December 18. “The weather is weird: There’s a nip in the air.”

“I don’t feel a thing being locked up here.”

“Button, give it a week or so and the windows will be up and you will be able to look out, talk to your friends and get hugs and kisses from me and not the flying kind. I just spoke to one of the men on the job and this is what he had to say.”

“Yippee. Is that true? That means I’ll be out of this confinement shortly. I am so excited.  Finally there’s light at the end of a long dark tunnel…”

“Sir’s elder brother is likely to come today. He lives in Delhi and sir and he are very close. My mother is also coming to spend time with us. I finally got her to agree to come and spend Christmas and New Year with us when my sister and her family take off for Goa. Had she not come, she would have spent the year-end all by herself in Kolkata.”

“That’s great news. You will have a full house soon.”