"You have to sign for a letter."

I blinked up at Dhara from my cocoon on her sofa, day drunk and dressed in three-day-old pajamas. Two weeks after being left at the altar, I was at least slightly drunk most of the time but I didn't cry constantly, which seemed like an improvement.

That, or evidence of dehydration. I wasn't sure.

"But why?" I asked.

She scooped her long, silky brown hair up and tied it in a ponytail. "I don't know, Zoe. I tried to do it for you but the dude asked for ID."

It took me a minute to scrape myself off the sofa. The door was quite the journey for me. I'd only ventured outside the warehouse-turned-loft apartment Dhara shared with three other women a handful of times since everything fell apart on my wedding day.

The first time I pulled myself together enough to leave the apartment was to chop off six inches of hair-hair I'd spent nearly two years growing out for the perfect wedding look-and then take my natural black hair into a light brown.

I had no specific reason for wanting shoulder-length brown hair. I couldn't explain it.

All I knew was I didn't want to see the old version of me in the mirror anymore.

Changes lead me to my tattoos. I mark everything new that comes.

Much more permanent than changing up my hair but I'd wanted it for years, and now I needed a visible reminder that whoever I had been before this disaster wasn't the me of today…hence the ink on my ankle.

Then, I sold everything touched by my former relationship.
Dresses of every kind. Engagement photo dresses, engagement party dresses, bridal shower dresses, bachelorette dresses. The after-party and the next-day brunch outfits, the honeymoon looks. Those fabulous magenta shoes and the veil. Anything I'd worn with Yash.
All the random bits of wedding kitsch I'd carefully collected. Even two-ish years of bridal magazines.

And that damn gown. As it turned out, I hadn't ripped it in any significant way. Just a tear along the side seam, nothing a tailor couldn't handle. Seeing as that designer hardly ever made anything to fit a petite curvy hourglass gal like myself, there were dozens of brides lined up to buy it from me.

There wasn't much left after that. The clothes I wore to teach kindergarten. A collection of yoga pants in assorted shades of fading black.

A shoebox filled with wacky earrings I loved but my ex-fiancé had hated.

So, here I was with new hair and fresh ink, guzzling liquor while bingeing mindless reality television on my best friend's couch in days-old pyjamas as the ex enjoyed the honeymoon I'd planned and paid for as a wedding gift to him.

That was my prize for following the rules.

That, and whatever the hell I had to sign for at the door.

I shuffled across the apartment, a blanket draped over my shoulders and clutched tight to my chest because this tank top could not be trusted to contain me.
One wrong move and it was tits out.

Dhara leaned against the wall while I handed over my identification and signed for the letter.

"What is this?" I asked the courier.

"Not my job to know," he said. "Just my job to serve the papers and you didn't make this one easy on me."

"Cryptic, much?" Dhara said as he took off down the hall.

I turned the envelope over in my hands.

"Whatever it is, I don't think I care," I said, trudging back to the couch. I tossed the envelope to Dhara. "Just tell me what it says," I stared at the television, blanket pooled at my waist as I slurped up the last of a truly heinous blend of red wine, ice, and Diet Coke.

Heinous.
A crime against wine.
Also delicious.

Dhara tore into the envelope and I appreciated-not for the first time- the complete absence of judgment from her. Some people wouldn't abide this much wallowing. They wouldn't debate tattoo designs or cheer when the first locks of hair hit the salon floor.

Dhara didn't judge, she embraced, and that was only one of the best things about her.

"It's about your step-grandmother," she said as she flipped through the pages. "The one who died."

I rattled the ice in my cup. Dadi died a couple of months ago, quiet and happy in her bed at a retirement community she'd insisted on describing as "a swinging good time."

She'd been ninety-seven years old though that never stopped her from tearing it up on gazal nights. I'd lived with her for a time during high school when things were complicated for me and I loved her dearly.

She was one of the only family members that I considered true family. I'd believed with my whole heart that not having Dadi at my wedding was the worst thing that could happen to me.

That was a cool way to tease fate.

"This doesn't make any sense," Dhara murmured, shuffling the pages.

"It sounds like she left you a Tea garden. In mussoorie." My gaze fell to the laundry baskets, trash bags, and mismatched boxes assembled along the wall.

This haphazard, ramshackle mess loudly and proudly proclaimed that some combination of my sweet, amazing, crazy friends went to the luxury high-rise condo shared with the ex and snatched everything they believed to be mine.

Everything, right down to a nearly empty bottle of olive oil and a broom I'd never seen before.

They were the best friends anyone could ever ask for and the closest thing I had to family in this world. They kept asking if there was anything I needed, if I was okay. And the truth was, I wasn't all right.

Not even close.

But I didn't say that.

I glanced back to Dhara, asking, "What?"

She shook her head, pointing to the cover page. "We need to call your step-grandmother's attorney because I don't understand this stuff and there are a whole bunch of dates and requirements in here that seem really important."

I wandered into the kitchen to insult another glass of wine with ice and soda.

"That doesn't make sense. It's probably a mistake. Dadi wouldn't have left me the tea garden. It's been in her family for hundreds of years and she had four actual grandkids, you know, from my stepdad's first marriage. She would've left it to them. Or my stepdad. Or anyone else."

Dhara pointed to the document. "We need to call this guy."

"I don't have a phone," I said. "You took it away. Remember?"

She'd pried the phone from my hands at some point. Between her and the others, they held me off in the moments I wanted to scream at Yash for waiting until the last possible seconds of our wedding day to end our relationship, and in the moments when I wanted him to explain what happened, to tell me what went wrong, what I did wrong.

Why he'd chosen to make a fool of me.

The explanation wouldn't help. I knew that. But there were bits of time when I was tired of being drunk and sad and numb, and I wanted to stand inside the rage of being wronged in such a careless manner. I wanted that rage to exhaust me. To drain me to the extent that I was too tired to cry, too tired to even feel the numbness. That rage was the truest thing I could feel, and even then it was little more than charbroiled disappointment.

I'd planned that wedding down to the last inch and then-poof. It was gone, like none of it had ever existed at all. Like everything the wedding had represented-everything it had meant for me never existed.

"We'll use mine," she said, pulling the device from the back pocket of her jean shorts.

I held up my glass in salute. "I'm telling you, it's a mistake. She didn't leave the tea garden  to me."

"But what if she did?" Dhara shot me an impatient stare before dialing the number listed on the papers. I returned to the sofa, half listening while she explained our situation to someone on the other end of the line.

A moment later, she handed me the phone, saying, "They're putting us through to the attorney now."

I switched over to speaker as the line rang. Then, "Hello, this is Bashir Ahmed."

"Um, yeah, hi, this is Zoya Siddiqui" I said.

"Miss Siddiqui! We've been trying to track you down for a month," he said, a laugh ringing through his words.

I turned over the envelope. No need to explain that he had my old-old address, the apartment where I'd lived before moving in with Dhara. 

"Yeah, I recently moved."

"Well, now that I have you," he said, still with that jovial laugh, "I'll explain the terms of your inheritance."

"About that," I said, ignoring Dhara's arched brows. "I don't think you have the right person. Dadi's son, maybe, or her grandkids? I really don't think I was supposed to get anything"

"Your step-grandmother was very clear about her wishes," he said. "She reviewed her will with me about three months prior to her passing. This is what she wanted."

"Okay, but " I didn't know what else to say and Bashir took my silence as an opening.

"Your step-grandmother's estate names you, Zoya Siddiqui, as the sole recipient of the residence, tea garden commonly referred as Twinsies, located at eighty-one Old Windmill Hill Road, Mussoorie."

"That's insane," I said. "I-I don't understand why she'd leave the tea garden to me."

"I can't speak for Dadi but I do remember her saying on several occasions that you'd know what to do with the tea garden ," Bashir said.

I glanced down at my sleep shorts and tank top. "Mr. Ahmed, I don't even know what to do with myself. Agricultural land seems like a lot of responsibility for me."

He responded with a deep chuckle, as if I wasn't being completely honest, and pressed on. "There are two important requirements that I have to explain. First, you must live at the property at least fifty percent of the year and "

"But I work in Mumbai." I interrupted. "I can't commute from Mussoorie."

"If you're not willing or able to meet both requirements established by the trust, the property will be turned over to the town of Mussoorie" he said.

Why would Dadi do this to me?

I met Dhara's gaze, giving her a slow shake of my head.

She held up her hands, shrugged. "You could always return it to the locals it was mostly likely stolen from."

I muted the call while Bashir went on about the town taking the tea garden  "She did that about forty years ago. Gave back a ton of land" I paused as Bashir shouted to his assistant. "It pissed off her family in a big way but she didn't care."

"I like this lady," Dhara replied.

"And the second requirement," Bashir continued, "was most important to Dadi. Her family has lived and worked that land since the early 1700s and she wanted that family presence to continue. In order for you to fully inherit the property at the end of the provisional year, you must submit proof of marriage or domestic partnership to the estate within that year."

"So," I started, pausing for a gulp of my shameful sangria, "I have to move to Mussoorie, live on a tea garden , and get married? And I'm the only one who can do this? Not my stepdad's kids or literally anyone else?"

It sounded like Bashir was shuffling papers on his end. "That was your Dadi's choice. However, you're welcome to cede the property to the town. It would end a three-hundred-year-old tradition of a single family working that tea garden , though I understand not every tradition was meant to continue for perpetuity. I'm sure your Dadi understood that too."

"I wasn't even her real family." It sounded like a pathetic excuse coming out of my mouth. It felt that way too. Dadi had been as real as it got for me. I'd never been close with my mother or stepdad. If I'd been anything for them, it was a logistical nightmare. I'd only met his kids a few times but they all had ten or fifteen years on me, and their lives were in different places. "She was my step-grandmother."

My mom died when I was two, Dad eventually remarried and later we found out that he already had a wife before mom. While his other wives were living in the chaos my Dad had created…. I was alone. Forgotten and uncared for.

"As I mentioned, Dadi believed you'd know what was best for the tea garden ." Bashir Made a loud nasally, gurgle sound.

"If I understand correctly. Dadi's other grandchildren have expressed limited interest in even visiting the family land."

"I mean, we could check in with them again, right? Maybe they've changed their minds." Bashir Laughed. "I'm afraid estates don't work that way, Miss Siddiqui."

"Okay. Since I'm not getting married and I can't move to Mussoorie I guess I can't accept this inheritance," I said, and those wounds hadn't been to the tea garden… in years, it existed in my mind as a place that would always be there for me.

Until now.

"Don't make any decisions today," Bashir Said. "It's yours for the next year. Give it some time. There's no need to turn over the property to a municipality any sooner than necessary. Take the year. In the meantime, I'll have my assistant overnight express the keys and paperwork to you."

After I provided Bashir with Dhara's address, he ended the call, and my gaze landed on the overflowing boxes and baskets lining the wall. Everything I owned was packed into those containers. There was a time when I'd promised myself I was finished living out of a suitcase.
That my life wouldn't be about portability anymore.
That I wouldn't be halfway here or there.
That I wouldn't live like this anymore.

And here I was, twenty-njne years old and right back in another temporary situation with no clue what came next.

Except...I could decide what came next.

My life didn't have to revolve around anyone else.
Not anymore.

I could do whatever I wanted.

Dhara peered at me. "How are we doing?"

I shrugged. "Okay."

"Is this it? Are we getting married?" Dhara asked.

I shook my head. "I wouldn't do that to you."

"I'll do it for you," she repeated… "but …the Supreme Court was disappointing on October 17th…"

"We're not getting married. I'll get struck by lightning if I think about. marriage for more than a few seconds and you'll probably lose all your chaos bi credibility, not to mention. Everyone knows your stance on monogamy and legally binding unions."

"We could have an open marriage," she said.

I really could not ask for anyone better than Dhara.

"You're too good to me. And you're kind to offer. But everything I know about tea gardening could fit into this glass." I held up my drink. "I don't know. This whole thing is ridiculous. I can't...I mean, I never actually liked living in that town. But I was kinda happy in the tea garden and it's not like-well…..Hmm."

I counted the containers. It wasn't that many. If I organised it just right, I could fit everything into my car. I could pick up and go. I could go right now if I wanted. I didn't need to wait for the keys.
I knew where Dadi hid all the spares.

Aside from the fact I could leave, it seemed like I should.

Dadi's tea garden  was the only place that ever felt like home to me and I had this narrow bit of time before I'd lose it. I had to go there while it was still mine.

"What are we thinking?" Dhara asked. "I know that look. You got that same look when you decided to completely overhaul the apples and plums unit two days before the start of school a few years ago. It's your crazy scheme look."

I tore my gaze away from the boxes and smiled at Dhara.
She taught first grade next door to my kindergarten classroom.

"No crazy schemes," I replied. "Good news for you though."

"And what would that be?"

"I'm getting off your couch for good."

"And where will you be going, Zoe?"

I drained the contents of my glass. "I'm moving to Mussoorie tomorrow."

She flopped back against the cushions. "This is it, isn't it?"

"What?"

"The start of your villain era," she said. "The 'no fucks given, ask me if I care, throw out your whole life and start over just because you feel like it' era."

I thought about that for a second. It was true, I didn't have any fucks left.
And if my shameful sangria and midday pyjamas were any indication, I did not care.

All I had left to do was throw out the remnants of my life. And the idea of that felt like the first breath of fresh air in far too long.

"Yeah. Maybe…"

~~~

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