Epilogue: A PostcardFound in a book. Rishikesh postcard, undated. Handwriting: Aanya.Addressed to no one. Never sent.
Kabir,
The café is the same. I am not the same, which is the whole point, probably.
I've been thinking about what we made on those steps — the pact, the handshake, the laughing. We were so certain we were doing something extraordinary. Maybe we were. Or maybe we were just two people at twenty-two who didn't want to say a regular goodbye and found the most complicated possible alternative.
I have a daughter now. You know this. You've held her. She grabbed your ear last month and looked at you with the specific suspicion she reserves for new objects and you said "fair" and she decided you were acceptable, which from Kaveri is high praise.
I used to think about what we could have been. I don't do that anymore. Not because it doesn't matter but because what we are is so much more interesting than what we could have been. What we could have been was a story. What we are is a life — complicated, improbable, real.
I hope you know how glad I am. Not in the uncomplicated way. In the way of someone who has looked at everything clearly and found that the actual thing, the real unplanned thing, is what she would have chosen if she'd known to choose it.
The pact is closed.
Everything that came after it is ours.
Take care of Priya. She's the best of what came out of all of this.
Take care of yourself.
I'll take care of the rest.
— A.— THE END —
