The message from her brother came at ten past nine.
Dad’s in the General. They think it’s his heart. He’s asking for you.
Priya hadn’t spoken to her father in two years. She put the phone face down on the kitchen table, and the arguments started straight away. He’d said what he said. He’d never apologised. Why should she drop everything now? If she went, he’d think it was all forgotten.
She typed a reply. I can’t tonight. She left it there, unsent. Her chest was tight. Everything felt urgent, and nothing felt clear.
The dog was watching her from the door. More to get out of the kitchen than anything, she clipped on his lead and went out into the rain.
The park was empty, and the streetlights were on. Halfway round the pond, she stopped and asked herself the only question she had left. What am I not seeing?
The Calm Voice
For a while, nothing. Then something came, and it didn’t argue. It just said, very calmly, go. She noticed how different it felt. The voice in the kitchen had been loud and hurried and full of what he’d done. This one was in no hurry at all, as if it had been there all along, waiting for her to go quiet.
Going would be hard. But her chest had loosened, and it was the first thought all evening that had felt like peace. She walked the dog home, dried him off and picked up her car keys.
At ten to eleven, she pushed open the door of the ward. Her father turned his head on the pillow.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.
“Neither did I,” said Priya, and pulled up a chair.
The story is fiction. The point of it isn’t.
Read: Connecting to Your Higher Self: Discovering the Wisest Part of Who You Are
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