Finishing a set of push-ups one late afternoon, I’d looked up to see my mum’s bare feet stepping across the grass toward me. When I raised myself up to kneeling, I discovered she had boxing gloves in her hands and a shy smile on her face.

“Hi. What’s up?” I’d asked, unsure what to make of my mother with sporting equipment in her hands.

She turned the gloves around, her eyes trained on them as though inspecting their composition. “I don’t want to interrupt your working out, but I thought, maybe…”

I remember the twinge in my chest took me so by surprise that I thought I’d pushed myself too hard.

Maybe it was because I’d been caught off guard, or maybe it was something else, but it only took a moment for my open hand to extend toward her.

We hadn’t spent much time boxing that afternoon. My mum had basically just danced around the yard, poking at me with her bare hands while I kept my gloves up, like Thatha had taught me to do. Seeing her timid jabs, the way her feet bounced in the grass—I hadn’t even cared that I wasn’t accomplishing anything useful. I saw a brief glimpse of my mother I hadn’t realized existed—playful, giddy, free. And for that moment, I remember almost wanting to be that way too.

Chapter Nine

“So I guess I should tell you my name. It’s Shanti. With an i.”

Shanti sounded like a brown name, but this girl didn’t look brown. She didn’t look entirely white either, though. With my usual tact, I blurted, “That sounds brown.”

We were in the parking lot, loading up a van that belonged to her and her sister. I’d offered to help, since she was getting me into the Crash Zone for no good reason (that I was aware of, anyway). But just before Shanti introduced herself, I’d been rethinking my decision to go along with all of this. Jumping into things wasn’t exactly my style. What’d I know about this girl anyway? What was I walking into?

At least she didn’t seem fazed by my inane comment. “Yeah. My Chinese dad wanted a ‘Western’ name, and my white mom wanted a Chinese name. They settled on a name that was neither. Now I get to explain it for the rest of my life.” She laughed. “And your name is?”

“Daya. Not exactly a typical Sri Lankan name either. I guess we’re kind of in the same boat,” I said, attempting to converse like a normal human being despite my second guesses. I handed her the box I’d carried.

“You’re from Sri Lanka?”

“My parents—” I stopped myself from saying were. Past tense made things complicated. I didn’t need to go there. I just let my sentence hang unfinished instead.