Madi stored his number twice on her phone, once under his name and a second time under “emergency contact.” Raj stood in the cold hospital basement and when he looked, her skin was wiped white, as if her whole body had been scrubbed, and her lips were blue. But he had already known by the shape of the body under the sheet. He had already known because she was the only person on the planet who stored his number under “emergency contact.” “It’s her.” “Do you need to sit down, sir?” the supervisor asked, lifting a hand over Raj’s shoulder and leaving it to levitate there, as if knowing that a touch can either encourage or shatter whatever strength remained. “No.” He called his mother from the hospital. She screamed into the receiver, her voice pleading with him to take back the news. She wouldn’t get off the phone, not until he promised to take it all back. After fifteen minutes of his mother weeping into his ear, he asked if she would phone his father. He couldn’t tell him, he couldn’t say “Madi’s dead”
