It is Sunday evening, 8 pm. Two more years have passed. The phone rings, like every Sunday. The caller always leaves a message, but Nandi ignores the voicemails and never listens to them. She often wonders what her mom has to say but resists the urge to listen. She can’t possibly think that her parents would have anything good to say after how they treated her as a child.

The phone rings and rings. She carries on looking through a fashion magazine. She has gotten so used to the calls that, whenever the phone rings, she is never phased or moved.

She still lives in Paris, but she has upgraded to a luxurious penthouse with a lavish and modern design. It is in one of the most famous five-star hotels in Paris, the Four Seasons Hotel, that overlooks the Eiffel Tower. Nandi’s fashion label, Nelly Designs, is turning into a great success. Her designs are making it onto billboards and fashion magazine covers. She is really in her element, living her wildest dreams.

Nandi was recently in a relationship with Ajay, an architect from Jamaica, who also came to France to pursue his dreams. It ended a few weeks ago because of Nandi’s unhappy childhood. Receiving compliments and accepting love was hard for Nandi and it damaged her relationship with Ajay.

*****

One Sunday evening, while she’s making dinner, Nandi realizes she hasn’t had a call from her mom, eight weeks in a row. Although she never picked up the phone after that first time or listened to the voicemails, something about the calls made her feel cared for. She imagined a tradition of her mother calling every Sunday to ask about her week. She made conversations up, imagining how she would say she now wore a size 32, just like her mother and sisters, how their favourite runway model, Winnie Harlow, wore her dress last week and how much she missed and loved her family, despite how they treated her.

Her friends have stopped asking her about her family, as they’ve realized how sensitive the topic is, since she’d clam up or try to change the topic. They found it strange because she told them how happy her childhood was. So, they assumed it was a sensitive topic for her because she missed her family.

The phone has not rung.

At first, she acts unbothered by this. The clock strikes eight and she stands there, waiting quietly. She checks the time on her phone. 08:02 pm. She rushes over to the telephone, double-checking that she hadn’t accidentally put the phone on silent or that there was some technical issue, but everything is in order.

Disappointed, she makes her way to her king-sized bed. Her penthouse feels bigger than usual.

What’s success without happiness?