It turned out that behind Pranesh Dayal’s plump belly and thinning hair there was no secretly compassionate man. Anjali decided the remedy was a daughter. She learned to drive so she could take herself to the Hindu temple in Riverdale and make offerings of fruit and flowers. Kneeling before the stone Venkateshwara, she named Anita long before she was conceived. She would have had three, five more children if she could have—yes, she wanted a son, too, whom she imagined naming Vivek. But Pranesh got a vasectomy one summer when Anjali took Anita back to Bombay, telling her later that he did not plan on funneling his money to support a whole brood.

On the occasions Anjali considered her domestic situation, she developed a castor oil taste in her mouth. America: once metonymy for more. Here, was there more? She possessed a life of her own. Her husband left for California and she could breathe. It was something. She wanted more—infinitely more—for her daughter. She would do anything to give it to her.

ABOUT A YEAR before this reunion at the Sonora, Anjali’s father died. She and her brother Dhruv had, over the years, remitted enough money that their parents could shift to be near some better-off relatives in Navi Mumbai. But after Mr. Joshi’s death, the relatives whispered at how Lakshmi’s wealthy children neglected the old woman, whispering of the disloyalty America bred. Anjali and Dhruv discussed things. Dhruv’s wife did not want to take in Lakshmi. “You have much more than we do,” the sister-in-law told Anjali—which was true, because Pranesh had recently sold his company for, as Chidi said, a fuckload. (Anjali did not contribute financially; she’d never restarted her catering business out west and struggled to hold jobs. She was an unreliable employee, forgetful and scattered.)

At any rate, the domino effect of family obligations and rivalries began, and Lakshmi came to live in Sunnyvale. How ironic to find that a doted-upon son would, in adulthood, kowtow to a cold wife. But the daughter didn’t dwell on ugly history. Daughters had forgiveness in their bones. Up into the dry California sky went the resentments that might have been spoken about Dadar, about Parag the neighbor, about Vivek, about how Lakshmi had allocated love.

Lakshmi arrived in California just as Pranesh instigated divorce proceedings. Over the years, Anita’s father had grown angry with Anjali for doing too little domestically, for why should a man like him be married to a woman like her, except for the sake of the household? But these days, she was not cooking, she did not work, they had nothing to say to each other. And sufficient money had led Pranesh to a conclusion that would have been unheard of some years earlier: he could afford now to exit the inconvenience of his marriage.