Drivers veer from cows, less so from children naked in the road

Things settle, eventually. January 2nd, 2012. I am alone now. Pat, the former Navy officer turned wolf-sanctuary worker, and stand-in mother to a lonely girl in India, left on Friday. She said, I wish you could come back with me. No, I'll be fine here, but I'm happy for you. New suitcases filled with trinkets and fabric and noisemakers and a little less shampoo, we hugged and the taxi drove down our fogged and bumpy lane. The heaters give a warm glow to the silent flat. Our remote for the TV is gone, the Internet is spotty and I am tired of my music. I Skype often, driving virtually to stocked supermarkets with my mom, the smell of newness, of fresh, packaged food, permeates somehow, and I could be across the house, upstairs in my cream and silky bed, asking for milk and Milanos. 
I painted nails at Mother Teresa's, "lal" always the most requested. I match, my red tips chipped from drying floors and dancing. Someone died last night, a woman said. She speaks nearly perfect English, and I do not recognize her. Is she a patient, and she says, I'm here to help. Do you have a family, I ask, a husband, children? And she says no, and I've been sucked in enough to think, for a second, that there must be something wrong with her. Who died, I ask, hoping I don't know the woman, part of me that I do. Gita, she says, and I recognize the name, unable to match a face. Another patient sticks her tongue out, eyes closed, mimicking the death. She is pretending to be Gita, and I say, I know. 
I curry my coffee habit, looking always for cozy rooms and soft-spoken waiters. I sit now in Cafe Coffee Day, the Starbucks of India, my drink finished and sweating into the napkin below. The barista knows me, and he laughs when I come. The couches are red, and the backs of chairs too short, the women wear pants and the men stare as I enter, and as I leave too. I dream of anonymity, and yet I accept, and maybe need, the attention.
Balloons still pinned on the wall, remnants of New Years, droop, deflating slowly. I can see all from my seat, and there's another white man here, hair cropped close to his head and silver jacket with ironed badges of flags decorating his arm, and I wonder who he is. 
Lalit asked, are you scared in the flat by yourself? No, just a little lonely, I said, but I like being alone, and I say that to myself, over and agin, and if I say it enough, maybe it will become so.