Once in a while a letter came from Henry, but not often. He told her that he was stepping more outside of his tendency to be reclusive and attending some social events, although he declared that he rarely enjoyed them. In one letter he wrote of how Chit had returned to India, taking his personal servants with him. He missed Chit, and it was difficult to think that he would likely never see him again, but he admitted that their personalities had grown more different as they’d matured and he didn’t miss him as much as he might have in previous years. The next letter that came from Henry informed Amala that his mother had passed away. He confessed that while it caused him some sorrow simply because she was his mother and almost his only remaining blood relative, he couldn’t feel guilty for admitting that he’d shared no loving relationship with her and that her loss mostly meant the relief of not feeling he had to please her. He explained that he felt some peace in knowing that she was surely in a better place, where perhaps whatever had made her so cantankerous in this life might be resolved and she could be happier. He liked imagining her that way.

Amala wrote back to offer her condolences and her understanding of his complex emotions. She also expressed an understanding of his mixed feelings about Chit’s departure. She expressed a hope that he could find the right woman and start a new family so that he wouldn’t be alone. While a part of her sincerely desired it, wanting him to be happy, she knew that when it happened she would likely have to face an entirely new assault of grief in having to let him go. And all the while she kept a prayer in her heart that when he did marry, it would be to anyone but Kat.

Not many weeks later, Amala received word from her father that Everett, her beloved friend who had always worked in the carriage house, had died suddenly from what was likely a heart attack. Amala grieved for the loss of her friend, and she wrote a letter to her family in which she expressed how dear Everett had been to her. Since Everett had had no family, there was no one else for Amala to connect with over his death. For her, it was one more piece of evidence that life was fragile and that even the things that felt secure and stable could be gone in an instant. But just as she’d learned with the deaths of her parents, there was nothing to do but go on living.