"Prologue"
I should have deleted the email.
That's what I think about sometimes.
Not the day I received it.
Not the moment I opened it.
The moment I could have closed it.
But I didn't.
I clicked.
And everything changed after that.
I don't remember the exact day my childhood ended.
I remember the boxes.
I was twelve, in seventh grade, when my father's business shut down.
Our house slowly disappeared into cardboard boxes.
Clothes.
Books.
Utensils.
Photographs.
Things that had once belonged exactly where they were were suddenly being packed away.
My mother kept telling us everything would be fine.
I pretended to believe her.
Then we moved.
The new house was smaller.
The rooms were unfamiliar.
And somehow, our family felt smaller too.
My father changed.
He drank.
He shouted.
My parents fought.
My sister and I learned how to stay quiet.
My mother learned how to survive.
And I learned something much earlier than I should have—
sometimes, the people you love can become strangers while still living under the same roof.
Years passed.
My sister and I grew up.
We started working.
We helped with the bills.
And I kept one promise to myself.
One day, I would buy my mother a home.
A real one.
No rented walls.
No worrying about the next month's rent.
No packing boxes.
So I started applying for jobs.
Day after day.
Night after night.
Most applications disappeared into silence.
Until one night, my laptop made a sound.
You've got mail.
I almost ignored it.
Almost.
Then I saw the subject.
Job Offer — Confidential
I stared at the screen.
I didn't recognize the company.
I couldn't even remember applying there.
But the salary made my breath catch.
It was enough to change everything.
Enough to give my family the life I had been chasing for years.
My fingers hovered over the trackpad.
Something about the email felt wrong.
The wording.
The secrecy.
The fact that they seemed to know things about me I had never told them.
I should have asked questions.
I should have closed the laptop.
Instead, desperation won.
I opened the attachment.
Read the offer.
And then I saw the final line.
We are expecting your confirmation, Meharpreet Kaur.
My heart stopped.
They knew my name.
Of course they did.
It was a job application.
They were supposed to know my name.
At least, that's what I told myself.
Then I noticed something else.
Something that made my fingers go cold.
There was a second attachment.
I hadn't opened it.
I hadn't even noticed it before.
Its name was simple.
MEHARPREET_KAUR — PERSONAL
I stared at it for several seconds.
Then I clicked.
And I wish I hadn't.
Because the first thing I saw wasn't a contract.
It wasn't a job description.
It was a photograph.
A photograph of me.
Taken that morning.
Taken outside my house.
I froze.
And beneath the photograph was a single sentence:
“We have been waiting for you.”
