Sorry for the Inconvenience: A Memoir

by Farah Naz Rishi

I wish I’d asked my mom why she didn’t let go of my arm that day. I wonder if the option to let go had simply never occurred to her. Years after my mom died, my aunt Seema told me that she’d called my mom the day she’d given birth to me. “So how does it feel? How does it feel being a mom?” Seema had asked excitedly. “It feels good,” Mom said. “Because now I have something that’s all my own.”

I snorted. Insults were our love language; insulting someone was the closest my brother would ever get to saying he liked them.

Life was so terribly delicate. Too delicate.

I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry, my dear sister.

He’s gone,” I told Stephen.

“I wanted him to stay,” I sobbed, utterly breaking down, the kind of sobbing that rips you open from the inside and leaves scars on your bones. “He was supposed to stay.”

In no world could I have imagined my brother capable of doing this to himself. In no world could I have imagined that his pain had been so immense that the idea of being run over by a fucking train—

He’d chosen to end his life in a way that there would be zero chance of survival. He wanted to die, with 100 percent certainty. How could I ever be happy, knowing my brother had felt like that in his final moments?

maybe he was scared. Maybe in those final seconds, those final milliseconds, my baby brother was scared and alone and filled with regret.

Since news of his death, a single question had been haunting me: What was the last song he’d ever listened to? Now I’d finally know. The song that played was a familiar one. It was called “Always in My Head.” A Coldplay song. The band that had inspired him to play piano. A band we’d both listened to on repeat when we were kids, sitting in the back seat of our parents’ car. The same band that had ushered him away from me.

But if I ended my life, at least Shaz and I would end up in the same place. Before we burned for all eternity, I could tell him I was sorry I couldn’t save him. That I was his big sister, and I was supposed to protect him, even from himself, and I’d failed.

“You know I wouldn’t. I want to marry you. I’ll marry you a dozen times. But it’s up to you, boss. It’s always up to you.”

We talked about Shaz, and how we missed him—how she might finally see him again.