Anna was at her wit’s end. Ever since she was back from the hospital, she was all alone. It was the same at the hospital but at least there were other people and she had her phone. She could talk to everyone. She suspected the over-friendly ward boy Ramesh to have stolen her phone when they dropped her home. She can’t even go out and buy a new phone due to the post-treatment safety instructions. She had to stay in quarantine for 14 days.

“Today is the last day. Thank goodness,” she reminded herself.

This lockdown and especially her quarantine had taught her the importance of family and friends. She felt so guilty of being so engrossed in work that she hardly visited her parents once a month who lived just a 15 minutes drive away. But she had her priorities. She was a young rising executive and her office’s main liaison with the China branch. True that the visit to China was the reason for her getting infected with Coronavirus.

“I wish I had come back in January itself rather than tagging out till mid-February there, I would have escaped the virus” she mused the 100th time.

Ever since she tested positive it was a horror ride with her going to the hospital in the government van, treatment in that shabby infrastructure, unhygienic foods, and the misery around her. It was just her phone and her diary that helped her survive and that rascal Ramesh had stolen it. She couldn’t believe how helpful he acted just to steal her stuff. Anyway, all that is behind her. She is now cured and just has to complete these 14 days at home so she doesn’t infect anyone especially her parents. Tomorrow morning, I will go to them. Give them a nice surprise and stay with them for a month at least before joining back the office. This ordeal would have been so much easier if she had not chosen to be independent and was still living with her parents. She missed them so much, even her brat-brother Samit. She repented the day she decided to live alone. The little bits of privacy compromises were not worth so much drama.

That night she binged watched and fell asleep with the TV on. The next day she wore the dress her father brought for her 21st birthday last year when she stayed with them and she hasn’t worn it even once as it was not her style. Her father would be happy to see her wearing it now. God knows how frightful her detention must have been for them since they were not allowed to visit, just speak over the phone. Her father had still somehow come twice to the hospital but was turned away and not allowed to meet.

Finally, her heart pulsating with happiness she reached her parents’ home. The door was ajar as she entered. She seethed in anger to see Ramesh there.

“What was this rascal doing here? I will teach him a lesson that he will never forget!”

Ramesh was saying
“Anna Didi would have wanted you to at least have her phone and diary. She was so nice. It is so sad that she passed away at the hospital and you couldn’t even get her body.”

Anna watched in horror at her parents crying inconsolably, her brother too, as she notices her photo with a garland on the wall!

This wasn’t the reunion she wanted. Now there was no time to tell them how much she loved them, how much they meant to her, not her career or money.

Ramesh continued “She had told me to tell you that she has put some message in her diary and phone if she doesn’t make it.”

Anna smiled to oblivion.