Her name was Kavya. She was ten years and four months old, which she considered an important distinction — she was not simply ten, she was almost ten and a half, which felt closer to eleven and therefore closer to being old enough to do things that required being eleven.
Her father, Dinesh Kumar, was a ticket checker at Allahabad Junction, which meant he worked odd hours and came home at different times and sometimes smelled of train smoke. He was a quiet, decent man who made Kavya's lunch every morning before she woke up and left it in the fridge with a note that said the same thing every day: Kavya beta, khana kha lena. — Papa.
Kavya's mother had gone to Lucknow two years ago to care for Kavya's nani, who was unwell, and was still there. She called every Sunday. Kavya talked to her every Sunday and was perfectly fine every day in between, or at least she told her father she was perfectly fine, and her father told her mother she was perfectly fine, and her mother said good and then cried a little after she hung up, which neither Kavya nor her father knew.
Kavya spent her afternoons after school at the station because her father was usually still on shift and the station was familiar and interesting. She had discovered that Platform 9 was the quietest and that quiet was useful for thinking.
She had seen the old man on bench number seven many times before she spoke to him. She had noticed his white kurta. She had noticed that he always looked at the tracks. She had noticed that he had the expression of someone waiting — the subtle forward quality of attention, the small alertness at the corners of the eyes. She had generated several theories about what he was waiting for. None of them felt right. So she asked.
