, but definite. Strong. His fingers overlapped completely around her wrist, his palm warm against her skin.

He held her there. Just held her, his hand gripping her wrist while he stared at her face with that unreadable expression.

Sri froze. Her whole body went rigid. The touch had surprised her—not frightened her exactly, but caught her completely off guard. This was the first physical initiative Rony had taken since she'd arrived. The first time he'd reached out rather than simply receiving affection.

But the way he was holding her wrist. The pressure of his fingers. The unwavering intensity of his stare.

It felt... off.

She stared back at him, uncertain what to do. Should she pull her wrist away? That might damage the fragile connection they'd just established. But staying like this felt strange too. Uncomfortable in a way she couldn't quite articulate.

Rony's grip didn't loosen. Didn't tighten either. Just held steady, his fingers warm circles around her wrist, his eyes locked on her face.

In the hallway at the top of the stairs, Raj stood watching through the window. His hands had curled into fists at his sides. That feeling in his gut—the unease, the wrongness—had crystallized into something sharper.

Concern.

His cousin was holding his mother's wrist. Staring at her with that same intense focus from dinner. And his mother had gone completely still, frozen in place like she didn't know how to react.

Raj took a step toward the stairs, ready to go down there, to interrupt whatever this was.

But he stopped himself. What would he say? What would he do? His mother was trying to help. Uncle Prakash had said not to pressure Rony, to let him engage on his own terms. This was Rony engaging. Reaching out. Making contact.

Raj should be glad. This was progress.

So why did it feel so wrong?

Downstairs, Sri remained motionless, her wrist still caught in Rony's grip, her eyes locked on his unreadable face, uncertain whether to pull away or stay perfectly still.