Chapter 16 — Epilogue: After

Reena Shaikh's Instagram account was last active March 24th, 2023.The account received, in October 2023, a DM from Tanvi: Hi. I think I've moved into the flat you used to live in. I hope you're okay. If you want to talk, I'm here.The message was delivered. It was not read for six weeks.In mid-November — after the sealing, after the hospital, around the time Tanvi was being assessed and treated at Lokmanya Tilak — the message was read.Blue ticks appeared under Tanvi's words. The message had been read.No reply came.But the account's status, which had previously shown "last active March 24th," changed.It showed: last active today.Tanvi, who checked the account periodically as part of the periodic checking that had become her morning practice, saw this in January.She sat with it for a long time.She typed: Reena. If this is you — you don't have to say anything. I just want you to know I was there after you, and I got out, and I think you did too. Or some of you did. Or — I don't know. I don't know what happened or how. But someone read my message. And I hope whoever read it is okay. I hope you're finding your way back to yourself. It takes time. But it's there. It's still there.She sent it.She waited.No reply.But the account stayed active. The "last seen" updated, periodically, over the following weeks. Once a day, sometimes. Once every few days, other times.Someone checking in. Someone in the account, occupying it, looking out.Tanvi chose to believe it was Reena.She chose to believe it with the specific deliberateness of a person who has learned that some beliefs were not things you arrived at but things you decided to hold, because the holding was what mattered.She chose it.And she let the thought of Reena — wherever she was, in whatever form, in whatever condition of returning to herself — she let it be a thing she carried lightly. Like a stone picked up somewhere that turned out to be the right weight for the hand that held it.Not heavy.Not nothing.Just: hers. To keep.* * *The flat at 14/C, Noor Chawl, Dharavi Cross Road, Sion, Mumbai — 400017 — is currently empty.The wall where the mirror stood is a slightly lighter shade than the wall around it.Once a week, a small flame burns on the windowsill.In the morning, from the courtyard, you can see the jamun tree and, above it, the specific quality of light over Mumbai that doesn't have a name but which people who have lived there remember as one of the things they miss.In the evening, the light comes through the window at a certain angle and turns the walls a particular golden colour.Nobody is there to see it.But it does it anyway.— THE END —