“Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words, I don’t just say
And nothing else matters…”
~ Metallica.
October 1993 & January 1994.
Michael helps Gary’s mom, Linda, clean out Gary’s apartment before the “vultures” arrive. And though she tells Michael that he can take whatever he’d like, Michael declines her kind offer and takes nothing with him. Without knowing in advance, Linda chooses Varnum Cemetery for Gary’s final resting place with his plot located on the same piece of ground where Michael and Gary would spend summer nights talking beneath the stars years earlier. For the next month, Michael spends all of his spare time with Sarah at her apartment and around Cambridge as she tries to make sense of his death.
Samina enjoys some “downtime” in her bungalow on ECR beach south of Madras. While there, the famed photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha arrives to do a photo shoot. While walking the beach and playing in the surf, she’s joined by a group of small children including cousins. After the shoot, the mood is ruined when her sister Lakshmi, urged on by her husband, demands to own the bungalow since Samina rarely visits anymore. Outraged, she says no and complains to Rajani who barely seems to notice the exchange.
Michael relocates to Gloucester, MA for a new job. During his first night at the apartment, a drunken Michael is startled by the horn of the Boston to Gloucester train. An unwelcome reminder of Gary’s passing, he runs to the balcony and hurls an empty bottle toward the tracks below which falls harmlessly short.
