The train ticket was still inside his wallet

Dear Delyara, My father died on the local train during the evening rush. A heart attack, the doctor said. By the time anyone noticed he was not sleeping, the train had passed four stations. The police returned his wallet to us today. Inside was a ticket from Churchgate to Virar, a photograph of my mother when she was twenty, and a folded grocery list written in my handwriting. Tomatoes, tea, coriander, soap. I had given it to him that morning because I was too tired after my night shift to shop. My mother keeps saying he would have died anyway, that the list did not put him on the train, that nobody is to blame. Still, I cannot stop imagining him standing in the crowded carriage with my groceries in his mind, one hand gripping the rail, his body already beginning to fail. He had bought the tomatoes. They were inside the cloth bag beside him when he died. My mother cooked them tonight because she said wasting food would have upset him. I could not eat. The train ticket is now under my pillow. It marks the journey he completed and the errand he never came home from. I keep wishing I had written one fewer item.