Amala took a deep breath and considered how many times she had weighed and measured the words she might use when this moment finally came. She prayed silently for God to help her find those words now. “You have all given me so much. Here in your home and as a part of your family I am more blessed than I can even comprehend, and I want you to know how very grateful I am for that. I am certainly not unaware of what my fate would have likely been if I’d been left on my own in India. We don’t talk about it . . .” She sensed Kat fidgeting slightly but ignored that and pressed on. “We don’t talk about it, but I will never forget.”

Again Amala took a deep breath. “There are other things we don’t talk about, either. But now that Kat and I have come of age, I believe certain issues can no longer be ignored. We must discuss the situation in order to avoid inevitable problems.”

“What on earth do you mean, darling?” Viola asked, and Amala checked the expressions of Kat and their parents. Not one of them had any idea what she was trying to say, and their ignorance felt maddening to her in that moment. How could they possibly be so oblivious to her predicament? She reminded herself not to judge, knowing it was surely their love for her that had made them so blind to how different she was from them.

“I mean,” Amala said, forcing a calm and even voice, “there is nothing good in pretending that a suitable marriage will ever be a possibility for me.”

Amala heard all three of them gasp simultaneously. She looked at her hands in her lap to avoid having to see their expressions. “I’m well aware that no respectable gentleman would ever want to marry a woman like me, and . . .”—she thought of Henry and realized she needed to clarify the way she’d said that—“. . . and even if he did, it would be foolish. It is simply not acceptable in our society, and such a marriage would bring nothing but grief to everyone involved. I could never, in good conscience, bring children into this world who would inevitably face such stigma and ridicule simply because being of mixed race is not acceptable and it never will be—at least not in the world we know.”