He lives ten minutes away and it may as well be another country. Since he moved in with his girlfriend last year, not one visit. I kept texting, calling, wiring small bits of money on holidays and random Mondays—“get something sweet for yourself”—and got nothing back but read receipts and silence. Last week the loneliness pressed so hard on my ribs I called and called until he finally picked up.

“I’m busy, Ma. Please stop calling every day. I’ll visit when I can, okay?”

Not angry. Not cruel. Just indifferent. Somehow that stung more than anything else he could have said.

I sat with the phone at my ear long after he hung up, listening to the flat tone like it could answer me. I wasn’t trying to be a burden. I just missed him. Missed the boy who used to peek around the kitchen doorway and ask what was for dinner, the one who gave surprise hugs like they were his favorite joke.

His name is Nishan. Twenty-seven now. Quiet and kind, always. Things shifted when he started dating Zahra. I don’t blame her; I barely know her. The one time they visited—almost a year ago, right before they moved to that condo—she was polite. I made kheer. She barely touched it. Nishan didn’t ask for seconds. That should have told me more than it did.

After that, the silence thickened. I kept sending money for birthdays, Diwali, even a random Tuesday, and told myself he was just busy. Hearing that flat tone in his voice, something in me went still. I didn’t call for days. I cleaned instead, the way I do when I feel myself disappearing—polished the same counter four times, folded bedsheets no one had slept in, lined up the spoons like soldiers. It was a Thursday, guavas on the board, when the knock came. Three brisk taps. Not his.

She was tall, mid-fifties, sharp cheekbones and tired eyes, holding a folder and wearing the stiff black flats nurses wear. “Are you Mrs. Dutt?” she asked. “I’m Reena. I… met your son.”

Ice crawled over my scalp. “Is he alright?”

She hesitated, then slid a photo out of the folder. Nishan, sitting on a stoop, pale and thinner than I’d ever seen him. “Taken six weeks ago,” she said. “He was in my daughter’s building, but not with Zahra. He moved out months ago.”

My mouth went dry. “He told me they were living together.”

“I don’t think so,” she said softly. “They broke up. He stayed in the building for a bit… first on a mattress in the laundry room.” She watched my face, then added, “He lost his job in April. Tried to hide it. Bills piled up. Someone eventually noticed and asked him to leave. Two weeks ago, he disappeared from there too.”

The word formed before I could stop it. “Homeless?”

“For a while,” she said. “I think he was ashamed. I’ve seen that look. People go quiet when they think they’ve disappointed the person who loves them most.”

Shame. Of all the useless weights to carry alone. I told her I’d been sending small transfers. She shook her head. “He kept telling my daughter he was ‘figuring it out.’” She left me a phone number—her daughter’s—and said if they heard anything, they’d call.

When the door closed, I stared at the photograph until it blurred. Then the anger came, not at him, but at whatever part of my mothering had taught my son he couldn’t come home. I cooked his favorite that night—khichdi with extra ghee—and left it in the fridge, letting the house fill with welcome, just in case.

I walked his old neighborhood and asked the corner clerks if they’d seen him. I messaged Zahra. Nothing. Five days later, another knock. A boy—maybe twenty—stood there holding a paper bag of groceries. “Are you Nishan’s mom?” he asked. When I nodded, he said, “He’s been staying at the shelter on Sundown Street. Helped me with job applications. Said he used to work in IT. Didn’t talk much, but he mentioned your cooking once—guava pickles.” He grinned shyly. “Figured you’d want to know he’s okay.”

The way my knees went weak, I nearly sat down on the floor. I pressed a twenty into his hand because I didn’t know what else to do with gratitude that big. Then I packed two lunchboxes—khichdi in one, guava pickle in the other—and took the next bus.

I saw him as soon as I stepped into the shelter, hunched over a chipped laptop in a hoodie I recognized. He looked up slowly, and in an instant the scruff and the hollow cheeks fell away and he was my baby again.

“Ma?”

“Hi, beta.”

He cried in the middle of the room without caring who saw, the kind of crying that forces its way out of your bones. I held him like I was trying to stitch him back together with my arms. “I didn’t want you to know,” he whispered into my shoulder. “I messed up.”

“You didn’t mess up,” I said into his hair. “You just forgot where home is.”

We sat outside and he ate both lunchboxes like he hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe he hadn’t. He told me about the deadlines he missed—burnout and panic chasing each other in circles—about the interviews he lied about, about nights staring at the ceiling and mornings hoping to feel different. Zahra tried to help until helping turned into fighting and then leaving. Shame did the rest. He would rather disappear than see pity in my eyes.

“Pity?” I said. “No. A slap upside the head for not calling your mother? Possibly.”

It made him laugh, a small sound at first, then a real one. I took him home that night, pointed him to the shower, put clean clothes on his bed, and pretended not to cry when I put fresh sheets on a mattress that had waited too long. He slept like a child for twelve hours. In the morning, our house felt like itself again.

Reena’s daughter turned out to be a social worker. She helped him find a part-time job that used the same skills he’d been giving away at the shelter—resumes, applications, a steady hand at a shaky table. It wasn’t glamorous. It was better. It gave him back a piece of himself. He started cooking again, tentatively, disastrously. We’ve eaten our share of burned rice and emergency pizza. I didn’t mind. He called me “Ma” again in the tone that stretches the word into something tender.

Last week he surprised me—took me out for dosa at the place we used to go when he was in college, the servers still recognizing his laugh. He insisted on paying, his hand over mine when the bill came. On the way out he said, “I thought I’d lost everything. Maybe this was the reset I needed.”

“Life is strange,” I said. “It breaks us in places that turn out to be doors.”

Here’s what I learned, or maybe remembered. People don’t always disappear because they stop caring. Sometimes they care so much they can’t bear to be seen in their weakest form. Shame tells them silence is noble. Pride calls it privacy. Both are liars. Love—stubborn, unfancy, unyielding—waits with khichdi warming on the stove and guava pickle in a jar, making a home smell like yes.

If someone you love is far, maybe try again. Not with accusation. With space. With a soft place to land. Sometimes all it takes to bring someone back is knowing they can still knock—and you’ll still open the door.