Bunda Still Asks

By Saturday afternoon, the rain had stopped pretending to be weather and became a mood.

It clung to the balcony railings in silver beads. It gathered in the folds of the laundry Bunda had refused to bring inside because, according to her, “the sun might still change its mind.” It darkened the road below Farid’s apartment into a long mirror where motorcycles slid past like shadows with headlights. Even the air smelled undecided: wet concrete, old leaves, detergent, and something warm from the kitchen that should have been comforting but made Farid’s chest tighten the moment he opened the front door.

Pepper soup.

Not exactly Cindy’s favorite. Not officially. Cindy had always said she liked many things, because choosing one favorite made her feel as if she had betrayed the others. But whenever Bunda cooked pepper soup, Cindy would sit a little straighter at the table, both hands around the bowl, pretending the spice did not make her eyes water.

Farid stood in the doorway with his laptop bag hanging from one shoulder and a plastic package of sofa covers tucked under one arm.

For a second, he did not enter.

The apartment looked the same as it always did on Saturday afternoons. Shoes gathered messily near the entrance no matter how often Bunda rearranged them. The small framed prayer on the wall hung slightly crooked. The television murmured low from the living room. Somewhere inside, Momo was committing a crime.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

“Momo,” Farid called.

The scratching stopped.

A pause.

Then one final scratch, deliberate and insulting.

From the kitchen, Bunda shouted, “Aku dengar ya!” / “I heard that!”

The cat did not appear, which meant he felt no remorse.

Farid stepped inside and closed the door with his hip. The familiar click of the lock settled behind him. He removed his shoes, placed them beside Bunda’s sandals, then looked down when his sock touched something cold.

A toy mouse.

Momo’s oldest one. Grey fabric, one eye missing, tail chewed into a sad thread. Cindy had bought it at a pet shop after insisting Momo needed “emotional enrichment.” Farid had told her the cat already had plenty of enrichment in the form of destroying furniture and judging humans. Cindy had bought it anyway. Momo had ignored it for two weeks, then one day decided it was the only object in the world worth murdering.

Farid picked it up.

The toy felt damp with cat saliva.

He sighed and placed it on the console table.

“Momo still loves your gift,” he thought before he could stop himself.

Then, because thoughts could be disobedient too, another one followed.

“She would laugh if she saw this.”

Farid tightened his grip around the package under his arm and walked toward the living room.

Momo sat on the sofa like a landlord inspecting property damage. He was larger than dignity allowed, orange and white and round in ways Bunda insisted were “healthy” but every veterinarian would have called suspicious. His front paws rested on the shredded sofa arm. Threads curled around his claws.

The old grey cover had suffered beyond language.

Farid placed the package on the coffee table.

“You,” he said in English, pointing at the cat, “are the reason we cannot have nice things.”

Momo blinked slowly.

It was not an apology.

It was barely acknowledgment.

Bunda came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. She wore her faded blue house dress and had her hair clipped back unevenly, which usually meant she had been cleaning with more energy than sense. A smear of flour marked her cheek. Farid did not know why there was flour involved in pepper soup, but Bunda had never accepted the normal boundaries of cooking.

She saw the package and narrowed her eyes.

“What’s that?” / “Itu apa?”

“Sofa cover.” / “Sarung sofa.”

Bunda looked at the sofa, then at Momo, then back at Farid. “For what?”

Farid stared at her. “Bun.”

“What?”

“For the sofa.”

“Why?”

“Because your son’s cat is a criminal.”

“My cat?” Bunda lifted her chin. “Kalau dia nakal, dia kucing kamu. Kalau dia manja, dia kucing aku.” / “When he misbehaves, he’s your cat. When he’s sweet, he’s mine.”

Momo chose that moment to roll onto his side and expose his belly, transforming instantly into innocence.

Farid gestured at him. “Look at this manipulation.”

Bunda crossed the room and scratched Momo under the chin. The cat purred so loudly it became part of the weather.

“Poor baby,” she murmured in English.

“Poor sofa.”

“The sofa is old.”

“It became old because of him.”

Bunda gave him the towel. “Then change it before Maghrib. After that we eat.”

Farid took the towel automatically. “You cooked a lot?”

“Enough.”

That meant too much.

He looked toward the kitchen. On the dining table, he could see three bowls stacked beside the plates. Three.

Farid’s throat tightened before he could prepare for it.

Bunda noticed his gaze. Of course she did. Mothers carried entire surveillance systems behind their eyes.

She said nothing at first. She folded the towel once, then unfolded it, as if the cloth had become suddenly complicated.

“I forgot,” she said quietly.

Farid looked at her.

“Forgot what?”

Bunda’s mouth moved, but the words took a moment to arrive.

“I put three bowls.” / “Aku letak tiga mangkuk.”

The apartment seemed to draw in a breath.

Farid forced his face to remain ordinary. There were moments in grief when a person discovered that kindness could be the hardest thing to receive. If Bunda had said Cindy’s name carelessly, he could have winced. If she had apologized too much, he could have reassured her. But she simply stood there, embarrassed by her own remembering, and Farid felt the sharp ache of realizing he was not the only one still adjusting to subtraction.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Momo can use the third one.”

Bunda looked at him.

Then, despite herself, she laughed.

It was small. Relieved. The kind of laugh that did not erase sadness but moved it aside enough to breathe.

“Momo eats better than both of us already.” / “Momo makan lebih enak daripada kita berdua.”

Momo, hearing his name, rolled upright.

Farid picked up the sofa cover. “See? He understands when food is involved.”

“Dia paham semua. Cuma pura-pura bodoh.” / “He understands everything. He just pretends to be stupid.”

“Like me?”

Bunda gave him a look. “Sometimes.”

Farid smiled, but his eyes moved again toward the third bowl.

Bunda saw that too.

This time she did not pretend.

“She used to sit there,” she said, nodding toward the chair closest to the window.

Farid knew.

He knew the chair. He knew the way Cindy would tuck one foot under herself until Bunda scolded her for bad posture. He knew how she would blow on soup too early and still burn her tongue. He knew she would insist she could handle spice, then drink water with offended pride while Farid tried not to smile. He knew the exact angle of her body when she leaned across the table to give Momo tiny pieces of chicken behind Bunda’s back.

Farid crouched beside the sofa and ripped open the plastic packaging.

“Yeah,” he said.

His voice came out thinner than he wanted.

Bunda did not push.

That was worse too.

---

Changing a sofa cover should not have required emotional courage, but the old one resisted like it had personal grievances.

Farid pulled. The elastic snapped back against his wrist. Momo attempted to sit on every corner he needed to lift. Bunda supervised from the armchair with a mug of tea and the solemn authority of someone watching a man fail at a task she could have done better in half the time.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she said.

Farid, on his knees by the sofa, looked up slowly. “I haven’t even started doing it.”

“That’s how I know.”

“Bunda.”

“What?”

“Supportive words only.”

“Okay. I support you finding the correct corner.” / “Baik. Bunda mendukung kamu mencari sudut yang betul.”

Momo placed one paw on the new cover, sinking his claws slightly into the fresh fabric.

Farid gasped. “No.”

The cat looked at him.

“No, Momo.”

Momo held his gaze, then slowly extended the claws farther.

“Momo.”

The cat scratched.

Farid covered his face with both hands.

Bunda laughed so hard her tea nearly spilled.

For a moment, the living room felt bright in a way the weather did not deserve. Farid lowered his hands and found himself laughing too, helplessly, because the sofa was already ruined before it had become new, because Momo had no respect for symbolism, because maybe this was how life protected people from becoming too tragic: by giving them cats who did not understand sacred moments.

“He really hates peace,” Farid said.

Bunda wiped the corner of her eye. “He learned from you.”

“I am very peaceful.”

“You? You keep all your feelings until they become furniture damage.”

Farid paused.

The joke had landed too close to something true.

Bunda’s smile softened as soon as she realized it. “Rid—”

“It’s okay.” He returned to the cover, tugging the fabric over the sofa arm. “You’re not wrong.”

The new cover was darker than the old one, charcoal instead of grey. It changed the room immediately, making the sofa look almost unfamiliar. The old scratch marks disappeared beneath clean fabric, though Farid knew they remained underneath. Hidden did not mean healed. It only meant visitors would not see unless they knew where to press.

Momo climbed onto the backrest and watched the operation with interest.

“Don’t even think about it,” Farid told him.

Bunda sipped her tea. “He is always thinking about it.”

Farid stretched the fabric across the last cushion and tucked the edges deep between the seats. The cover wrinkled in the middle. He smoothed it with his palm, pushing outward until the surface lay flat.

For three seconds, the sofa looked almost perfect.

Then Momo jumped down, landed in the center, turned in a circle, and settled with immense satisfaction.

Farid stared.

Bunda nodded. “Approved.”

Farid sat on the floor, back against the coffee table, suddenly tired.

The work had taken only twenty minutes, but sweat gathered at the back of his neck. He wiped it with his sleeve and looked around the living room. New cover. Same sofa. Same room. Same rain. Same cat. Same absence, wearing a slightly cleaner disguise.

Bunda stood and carried her mug to the kitchen.

“Wash your hands,” she called. “Soup is ready.”

Farid remained seated.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out. A message from Dimas.

Dimas: You free later this week? Coffee maybe?

Farid stared at the screen.

Dimas did not send messages like that without reason. He was not someone who needed coffee as an event. If Dimas wanted to meet, something had shifted somewhere, and if something had shifted somewhere, Farid already knew whose life it probably belonged to.

His thumb hovered over the keyboard.

He typed:

Farid: Sure. Everything okay?

Then he deleted the second sentence.

He typed again.

Farid: Sure. Thursday?

He sent it before he could make it heavier.

The reply came almost immediately.

Dimas: Thursday works.

No explanation.

Farid locked the phone and placed it face down on the coffee table.

From the kitchen, Bunda called again, “Farid?”

“Coming.”

He stood slowly.

Momo had already begun kneading the new cover.

Farid pointed at him. “I swear if you scratch this—”

The cat yawned.

Farid gave up and went to wash his hands.

---

The third bowl stayed on the table.

Bunda did not remove it. Farid did not ask her to. It sat between them and the empty chair by the window, filled with soup because Bunda had already ladled it before remembering.

Steam rose from it in pale twisting lines.

Farid sat across from the empty chair. Bunda sat at the head of the table. Momo stationed himself underneath, hopeful and shameless.

For a few minutes, they ate without speaking.

The soup was too peppery. Exactly the way Cindy liked it. Farid took one spoonful and felt warmth spread through his chest, then up his throat, until his eyes watered slightly.

Bunda watched him over her bowl.

“Too spicy?” / “Terlalu pedas?”

“No.”

“You’re sweating.”

“It’s hot.”

“It’s soup.”

“Exactly.”

She almost smiled.

He took another spoonful.

The apartment had the kind of silence that was not empty, only careful. Rain tapped at the window beside Cindy’s empty chair. A droplet slid down the glass slowly, catching the grey daylight, splitting into two at the bottom like a path making a decision.

Bunda broke a piece of bread and dipped it into her soup.

“She asked me once,” she said, “if I was disappointed.”

Farid looked up.

“Who?”

Bunda did not insult him by answering.

His spoon hovered above the bowl.

“When?” he asked.

“Last year. After Eid. You were downstairs buying drinks.”

Farid remembered that day. Cindy had come over wearing a soft blue blouse and carrying a box of fruit she insisted was from her mother, though Farid suspected Cindy had chosen it herself after asking three people what was appropriate. She had been nervous before coming up, more than usual. He had thought it was because his aunt would be there. He had not known Cindy and Bunda had been alone long enough for that conversation.

“What did she ask exactly?” Farid said.

Bunda looked into her bowl. “She asked if I was disappointed that she was... different.”

Farid’s stomach tightened.

Different.

Such a small word. Such a crowded one.

“She said different?” he asked.

Bunda nodded. “She didn’t say Christian. She didn’t say family. She said different.”

Farid pushed his spoon gently against the side of the bowl. The metal made a quiet sound.

“What did you say?”

“I said she was not the first different person I loved.”

He looked at his mother.

Bunda kept her eyes lowered, as if the soup required great attention. “I told her people are not only one thing. Faith matters. Family matters. But kindness matters too. Sincerity matters. The way someone treats my son matters.”

Farid’s throat tightened.

“And then?”

“She cried.”

He closed his eyes for a moment.

Of course she had.

Cindy had cried silently when emotions were too big for her pride. No dramatic sobbing, no collapsing. Just tears slipping out while she continued speaking as if betrayed by her own face.

“She apologized to me,” Bunda said.

Farid opened his eyes. “For what?”

“For not knowing how to make everything easy.”

The sentence settled over the table, heavier than steam.

Farid leaned back in his chair. Beneath the table, Momo brushed against his ankle.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

Bunda looked at him then. “Because she asked me not to.”

Something in him hurt, but not cleanly. It twisted.

“She carried that alone?”

“She carried many things alone,” Bunda said gently. “So did you.”

Farid looked toward the window. The rain had blurred the outside world into soft grey movement. He could see his own reflection faintly in the glass: a man sitting across from an empty chair, trying not to feel betrayed by kindness.

“She should have told me,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“I could have—”

“What?” Bunda asked quietly.

He stopped.

The unfinished sentence exposed itself.

I could have fixed it.

But could he?

Could he have fixed families, faith, ceremonies, mothers who worried, fathers who asked direct questions, futures that required decisions neither of them could make without losing something sacred? Could he have fixed Cindy’s fear that loving him meant breaking someone else’s heart? Could he have fixed his own fear that asking her to stay would become a kind of selfishness disguised as devotion?

Farid looked down at his soup.

The pepper burned his throat.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Bunda’s face softened.

“That’s why she didn’t tell you everything,” she said. “Maybe she knew you would try to carry what could not be carried.”

Farid laughed once, without humor. “So blocking me was better?”

“No.”

He looked at her.

Bunda’s voice remained gentle, but there was steel underneath. “I didn’t say better. I said sometimes people choose the pain they understand.”

Farid swallowed.

Outside, a motorcycle passed, splashing through water.

The third bowl of soup sat untouched. Steam had thinned now. The surface had gone still.

Farid reached for it.

Bunda watched him.

He did not move the bowl away. He did not pour it out. He simply took the spoon from beside it and stirred once, slowly, watching the pepper flakes move in a circle.

“She liked it like this,” he said.

“I know.”

“Too much pepper.”

“I know.”

“She always pretended she could handle it.”

Bunda smiled sadly. “And then drank three glasses of water.”

Farid nodded.

They both laughed softly, and the sound was so tender it almost hurt more than silence.

---

After lunch, Bunda insisted on folding laundry in the living room because “the light is better,” though there was barely any light left. Farid helped because resistance was pointless.

The sofa cover had survived forty minutes without further attack. Momo slept on top of it in a heavy orange crescent, paws twitching as if dreaming of future destruction.

Bunda folded towels with efficient, practiced movements. Farid handled T-shirts poorly. She corrected his folds twice, then gave up and let him create rectangles of varying moral quality.

“Did Cindy ever return my container?” Bunda asked suddenly.

Farid froze with one of his shirts half-folded.

Bunda looked at him, then at the laundry, then grimaced.

“Sorry. Habit.”

He breathed out slowly. “Which container?”

“The square glass one. Blue lid.”

Farid thought.

Then, unexpectedly, he remembered. Cindy had taken home rendang in it after one of Bunda’s dinners. Two weeks later, she returned it with banana cake inside, apologizing because she thought returning an empty container was rude. Bunda had liked the cake so much she pretended not to, because praise made Cindy shy.

“She returned it,” he said. “With cake.”

Bunda’s eyes lit faintly. “Ah. The banana cake.”

“Yeah.”

“Too sweet.”

“You ate three slices.”

“Because it would be rude not to.”

Farid gave her a look.

Bunda ignored it.

The laundry pile slowly shrank. Rain pressed against the windows, softer now. The afternoon dragged itself toward evening with the reluctance of a day that had nowhere else to be.

Farid folded one of Bunda’s scarves and set it on the pile. His phone lay on the coffee table, screen down. He had not checked it since Dimas’s reply, but he could feel its presence like a closed envelope.

Bunda noticed him glancing at it.

“Work?” she asked.

“No.”

“Dimas?”

He looked at her. “How do you know everything?”

“I’m your mother.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

“It is the explanation.”

He picked up a towel.

Bunda folded a blouse, smoothing the sleeves carefully. “He knows about her?”

“Dimas?”

She nodded.

“He knows enough.”

“Hmm.”

Farid waited. “What does hmm mean?”

“It means hmm.”

“Bun.”

“It means people who know enough sometimes think they should help.”

“He’s not like that.”

Bunda raised an eyebrow.

Farid reconsidered.

“He tries not to be like that.”

“That is different.”

He sighed. “He asked for coffee.”

“When?”

“Thursday.”

“Then go.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“You were thinking too loudly.”

Farid threw a folded towel lightly at her. She caught it against her chest and laughed.

For a moment, the room felt almost ordinary again.

Then Bunda said, not looking at him, “If he tells you something about her, listen carefully before deciding how to hurt yourself with it.”

Farid’s hands stilled.

There it was. The thing Bunda had been circling all afternoon. Not Cindy exactly. Not Dimas. Not the past. But Farid’s habit of turning information into punishment.

He looked at his mother. She continued folding laundry with exaggerated innocence.

“I don’t do that,” he said.

She snorted.

“Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Fine. Often.”

Bunda placed another towel on the pile.

“If she is doing well,” she said, “let that be good news.”

Farid looked away.

There were truths that felt unfair because they required generosity from the wounded part of him. Cindy doing well should be good news. Cindy sleeping better, eating properly, laughing again, being loved by people who could stand beside her openly—that should have comforted him. Some days, it did. Other days, it felt like the world had continued writing her story after removing his name from the page.

He hated that part of himself.

Bunda must have seen it because her voice softened.

“You can be sad too,” she said. “Good news can still hurt.”

Farid rubbed both hands over his face.

“I don’t want to be bitter.”

“Then don’t feed the bitter part more than the sad part.”

He looked at her through his fingers.

She shrugged. “Sadness is human. Bitterness becomes a hobby.”

Despite himself, he laughed.

Bunda smiled, pleased.

Momo opened one eye, judged them, and went back to sleep.

---

Near Maghrib, Farid found the photo.

He had gone to his room to change, but the laundry conversation left something restless in him. Not agitation exactly. More like a drawer inside his chest had been opened, and now all the contents were visible even if he refused to touch them.

His room was not messy by most standards, but it had the quiet disorder of a man who lived efficiently rather than carefully. Work papers stacked on the desk. A half-empty bottle of water beside the laptop. Books arranged by size instead of topic. A jacket hanging from the chair. A small box of cables he kept meaning to untangle but never did.

He opened the bottom drawer of his desk to look for a clean phone charger.

Instead, he saw the envelope.

Plain brown. Bent at one corner. Cindy’s handwriting across the front.

For the photos you said you would print but never did. Untuk foto-foto yang kamu bilang mau cetak tapi nggak pernah kamu cetak.

Farid sat back on his heels.

He had forgotten about it.

Or maybe he had remembered so carefully that he had trained himself not to look in that drawer.

The envelope had been a joke gift from Cindy during one of their smaller anniversaries, the kind they pretended not to celebrate because both of them were embarrassed by counting months. She had printed several photos from her phone and placed them inside, scolding him because his camera roll was apparently “a museum with no curator.”

He touched the edge of the envelope.

The paper felt dry and ordinary.

His heart did not.

From outside, Bunda called for prayer time, her voice moving through the apartment like a soft hand on a shoulder.

Farid should have closed the drawer.

Instead, he opened the envelope.

The photos slid into his palm.

Not many. Eight or nine. Small prints with white borders. Momo asleep on his laptop. Bunda laughing in the kitchen, caught mid-motion with a spoon in her hand. Farid looking away from the camera at a café, unaware Cindy had taken the photo. A rainy window. Two bowls of soup. Cindy’s fingers holding Momo’s toy mouse. No selfie of them together at first. Cindy had never liked taking too many, said couples who documented everything sometimes forgot to live inside the moment.

Then the last photo appeared.

Cindy on the living room floor.

Momo was smaller then, draped across her lap like a scarf. She was looking down at him with a smile so unguarded it made Farid’s breath catch. Her hair had fallen forward. One sleeve of her sweater was pushed up. Behind her, the old sofa showed its first scratches, minor then, almost charming.

Farid remembered taking that photo.

Bunda had been in the kitchen. Rain had been falling, because apparently every important memory in his life required rain. Cindy had come over after a long day, tired and quiet, but Momo had climbed into her lap and refused to leave. She had scratched his head with one finger and whispered nonsense to him.

“You’re so dramatic,” she had told the cat. “Kamu tuh sama kayak Farid. Manja tapi sok kuat.” / “You’re just like Farid. Needy but pretending to be strong.”

Farid had protested from the sofa. “I am not needy.”

Cindy had looked at him over Momo’s back, eyes bright with affection. “Exactly what a needy person would say.”

He had taken the photo before she could hide.

Now he held it under the weak light of his bedroom and felt time fold around him.

His phone buzzed on the desk.

For once, he did not rush to check.

He placed the other photos aside and kept only the one of Cindy and Momo in his hand. He expected the pain to come sharp, but it arrived differently. A slow ache, yes, but also something warmer. Gratitude, maybe. Or the exhausted tenderness of accepting that a memory did not become false just because it could not become future.

Bunda appeared in the doorway.

She did not enter.

Farid looked up.

Her gaze moved from his face to the photo. Understanding passed across hers without surprise.

“You found them,” she said.

He nodded.

She leaned against the doorframe. “I wondered when you would.”

“You knew where they were?”

“I clean your room sometimes.”

“I’m an adult.”

“You are an adult with dust.”

He almost smiled.

Bunda’s eyes returned to the photo. Her voice became quieter. “That one was my favorite.”

Farid looked down at it again.

“She looks happy,” he said.

“She was.”

He swallowed. “Was she?”

Bunda did not answer quickly. She gave the question the respect it deserved.

“Yes,” she said at last. “Not always. But here, yes.”

Farid nodded, though something in his eyes burned.

He had been afraid of that. Afraid that even their happiness had been a misunderstanding, made fragile by everything that came after. But Bunda’s certainty steadied him. Here, yes. That was enough. Maybe happiness did not need to justify itself by lasting forever. Maybe it could have been real inside its own hour.

Bunda stepped into the room and sat carefully on the edge of the bed.

Farid stayed on the floor.

For a while, they looked at the photo together.

Then Bunda said, “You don’t have to throw it away.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“I know. I said it for the part of you that thinks healing means becoming harsh.”

Farid closed his eyes.

His mother was unbearable sometimes.

When he opened them, she was watching him with the gentleness that had undone him since he was a child.

“Do you miss her today?” she asked.

He laughed softly, helplessly.

“Bun.”

“What?”

“That’s a dangerous question.”

“It is a simple question.”

“No simple question has ever started with ‘do you miss her.’”

Bunda smiled, but her eyes were sad.

Farid looked at Cindy’s printed face. The photo did not move. Did not accuse. Did not ask him to do anything.

“Yes,” he said.

The word entered the room quietly.

Bunda nodded.

He breathed in, then out.

“But not like before.”

She waited.

He searched for the shape of it. “Before, missing her felt like... like something was wrong and I needed to fix it. Like if I could just say the right thing, or if she could just hear me properly, or if we could just get one more day without everyone else in it, then maybe...”

His voice faded.

Bunda’s hands rested still in her lap.

“And now?” she asked.

Farid looked toward the window. Evening had darkened the glass. His reflection hovered there beside hers, both of them blurred.

“Now it just feels like I’m carrying something that used to be alive.”

Bunda’s face changed.

Not pity. Not exactly.

Recognition.

She reached down and placed one hand gently on his shoulder.

Farid did not move away.

From the living room, Momo began scratching the sofa.

Both of them turned their heads.

“Momo!” Bunda shouted. “Jangan!” / “Momo! Don’t!”

The scratching stopped.

Farid looked at his mother.

Then, absurdly, they both laughed.

The sound broke the heaviness just enough. Not to remove it. Only to remind them that even grief had to share the apartment with a fat orange cat who cared nothing for timing.

Bunda squeezed his shoulder once before standing.

“Come pray,” she said. “After that, we eat again.”

“We just ate.”

“There is soup.”

“There is always soup.”

“Alhamdulillah.” / “Praise be to God.”

She left the room.

Farid remained on the floor a moment longer.

He looked at the photo of Cindy and Momo one last time. Then he stood, crossed to his desk, and placed it carefully against the small lamp where he could see it if he wanted to, but not so prominently that it demanded attention.

A compromise.

A memory allowed to stay without being allowed to rule.

His phone buzzed again.

This time, he checked.

Dimas.

Dimas: Thursday, 7? Same coffee place?

Farid stared at the message.

Same coffee place.

The one near Blok M, probably. The one Cindy used to like. The one with bad parking and good croffles. The one where he could still remember her laughing across from him, accusing him of talking to strangers too easily.

His first instinct was to say no.

His second was to punish himself by saying yes.

He did neither.

He typed:

Farid: Somewhere else. You choose.

A minute passed.

Dimas: Okay. I’ll send location.

Farid placed the phone down.

In the living room, Bunda scolded Momo again with no real authority. The cat meowed back, loud and offended. The evening prayer call began faintly from a nearby mosque, threading through rain-clean air and the low hum of traffic.

Farid took one more look at the photo.

Cindy smiled down at Momo, forever caught in a room she no longer entered.

Farid touched the edge of the print once, gently.

Then he turned off the lamp and went to pray.