have you seen david mistry, he/him? they look a lot like rahul kohli. the 44 year old mortician is so dependable, composed, and thoughtful but i heard they can also be really guarded, stubborn, and emotionally distant. can you believe they’ve been in town for two years?! they live in the cove neighborhood and kind of remind me of pressed black suits, rain on old windows, a half-finished cup of coffee gone cold, carefully folded grief, and the quiet hum of a funeral home after hours. if i was asked, i’d guess that they were most likely to keep everyone else calm in a crisis in their yearbook for the class of 2000.
possible storyline triggers: death, grief, parental illness/aging parent, emotional repression.
full name : david arun mistry nickname(s) : dave, though he does not particularly encourage it; mr. mistry professionally; leena sometimes still calls him beta date of birth : december 30, 1981 parentage: leena mistry and the late arun mistry siblings: none; david is an only child significant other: single; formerly in a serious long-term relationship in new york gender identity : cis man romantic orientation : homoromantic sexual orientation : gay
biography: (highlights)
david grew up in carroll as the only child of leena mistry, a young widow who never remarried after the death of david’s father.
he was deeply loved, but being the center of his mother’s world often made him feel responsible for her happiness.
after graduating from carroll in 2000, david left for college and studied mortuary science, eventually becoming a mortician.
he moved to new york as an adult, where he built a life outside of carroll and came into himself more fully as a gay man.
while in new york, david had one serious long-term relationship that ended because he struggled with vulnerability and emotional openness.
before returning to carroll, david had an unexpected flirtation and almost-kiss with a priest, something that never became anything more but still stayed with him.
two years ago, david came back to carroll for one reason only: leena’s declining health.
he is reserved, stoic, dependable, and difficult to read, but beneath all that control is a man who has spent most of his life mistaking self-denial for love.
wanted connections:
old classmates who remember a younger, quieter david before he left carroll.
someone who knew his mother and has watched david fall back into the dutiful-son role.
a childhood friend he lost touch with after moving to new york.
someone connected to the funeral home: employee, client, business contact, florist, clergy member, cemetery staff, etc.
a chaotic or emotionally open person who keeps trying to get him to loosen up, much to his deep inconvenience.
someone who mistakes his reserve for judgment and clashes with him because of it.
another man from carroll david may have had feelings for when they were in high school, whether anything happened or not.
a serious former partner in new york who loved david but eventually got tired of being kept at arm’s length.
biography: full
david mistry grew up in carroll as the only child of leena mistry, a young widow, and for most of his childhood, it felt like he and his mother existed in a world built for two. his father, arun, died when david was young, young enough that grief became less of an event and more of a permanent piece of the house. leena never remarried, never really seemed to want to, and instead poured all of her love, worry, hope, and attention into her son. david was not unloved. if anything, he was loved so intensely that it became difficult to breathe beneath it. from an early age, he learned how to be steady, how to be useful, and how to keep his own emotions quiet so his mother’s life did not become any heavier than it already was.
after graduating from carroll, david left for college because he needed distance, though even then he chose a version of freedom that still felt responsible. he studied mortuary science, drawn less by morbidity than by the strange practicality of grief. death had shaped his home, his mother, and his understanding of love; becoming a mortician gave him a way to make grief orderly, careful, and useful. in a profession built around other people’s worst days, david found something he understood: quiet rooms, controlled voices, steady hands, and the dignity of knowing what to do when no one else did.
new york came later, and with it came the first real life david built entirely for himself. there, he was not the poor boy who had lost his father or the dutiful son everyone in carroll remembered. he was simply david: private, competent, handsome in a way that made people curious, and far more guarded than he liked to admit. he dated, came into himself more fully as a gay man, and eventually had one serious relationship that lasted long enough to feel like it could become permanent. his boyfriend knew david better than most people ever had, but even then, david struggled to let himself be fully known. he could be loyal, thoughtful, and present in every practical sense, but emotionally, there were doors he rarely opened. eventually, the relationship ended not because there was no love left, but because david had never learned how to stop treating vulnerability like an emergency.
by the time leena’s health began to decline, david had already been single for a while. his life in new york had become quieter, more work than pleasure, more routine than desire. then, just before he made the decision to return to carroll, there was an unexpected flirtation with a man who should have been simple to walk away from and wasn’t. it never became anything more than almost: almost honest, almost reckless, almost a kiss. maybe that was why it stayed with him. david has always been very good at stopping himself just before he wants too much.
when he returned to carroll two years ago, it was not out of nostalgia, heartbreak, or some secret longing for home. he came back for leena. full stop. she needed help, and david helped, because duty has always been easier for him to understand than desire. now, at forty-four, he is back in the town he once needed to leave, working as a mortician, living too close to old memories, and slipping too easily into the role of the dutiful son. david is reserved, stoic, and difficult to read, but beneath all that control is a man who has spent most of his life mistaking self-denial for love. he did not come back to carroll to build a life. unfortunately for him, carroll may be building one around him anyway.
