He lived only ten minutes away, but to me, it felt like another lifetime. Ever since he’d moved in with his girlfriend a year ago, my son hadn’t visited once. I kept reaching out — text messages, phone calls, little bank transfers on holidays or on random days, each with a small note: “Buy yourself something nice.”
All I ever got back were read receipts and silence.
Last week, the weight of that silence became unbearable. I called again and again until, finally, he answered.
“I’m busy, Ma. Please stop calling every day. I’ll visit when I can, okay?”
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t unkind. He was simply indifferent — and somehow, that indifference hurt more than anger ever could.
When he hung up, I stayed there with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone as if it might tell me what I had done wrong. I wasn’t trying to smother him. I just missed him — missed the boy who used to sneak into the kitchen for extra kheer, who’d hug me from behind while I cooked.
His name is Nishan. He’s twenty-seven now. Always quiet, gentle, and too kind for this world.
Things began to change after he met Zahra. I never blamed her; I barely knew her. The one time they came by before moving into that new condo, she was polite but distant. I made kheer; she barely touched it. Nishan didn’t ask for seconds. That alone should have told me something.
After that day, the distance between us grew wider. Still, I kept sending him money for birthdays and Diwali, convincing myself he was just busy. But after that final phone call, something inside me went completely still. I didn’t call again. Instead, I cleaned — the way I always do when loneliness starts to ache. I polished the same counter until it gleamed, folded bedsheets no one had slept in, lined up spoons like little soldiers.
That’s what I was doing when I heard the knock — three sharp taps.
She stood there — a woman in her fifties, tall, with sharp cheekbones and eyes that looked kind despite their tiredness.
“Are you Mrs. Dutt?” she asked. “I’m Reena. I… met your son.”
My heart clenched.
“Is he alright?”
She hesitated, then pulled out a photograph. In it, Nishan sat on a stoop — thinner, paler, hollow-eyed.
“Taken six weeks ago,” she said softly. “He was in my daughter’s building — but not with Zahra. He moved out months ago.”
My throat tightened. “He told me they were still living together.”
Reena shook her head gently. “They broke up. He stayed around the building for a while, sleeping on a mattress in the laundry room. He lost his job in April and tried to hide it. When the bills piled up, someone asked him to leave. Two weeks ago, he disappeared again.”
The word slipped out of me like a bruise: “Homeless?”
She nodded. “For a while, yes. I think he was ashamed. People go quiet when they believe they’ve disappointed the person who loves them most.”
I told her I’d been sending him small transfers. She said he’d refused help from everyone. Before leaving, she scribbled down a phone number — her daughter’s — and said they’d call if they heard anything.
When the door closed, I stared at that photo until it blurred. Then came the anger — not at him, but at myself. At the thought that I’d somehow raised a son who believed he couldn’t come home.
That night, I cooked khichdi with extra ghee — his favorite — and left it in the fridge. The smell filled the house like a promise.
For days, I walked through his old neighborhood, showing his picture to shopkeepers and street vendors. No one had seen him. I even texted Zahra, but she never replied.
Five days later, another knock. This time, a young man stood there — barely twenty — holding a grocery bag.
“Are you Nishan’s mom?” he asked.
I nodded, too afraid to hope.
“He’s been staying at the shelter on Sundown Street,” he said. “He helped me with job applications. Said he used to work in IT. He mentioned your cooking — something about guava pickles.” He smiled shyly. “I thought you’d want to know he’s okay.”
I nearly fell to my knees from relief. I pressed a twenty into his hand because gratitude that big has to go somewhere. Then I packed two lunchboxes — khichdi and guava pickle — and caught the next bus.
I saw him the moment I walked in. Hunched over a chipped laptop, wearing the old hoodie I’d mended twice. He looked up slowly — confusion melting into disbelief.
“Ma?”
“Hi, beta.”
He broke then — right there in the middle of the room. He cried the way you do when a dam finally bursts — loud, messy, from somewhere deep inside. I held him, as if stitching him back together.
“I didn’t want you to know,” he choked out. “I messed up.”
“You didn’t mess up,” I whispered. “You just forgot where home is.”
We sat outside, and he ate both lunchboxes like a man starved for more than food. He told me everything — how he’d lost his job, how panic made him freeze, how every rejection felt heavier than the last. Zahra had tried to help until the stress broke them apart. After that, shame took over. He’d rather vanish than face pity.
“Pity?” I said, swatting his arm. “Maybe a slap for not calling your mother. But pity? Never.”
That made him laugh — really laugh. I took him home that night. I gave him a hot shower, clean clothes, and fresh sheets. When he finally slept, it was the deep sleep of someone who feels safe again. For the first time in a year, the house felt alive.
Reena’s daughter turned out to be a social worker. She helped him find a part-time job using his computer skills — helping others write resumes and applications. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was steady.
He even started cooking again — burned rice, over-salted curry, wild experiments that made us order pizza. I didn’t care. Every mistake felt like healing.
Last week, he took me out for dosa at the same place we used to visit when he was in college. The servers still remembered him. He insisted on paying.
“I thought I’d lost everything,” he said on the way home. “Maybe this was the reset I needed.”
“Life breaks us,” I told him. “But sometimes it breaks us right at the door we need to walk through.”
Here’s what I’ve learned: people don’t always disappear because they stop caring. Sometimes they care so deeply they can’t bear to be seen in their weakest moment. Shame disguises itself as pride, as silence, as self-preservation — but it’s a liar.
Love waits. Patient, stubborn, unglamorous.
It waits with khichdi warming on the stove and guava pickle in the jar.
It waits with the light on.
So if someone you love has drifted far, try again — not with blame, but with space. With softness. With a landing gentle enough for them to come home.
Sometimes, all it takes is knowing they can still knock — and that you’ll still open the door.