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Simran Gill looked at the grey dot where the green one had been.
She sat in her Bengaluru apartment for a long time.
Then she called her mother.
"Maa," she said.
"Haan, meri jaan," her mother said.
She did not say anything for a moment.
"Nothing," she said. "I just wanted to hear your voice."
Her mother, who was sixty-two years old and had been married for thirty-nine years and had buried her husband eight months ago and had lived through everything that had happened since with the specific resilience of a woman who had decided that her daughters were worth surviving for, said:
"I'm here. I'm always here." She paused. "Call me whenever you need. Even at two AM. Even for nothing." A pause. "That was your father's line, you know. He used to say that to you girls. Call me whenever. Even for nothing."
"I know," Simran said.
"He still says it," her mother said quietly.
"Yes," Simran said. "He does."
