chapter 29

Goodbye and Thank YouThe leisurely final day was spent packing, weighing the suitcases, unpacking, repacking and weighing them again. The process was repeated multiple times before we were satisfied the weight of every bag was within permissible limits.Amar was working from home but earlier, the night before, I had noticed him once again huddled in a corner with a book. It looked suspiciously like the one he had been swotting up before his job interview.‘Another interview?’ I asked, perplexed. ‘A job beyond Beyond?’‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘A back up. In case the Bed, Bath and Beyond job doesn’t work out. Getting a work visa is always a problem.’ And if he got another offer, I for one wouldn’t mind. I then wouldn’t have a problem telling people where he works. Surely there can’t be another company with such a suggestive name.It was 5 June 2018 in the U.S. When we reached India it would be 7 June—we would lose the day we gained when we went to the U.S. All evened out. We left for O’Hare International Airport at 3 p.m., and Amar reached us there by 5.30, the time we had planned to reach, in spite of the exceptionally heavy traffic. A&A came in with us and once the bags were weighed and okayed, I felt at ease for I didn’t really trust the weighing scale at Amar’s—it never could make up its mind about the weight of the bags, or me for that matter.We got our boarding passes and moved to the queue for security check, while A&A waited nearby. I kept glancing at them with love and gratitude; they had gone out of their way—Arpitha even accompanying us to California—to make our U.S. experience truly memorable. Then the long queue stopped moving. It seemed there was some serious problem, for a sniffer dog was brought in. Of course, the moment it sighted me, it jumped for a quick sniff at my ankles, drawing everyone’s suspicious eyes to me, before it was made to remember by a tug on its leash what it was there for, and dragged away. The problem must have got solved for the line began to move and the dog gave me a little yelp of recognition as it bounced past us.A&A and others who had accompanied passengers were now asked to leave, and looking rather bright-eyed, we waved them goodbye, watching till they disappeared from sight. Security went without a hitch and we boarded the flight.Through the window we could see the sky wrapped in the hues of a spectacular sunset. America was giving us a colourful goodbye. We watched and watched till the plane took off. We were going home….