. CHAPTER 9 — The Ride Home
Arman did not take Harish to his apartment immediately. He walked him first to a small diner two blocks from the bus stop, the kind of place with cracked red booths and waitresses who called everyone honey without remembering faces. Harish moved slowly, embarrassed by his borrowed cane. Arman slowed without mentioning it.
They sat across from each other under a flickering light.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Harish said, “I do not know how to be your grandfather.”
Arman looked at the menu without reading it. “Good. I don’t know how to be your grandson.”
It was the first honest thing between them that did not bleed.
Harish ordered tea. Arman ordered coffee because he needed something to hold. Outside, buses passed in both directions, each hiss of brakes making Harish flinch. Arman noticed. He said nothing, but moved his chair slightly so his body blocked Harish’s view of the road.
The old man noticed that too.
“I don’t deserve your kindness,” Harish said.
“No,” Arman replied. “But I’m trying not to become the kind of man who only gives people what they deserve.”
Harish covered his mouth with one hand.
Arman unfolded the letter again. “Tell me about my father.”
So Harish did.
He told him Daniel hated expensive shoes but loved old books. He told him Daniel once skipped a board meeting to help a student whose mother had been arrested. He told him Daniel laughed when nervous, burned toast every Sunday, and sent Harish birthday cards for three years after their fight even though Harish never answered them.
Each detail hurt and healed at the same time.
Arman listened like a starving man offered food he did not trust.
When Harish finished, the diner seemed quieter.
“My mother should have heard this,” Arman said.
“Yes.”
“You should have said it at the funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You should have come before she died.”
Harish’s eyes lowered. “Yes.”
There were no excuses left. Strangely, that made the old man easier to sit with.
Arman pulled out his phone and opened the video the woman had sent. The first frame showed him mid-run, face full of terror, the crowd unaware.
“Everyone thought I was wrong,” he said.
Harish watched the frozen image. “Everyone was late.”
Arman thought about that for a long time.
Then he called a ride.
When the car arrived, Harish hesitated at the door. “Where are we going?”
May you like
Arman looked at him, still angry, still grieving, but no longer willing to let the story end at a bus stop.
“To my mother’s grave,” he said. “You can start there.”
