The rain hadn't stopped the next morning.
Tara was up early, wrapped in a shawl, sitting at her tiny dining table, flipping through an old spiral notebook with recipes scribbled in three different inks. Most of them were unfinished, some barely legible, and one had a full page dedicated to "Perfect Chai Ratio — Do Not Let Tara Experiment."
She smiled.
It was her mom's handwriting.
A voice message popped up on her phone. Tara didn't even have to check — she knew that tone, that exact five-second pause at the start. Her mother never said "hi" first. She always started with updates like she was filing a report to the Home Ministry.
"The maid here puts too much ginger in the chai. I'm being poisoned slowly. Also, your aunt has started Zumba again and nearly dislocated a rib. Tell me, have you bought new socks?"
Tara chuckled and hit reply.
"Yes, Mom. I'm alive. Yes, I have socks. No, I still can't fold fitted sheets like you. The universe is chaotic."
A moment later, her phone buzzed again — this time, a photo. Her mom, half out of the frame, holding a giant steel pot and frowning at it like it insulted her ancestors.
Caption: Attempted your dal. Emotional damage caused.
Tara set the phone down and rested her chin in her hands.
She missed her.
Not in the dramatic, tearful, violins-playing way. But in that quiet ache kind of way. The kind you only notice when you're stirring tea and there's no one across the kitchen asking, "Did you add too much cardamom again, chamakti ladki?"
---
A few months ago, her mother had packed two suitcases and left for Hyderabad. Not for herself — for Tara's aging grandmother, who'd been getting forgetful and suspicious of her ceiling fan.
"She keeps thinking it's plotting something," her mom had said. "And honestly, I need a break from your constant burning of toast."
At first, Tara had protested. "We can hire help, Ma. I can come with you."
But her mother had placed a hand on her cheek and said, "You need your own kitchen now. And your own mistakes."
Then added, "Just promise me you'll use detergent and not dish soap in the washing machine this time."
They laughed, hugged, and like that, Tara had begun her solo-living arc.
---
Now, sitting in her flat, sipping warm chai, she looked around at the life she'd half-decorated. Plants on bookshelves. Unmatched cushions. A poster of Frida Kahlo next to a sticky note that said "Buy chillies."
Home.
Not perfect. But hers.
And just then — as if summoned by nostalgia itself — the doorbell rang.
She opened it to find her neighbor's kid, Nivi, holding up a crumpled grocery list like a peace treaty.
"Aunty, can I borrow one tomato and two coriander?"
Tara raised an eyebrow. "You're seven."
"I'm cooking dinner. My mom is in a Zoom meeting and said if I interrupt again, I'll be grounded till Diwali."
Tara handed her the coriander and a tomato the size of a cricket ball. "Return the bowl. And no knives."
"Got it." Nivi gave a dramatic salute and disappeared.
Tara laughed and shut the door. She sent her mom another voice note.
"Your granddaughter from the flat next door is now cooking dinner. Please consider her for adoption. Also — I cleaned the fridge. Voluntarily. Please clap."
---
That evening, while going through her spice shelf, Tara found a tiny tin box tucked at the back. Inside, wrapped in a napkin, was a dried hibiscus flower — something her mom had plucked and saved during a temple visit years ago.
It had no real purpose, but she had kept it anyway.
Tara held it gently, placed it in the middle of the dining table, and whispered, "Thanks for the madness, Ma. And the love. Mostly the love."
Then she looked up at the kitchen wall and, on impulse, scribbled in chalk:
Chai. Warmth. Mess. And a lot of love. That's how she raised me.
The words looked a little uneven. The lines weren't perfectly straight.
But it was hers now.