The first thing I noticed was the chair. It was pulled out from the dining table. Nobody had sat on it for years. Yet that evening, it was waiting for someone.
I stood at the entrance of the dining room, staring at it.
“Ma?”
No answer.
“Ma, where are you?”
“Kitchen.”
Her voice sounded normal. Almost too normal. I walked towards the kitchen.
“Why is that chair outside?”
She didn't turn around.
“Which chair?”
“The one in the dining room.”
There was a brief silence. Then she said,
“Your father used to sit there.”
I looked back at the chair.
“I know.”
“He may come back tonight.”
I smiled. I thought she was joking. My father had been dead for eleven years.
That night, Ma cooked his favourite dinner.
Rice. Fish curry. And the sweet chutney he used to ask for after every meal.
She put everything on the table. Then she placed an extra plate in front of the empty chair.
“Ma, what are you doing?”
“He hasn't eaten since morning.”
I stared at her.
“Ma…”
She looked at me.
For the first time, I noticed something strange in her eyes. She wasn't grieving. She was waiting.
My father disappeared on a rainy Tuesday. That was what the police called it. Not death. Not murder. Disappearance.
His car was found near the river. The driver's door was open. His wallet was inside. His phone was inside. His shoes were inside. But my father wasn't.
The police searched the river for six days. They found nothing. After a few months, everyone accepted what they believed had happened. Everyone except Ma. She kept saying,
“He'll come back.”
I was twenty-four then. I told her she needed to accept reality. She slapped me. It was the only time my mother had ever hit me.
Twenty minutes after dinner, someone knocked on the front door. Three knocks.
Slow. Deliberate.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Ma immediately stood up. I grabbed her hand.
“Don't open it.”
She looked at me strangely.
“Why?”
“It's late.”
Another three knocks. Ma smiled. Then she whispered,
“I told you.”
My heart started beating faster.
“Told me what?”
“That he would come back.”
I opened the door. There was nobody outside. Only the rain. I stepped onto the veranda. The street was empty. Then I noticed something near the gate. A pair of black shoes. Old. Wet. Covered with mud.
I knew those shoes. My father's shoes. I brought them inside.
Ma started crying. Not because she was frightened. Because she was happy. She hugged the shoes against her chest. Then she whispered,
“He's finally home.”
That night I couldn't sleep. At 2:17 a.m., I heard footsteps. From the dining room. Slow footsteps.
I opened my bedroom door. The hallway was dark. The footsteps stopped. Then I heard the chair move. I walked towards the dining room. The empty chair was no longer empty. Someone was sitting on it. His back was towards me.
I couldn't see his face. But I knew the shirt. The same grey shirt my father had been wearing on the night he disappeared.
“Baba?”
The man slowly turned around.
And I screamed. It wasn't my father. It was me.
I woke up on the floor. Ma was standing over me. She was crying.
“Why did you come back?” she asked.
I couldn't understand.
“Ma… what are you talking about?”
She pointed towards the mirror. I looked. My reflection was standing behind me. But I wasn't standing. I was lying on the floor. The reflection smiled. Then it raised one finger to its lips.
Shhh…
The next morning, I found an envelope inside my father's old cupboard. My name was written on it. In my father's handwriting. Inside was a single sentence.
“If you are reading this, then your mother has finally told you the truth.”
Below it was another line.
“I didn't disappear eleven years ago.”
My hands began to tremble. Then I read the final sentence.
“It was you who disappeared.”
I stopped breathing. From behind me came Ma's voice. Very softly.
“Now you remember?”
I turned around. She was standing beside the empty chair. And beside her stood my father. He looked exactly as he had eleven years ago. He smiled at me. Then he said,
“Welcome home, son.”
The
