The call came in the afternoon.
Maya was filing reports at the clinic, the ceiling fan humming lazily above her, when her phone vibrated against the wooden desk.
She glanced down.
Amma.
Her body reacted before her mind did — a familiar tightening, a reflex shaped by years of obligation and unfinished conversations.
She let it ring once more.
Then answered.
"Amma."
Her mother's voice sounded thinner than usual.
Not panicked.
Measured.
That worried her more.
"Maya," she said, "Appa slipped this morning."
Maya stood slowly.
"How bad?"
"He didn't fall hard," her mother replied quickly, already cushioning the truth."But his knee… he can't put weight on it. The doctor says it's not serious, but he needs help for a few days."
Maya closed her eyes.
A younger version of herself would have heard only one thing:
You are required.
This version heard something else too.
You are trusted.
"I can come," she said calmly."For a few days."
There was a pause on the other end.
"You don't have to," her mother said. "I know you're—"
"I want to," Maya replied.
The difference mattered.
She told Sara that evening.
"I need to go home for a few days," she said.
Sara looked up immediately.
"Family?"
"Yes."
Sara nodded.
"Go," she said without hesitation."We'll manage."
Maya hesitated.
"What about Nikhil?"
"I'll tell him," Sara said gently."And you'll tell him when you come back."
Maya smiled.
"Thank you."
Sara studied her for a moment.
"You're not afraid," she said.
Maya considered.
"No," she said slowly."I'm not."
She packed that night.
Not hurried.
Not heavy.
She chose clothes carefully.
Folded them neatly.
Packed her notebook last.
The act felt different this time.
Not like leaving a place she had just found.
But like stepping out briefly from something that would wait.
At the bench by the sea, Kannan listened quietly as she told him.
"I have to go home," she said.
He nodded.
"You'll come back," he said.
Not a question.
A knowing.
"Yes," she replied.
He smiled.
"That's what makes it different."
Her parents' house smelled exactly the same.
Old books.Incense.A faint trace of jasmine from the neighbor's garden.
Her father sat in the armchair by the window, leg propped up, looking irritated at his own stillness.
He looked up when she entered.
Their eyes met.
No awkwardness.
No rush.
Just recognition.
"You came," he said.
"Yes," Maya replied, setting her bag down."I did."
Her mother hovered for a moment, then stepped back, letting the moment belong to them.
Her father gestured to the chair opposite him.
"Sit," he said. "Tell me about the sea."
Maya smiled.
And did.
The days passed quietly.
Maya cooked.
Cleaned.
Sat with her father in the afternoons, reading aloud from the newspaper when his eyes tired.
They spoke of small things.
Weather.
Politics.
The price of vegetables.
And once, unexpectedly, her father said:
"You look… rested."
Maya paused.
"I am."
He nodded slowly.
"I worried you would come back angry," he admitted.
She met his gaze.
"I came back whole," she said.
Something in his eyes softened.
One evening, as her father slept, her mother joined her in the kitchen.
"You've changed," her mother said.
"Yes," Maya replied.
Her mother hesitated.
"Is it because you failed?"
Maya smiled gently.
"No," she said."It's because I stopped measuring myself that way."
Her mother absorbed this.
Then nodded.
"I think I like this version of you," she said.
Maya laughed softly.
"So do I."
On the third night, her father spoke again — quietly, without preamble.
"I was afraid," he said."That if you came back, you would disappear into us again."
Maya looked at him.
"I was afraid of that too," she admitted.
He nodded.
"But you didn't."
"No," she said."I came back with boundaries."
He smiled faintly.
"Good," he said. "That means we get to know you properly this time."
When she left a few days later, it did not feel like escape.
Her mother packed food.
Her father walked her to the door with his cane.
"Go back to your life," he said."And don't rush to return unless you want to."
Maya hugged him.
"I'll come when I choose," she said.
He smiled.
"That's my girl."
Back at the port, the sea greeted her without ceremony.
The bench waited.
Kannan waved from a distance.
She sat.
Exhaled.
And realized something that would have been impossible before:
Home no longer pulled her apart.
It met her where she stood.