Going Home…

Papa sits in a wheelchair in his sterile room, in the sterile hospital. I can only see a portion of his face, hanging in the bottom half of my phone screen. The headrest of his chair peeks out from behind his head. An oxygen tube runs from his nose to out beyond the screen.

He won’t look at me.

“Uncle ji,” calls out Ranjeet, the driver — but more than a driver, so much more. His caretaker, his adopted son, his…