I called my dad from the pier in Brooklyn Bridge Park on Sunday evening. Pier 1, the one where everyone takes the same photo of the bridge and pretends they discovered it.
My father does not do phone calls. He does the thing where he answers, says beta how are you, and then hands the phone to my mother within ninety seconds because emotion is her department and he does not have the paperwork.
But my mother was at a wedding. So it was just us.
There was a long pause. In the background of his side I could hear the pressure cooker. Three whistles. I know that sound better than I know most people's voices here.
I told him the sunset was pink over the water. He said, achha, and I could tell he did not know what to do with a sunset I was describing badly from four thousand miles away.
Here is what nobody tells you about homesickness. It is not the big festivals. I can survive Diwali on FaceTime. It is the pressure cooker whistle through a phone speaker while I sit on a pier in DUMBO watching tourists who get to go home to their families in New Jersey.
My dad asked if I was eating properly. This is the only way he knows how to say I miss you. Are you eating. Is it expensive there. Did you take a jacket.
I said yes papa, I am eating. I did not say I had a bodega bacon-egg-and-cheese for lunch, which would break his heart in two ways.
We talked for eleven minutes. That is a record. Before we hung up he said, next time send a photo of the pink one. The sunset. Send a photo.
My father, who does not do phone calls, asked me to send him a sunset.
I sat there on Pier 1 for another hour after we hung up. The bridge lit up. The homesickness didn't leave, it just sat down next to me and got quieter.
Some love travels badly over the phone. But it still travels.
I sent him the photo. He replied with a single thumbs up. I framed it in my head.
Tell your people you're eating. It's the same as I love you.
Love,