(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
"Is there anyone in the Cleveland area to identify and claim the body ?" Ashima was asked. Instead of answering, she hung up the phone as the women on phone was still speaking, pressing down the receiver as hard as she could into the cradle, keeping her hand there for a while, as if to smother the words she'd just heard. She stared at her empty tea cup, and then at the kettle on the stove, which she'd turned off in order to hear her husband's voice just hours ago. She began to shiver violently, the house instantly feeling twenty degrees colder. She pulled her sari tightly around her shoulders, like a shawl. She got up and walked systematically through the rooms of the house, turning on all lights and flooding over the garage, as if she and Ashoke were expecting company. She returned to the kitchen and stared at the pile of Christmas cards on the table, most of them ready to be dropped in the mailbox. She opened her address book, suddenly unable to remember her son's phone number, a thing she could normally dial in her sleep. There was no answer at his office or at his apartment and so she tried the number she'd written down for Maxine. It was listed, along with the other numbers, under G, both for Ganguli and for Gogol.
Sonia flew back from San Francisco to be with Ashima. Gogol flew from LaGuardia to Cleveland alone. He left early the next morning, boarding the first flight he could get. The flight was more than half empty, men and few women in business suits, people used to such flights and to traveling at such hours, typing on laptops or reading news of the day. He was unaccustomed to the banality of domestic flights, the narrow cabin, the single bag he'd packed, small enough to stove overhead. Maxine had offered to go with him, but he'd told her no. He didn't want to be with someone who barely knew his father, who'd met him only once. She walked him to Ninth Avenue, stood with him at dawn, her hair uncombed, her face still thick with sleep, her coat and pair of boots slipped on over her pajamas. He withdrew cash from an ATM, hailed a cab. Most of the city, including Gerald and Lydia, were still asleep.
He and Maxine had been at a book party for one Maxine's writer friends the night before. Afterward they'd gone out to dinner with a small group. At about ten O'clock they returned to her parents' house as usual, tired as if it were much later, pausing on their way upstairs to say good night to Gerald and Lydia, who were sitting under a blanket on the sofa, watching a French film on video, sipping glasses of after-dinner wine. The lights had been turned off, but from the glow of the television screen Gogol could see that Lydia was resting her head on Gerald's shoulder, that they both had their feet propped against the edge of the coffee table. "Oh. Nick. Your mother called," Gerald had said, glancing up from the screen. "Twice," Lydia added. He felt a sting of embarrassment. No, she hadn't left any message, they said. His mother called him more often these days, now that she was living on her own. Every day, she needed to hear the voice of her children. But she had never called him at Maxine's parents'. She called him at work, or left message at his apartment that he would receive days later. He decided that whatever it was could wait until morning. "Thanks, Gerald," he'd said, his arm around Maxine's waist, turning to leave the room. But then the phone had rung again, "Hello," Gerald had said, and then to Gogol, "It's your sister, this time."
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