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Chapter Two

Shantal

I stare down at my suitcase blankly. It’s as if I’ve got an undeserved pile of riches before me. Stolen, perhaps, a luxury I didn’t earn.

This isn’t right.

The last time I had taken a plane was with my mother and father, to Georgetown, Guyana. It had not been a happy trip, but it was what was right for Sonia, at least according to the pandit . Going home to spread the ashes was the only way to grant her soul peace. I tried my best to assure myself the trip was necessary, but even that felt wrong without her there next to me.

‘Soni,’ I whisper, ‘I can’t do this.’

I sit down on the side of my bed and rake my hands through the remains of my hair. It’s been over six months since I chopped most of it off in our upstairs bathroom, right after we got back from Georgetown, but I’m still not used to it. I had hair down past my waist before, grew it out because Sonia did, and I wanted to be just like her . Now, the waves just skim my shoulders.

Ma hated it. She let out a strangled scream when I came out of the bathroom. ‘Shanni, what in the—’

‘I had to,’ I replied shortly. We didn’t talk about it after that. Babu saw and looked at me sadly. He had never been one to yell.

I pick up my phone and scroll till I find my mother in my contacts. The photo of Sonia on my desk stares at me as I hit call and the dial tone drones.

‘Hi, Shantal?’

‘Ma, I just … I can’t go.’

‘What? No.’ There is scolding in her voice. Maybe Babu never yells, but my ma, as wonderful as she is, makes up for this threefold. ‘This is so big. Don’t joke with me.’

‘Not without her, Ma,’ I manage.

On the other end of the phone, Ma stays silent.

‘What?’

‘Shanni,’ my mother says, voice as fragile as my resolve. ‘It’s been six months.’

‘Six months won’t bring Sonia back.’

‘Listen to me, Shantal.’

‘Are you back to normal, Ma?’ I snap at her. ‘Tell me you don’t think about Sonia. Tell me you don’t try to text her or go to look for her in the house and realize she’s left.’

More silence.

‘Yes,’ she finally admits. ‘Yes. Of course, I do that. But this, Shantal, this is the chance of a lifetime. And maybe getting out of this place is what you need .’

I swallow hard. ‘I love Clapham.’

‘I know,’ sighs Ma. ‘I know you love Clapham. I know you two did everything together.’

‘Every decision I made, Ma, I made it with her.’

Sonia and I had dreamed of this for years, an opportunity for me to take my career to a level of leadership. Losing her before I made it to that point was as painful as a knife in my heart, a pain that six months had done nothing to dull.

‘Don’t make yourself suffer. You’ve been …’ I could swear my mother’s words threaten to crack with tears. ‘You’ve been living like this long enough. Go and enjoy your life.’

Ma doesn’t wait for a response. A beep signals to me that she’s hung up.

I throw my phone aside and take the photo of Sonia in its gold frame off my desk. Long black hair, big brown eyes that constantly held a smile, grinning lips outlined in a russet shade she always had on, even if it was only for a supermarket trip. The photographer had caught her mid-laugh. She had the best laugh, and when she smiled, she lit up the room. She was Miss Guyana Great Britain for a year. She was a Bharatanatyam graduate. She was a schoolteacher. You can see it in the picture: she is beautiful, inside and out. Vibrant, gentle, loving. She was full of life , and yet Ma thinks I can go on with mine as if nothing happened to my brilliant sister’s.

‘I’ve wanted this for years,’ I whisper to her. ‘But it doesn’t mean anything without you.’

I don’t think I can do this without her. My heart will scream at me to turn around the second I reach the airport terminal. But I do what I always do, anyway: I force my mind to believe that maybe Ma is right, and maybe I will be able to pick up the pieces of myself and move forward in this new stage of my life.