I am in New York during the great season of fall, cold yet heartwarming. She wants to know what she was like when she was a kid. What was I like, she says. Tell me what I was like when I was a kid, tell me, she says. She takes a sip of mom’s age old tea, waits, eyes him closely. She is a nice, beautiful, cute, and happy girl from top to bottom. That was a while back,  he says, as he sits back on his couch, sitting up straight as if his mom was watching him. Once he is back with some scorching hot tea, she relaxes, he relaxes, and the story kicks off. 

Of course, back then they both were kids, the boy was a little older, but incomparable to him now. Anyway, they were sort of in a friend type relationship and not like brother and sister. The boy was nine and the girl was six, almost at seven. Not all that long afterwards they had a big change.The change came along in mid August during the warm spell that just happened to coincide with the peak of Independence day. The girl loved India, you see. That’s part of it. On this one  Thursday night after finishing up his toy bag in his room, the boy stayed in his room and called his mom to tell her that they were coming.Mom, he said when the mother picked up the phone, believe it or not the change is tomorrow. Yay, the mom said. How is the sister?

She’s fine, mom. Everybody’s fine.

He stays by the window, thinking.

They had once laughed. They had talked to each other until the tears had come, while everything else-the packing, and where he’d go with it-was outside, for a while anyway.