We did not get any info or call back from Patty that day. 

Later in the night, my cell phone buzzed and there was an unknown number flashing on the screen. “Another spam call,” I thought. 

Spam calls had gone out of hand I would get multiple calls in a day selling something or asking for money. Hoping to get rid of them and identify these spam calls I installed “Active Armor”, an app from AT&T my cell phone provider, on my phone. 

It was also one of the facilities I was getting, being a subscriber of the signature unlimited plan.

 I unlike my usual nature, of ignoring spam calls, answered it. 

“Hello, papa how are you doing”.  Patty’s voice was coming in crisply as if she was sitting next to us

“Shouldn’t that be a question I need to ask?” I thought. 

“We are fine darling, how are you doing, how was your day today. What was your day like”. I asked multiple questions.

“Patty, how are you baby, are you ok,” Sachi asked. She was standing behind the sofa.

“I had a normal day, we went through some group classes and later on, there was a book reading session, followed by a movie”. 

“I want to come back home; I don’t want to stay here. It is horrible”, she continued. 

Even though I wasn’t a proponent of the present system, no way endorsed it, I said “you need to take advantage of the classes, as these are the tools that will be available to you, for tackling your present depression”. 

“You need to complete the course and get in a better state. We all want you home, we also want you to be safe”. 

“Yes, I know I will work on it”. 

“Going or not going into the facility is in your hands but coming out is not in your hands”. 

“You need to get better and then make sure you never need these facilities again”. 

“Yes, I know, I will work on it”, Patty said. 

Sachi was crying sitting beside me. I had my right hand over Sachi’s shoulder, I was trying to console her, trying to tell her to be positive in front of her. 

It wasn’t easy, handling two ladies of the house, in an agitated state. 

“Did you have dinner?” Sachi asked. 

“Yes, mommy I had”. 

“What did you eat”. 

“I had a chicken sandwich, it was ok not that great but the peanut butter sandwich, I had later was very good. I have started liking peanut butter sandwiches here”. 

“Ok Patty, take care of yourself, call us whenever you can” we both told Patty.

The call ended but the silence was deafening. 

Sachi and I did not have any words to break the silence. 

We both were too overwhelmed by the situation of having our lovely daughter separated from us. 

“I am sorry, I don’t like this system. It is just a way to fleece people to pay them and keep their shop open. The system is bad”, I said finally breaking the silence. 

“You need to believe in the system, whatever was done was done for her well-being”. 

“We need to believe in it, otherwise how will she believe in it”. 

“I don’t know that may be right, I still don’t like this system. They could have told us to bring her every day and done the program”. 

“Parth, you know how she was she was harming herself here, she could have continued doing that at home”. 

“I did not want to tell you this but seeing your state it is better that you know. You know what I was reading her diary one day and I saw a suicide note in it”. 

“She had started to think about it”. 

It stated “Mommy, papa, and Jag are the three people I love the most, to all the other people who came into my brief life. Thank you for everything you have done for me. I feel my time has come to leave this body; I don’t want to live anymore. It is not you it is me. Please try to understand me. I will always love you and do hope I get such a wonderful family in all my next life too, till I achieve moksha”. 

She was old enough to understand that as Hindus, we believed in the rebirth cycle, the cycle of samsara. According to this belief, everyone had a soul, and that soul was freed from the body on death and born again into a new body. A person’s goal in the life of a Hindu was to do good deeds called karma. Attain enough karma over different lifecycles to be freed from this cycle of rebirth to attain moksha. 

Moksha – Freedom from rebirth.

I was stunned. 

“She needs to be in an isolated environment where she is free of things that can harm her”. 

“Come on, you know we can’t give her that environment at home”.

 Sachi’s arguments made sense but those were being addressed to a father. 

A father whose sweetheart was not with him. 

We had dinner and I went to the bedroom, while Sachi stayed in the living room, watching her serials. 

This was her way of de-stressing.

I was on my bed, with my phone, browsing randomly the various news apps I had on my phone. 

I do not know when I fell asleep, woke up in the night couple of times for the daily toilet trips but fell asleep once I came back in bed. Sachi had come in, sometime in the night and was sleeping, soundly. 

I mean it; she was snoring lightly.

Every day we would get up and drink our coffee. I would have breakfast and Sachi would skip hers, part of her intermittent fasting routine. 

She had this new system for a couple of months now. She would skip breakfast, and just have black coffee in the morning. Have lunch later in the day around 1 – 1:30 and then have the evening cappuccino, followed by dinner after an hour. 

Effectively eating for about 8 hours every day and fasting for 16 hours. 

So, our daily routine was to have coffee, pack lunch for Jag, have lunch, have coffee again, and then have dinner, and sleep in the night repeat. 

The next day started, as usual, three of us Bihu, Sachi, and myself were sitting on the sofa, “make some tea for me today” she asked me. 

“You shifted to tea today from coffee”

“Yes, I am not in the mood for coffee”.

 Bihu was discussing with Sachi, how she wanted to apply for different jobs. 

I went towards the kitchen and opened the door of the closet; staring at the stuff inside, totally blank, unable to understand why I was there.