Chapter 9

The quiet arrived by mutual understanding. No argument marked it. No dramatic decision. Just a gradual slowing—longer gaps between messages, responses composed and unsent, words held back with deliberate care.

Jack noticed it first in the mornings. He reached for his phone out of habit, then stopped himself. The screen stayed dark, the stillness unfamiliar and faintly unsettling.

Their last exchange had been gentle, almost logistical.

Anjana:
Maybe we should give ourselves some space.
Just to understand what this is.

Jack:
I was thinking the same thing.
Not distance. Just ... clarity.

Anjana:
Yes. Clarity.

That had been three days ago. Now, the absence pressed in—not sharp, but persistent. Jack felt it while walking to worksites, while listening to students talk about erosion, while washing his hands in the courtyard at night.

Silence, he realized, was not empty. It was shaped by what had been there before.

Anjana felt it too. She went about her routines with care—checking in guests, updating reservations, editing footage—but found her attention drifting. More than once, she caught herself framing a thought as a message before remembering she had chosen not to send it.

The choice mattered.

She wanted to know whether the connection stood on its own—or whether it depended on constant reassurance.

At night, she sat with her laptop closed, letting the room fill with the ordinary sounds of home: voices from neighboring houses, the distant hum of traffic, the familiar world pressing in.

For Jack, the quiet stripped things down. Without Anjana’s messages to soften the edges of the day, the work felt heavier. Not unbearable—but honest.

He noticed how often he had leaned on her presence without meaning to. How easily comfort could blur into dependency.

And yet—something remained. A steadiness beneath the wanting.

They did not avoid each other completely. Once, Jack passed the Phewa View Guesthouse and caught a glimpse of Anjana through the window. She looked up, met his eyes, and nodded—just once.

It was enough.

No smiles lingered. No steps slowed. But something unspoken held between them.

Silence, Jack understood, was not the opposite of connection. It was the space where its shape could finally be seen.

Now, with the quiet settled between himself and Anjana, Jack turned fully toward his work. Not as a distraction—he could feel the difference—but as something solid he could shape with care.

The classroom smelled of chalk and damp paper. Jack spread his materials across a long wooden table: hand-drawn watershed maps, laminated photos from the landslide site, notebooks filled with translated terms and diagrams sketched in pencil.

Three teachers sat with him—two men and one woman—all from schools that had been affected by flooding in different ways.

“We don’t want another project that ends when you do,” the woman said plainly.

Jack nodded. “Neither do I.”

That was where the plan began. They didn’t start with technology or outside models.

Instead, they started with walking.

Jack proposed monthly “land walks” for students—short, guided routes near their homes where teachers would help them identify water paths, soil types, and vegetation patterns.

“Not lessons,” Jack said. “Observations.”

The teachers leaned in.

“One grade at a time,” Jack continued. “Same route, different questions. Over years, they’ll see change.”

A teacher tapped the map thoughtfully. “They will teach their parents.”