She did. Sandalwood. Faint, but alive.

That night, she didn’t sleep. She wrote a new report. She called the insurance company and screamed until a supervisor relented. She paid half the rent with her last savings and promised the landlord the rest in two weeks. She lit one sandalwood stick in her mother’s room.

She took the stairs down to the ground floor, avoiding the elevator with its cheerful muzak. Outside, a light rain had begun to fall—the kind of drizzle that doesn’t wash anything, only makes the grime stick. She walked without direction, feet carrying her toward the old bridge over the rail tracks.