My mother called during my lunch break, which she knows is 1PM my time, 10:30PM hers, because she has memorized the time difference the way she memorized my school schedule twenty years ago.
I took it on a bench in Bryant Park, the one near the carousel, with a falafel wrap from the cart on 42nd going cold in my lap.
We talk twice a week but this call was different. She asked if I was eating properly, which is code for I miss you. I said yes, which is code for don't worry. This is how my mother and I have always communicated — in translations.
Then she got quiet and said Beta, your Papa's knee is bothering him again. And suddenly I was very aware of how far Ahmedabad is. Not miles. Miles I can look up. It was the other distance. The one where I can't drive him to the doctor or make his tea the way he likes it, sweet enough to give a dentist nightmares.
My mother called during my lunch break and for nineteen minutes I was not a fashion assistant in New York. I was a daughter on the wrong continent.
A pigeon tried to steal my falafel and I let it have a piece. My mother heard me laugh and asked what happened, and I told her, and she laughed too, and for a second we were in the same room even though we were in different days.
There's a thing nobody tells you about moving away. You don't just miss people. You miss being useful to them. You miss being reachable in the ordinary way, the walk-into-the-kitchen way.
Before she hung up she said she was proud of me. In Gujarati it sounds heavier than in English. It lands somewhere deeper.
I sat on that bench for a while after. Watched a toddler chase the pigeons. Ate my cold wrap. Let myself feel it instead of scrolling it away.
When your mother calls, answer. You can eat later.
Love,