It’s 9 am and the reminder notifications beep on my phone and laptop.

“Recharge Daddy’s phone numbers.”

I decide to recharge the Jio number first, and check my phone to look into my contacts for Daddy’s numbers.

Who remembers phone numbers these days?

As I pick up my phone, there’s an incoming call. It’s my brother.

Hmmm . . . I wonder why he’s calling. He landed in Bombay last night, maybe he wants to tell me something about our house there. 

He asks if I’m awake, I said yes but that’s a red flag cos he’s not one for small talk.

“What happened?”

“Sister Lucille just called me . . . ”

My heart sank. I knew it was bad news. 

1.     Sister Lucille never called my brother; she always called me because I was Daddy’s primary contact. 

2.     Sister Lucille never called that early in the day.

“What happened?” I asked my brother. 

I thought Daddy’s unwell and needs to be hospitalized or something. They would never call about minor things like a cold or cough. Those were things I’d find out about during my daily calls anyway. 

“Something . . . something . . . Daddy passed away . . . ”

“No no no no no no no no no no . . . it can’t be . . . ”

“Listen to me, they said he didn’t suffer. He went peacefully . . . ”

“No no no, how can it be . . . I was just about to recharge his prepaid plans . . . ”

“Calm down . . . ”

I do the opposite and get up with a jerk, my goddamn left knee starts to hurt like a bitch . . .

“Damn this bloody osteoarthritis! I couldn’t even visit Daddy with you on Thursday because I could not walk!”

My brother continued telling me what happened . . . 

“They said he was fine . . . he woke up as usual and had his bath. Then he was having his breakfast . . . while eating he felt uneasy and couldn’t breathe properly . . . they took him to his bed and lay him down . . . within a few seconds, he was gone . . . ”

“Why they didn’t they call me? I would have spoken to him. Was he afraid? I hope he wasn’t nervous . . . he was always afraid of dying . . . ”

“There wasn’t any time . . . It all happened so quickly. They called me because they’d just seen me on Thursday and thought I was in Goa . . . ”

I go quiet for a few seconds, and then ask my brother, “So, should I recharge his phone or not?”

Two weeks later, I’m still waiting for it to fully sink in . . .