He nabbed the best lawyer in the region and met with many others, barring them from working with Anjali. Pranesh’s attorney was arguing Anjali’s irrelevance to her husband’s company, litigating her out of a decent settlement. And the stress was taking its toll—“as you might have noticed,” Anita said.

Anjali initially tried to pass off the fact that Pranesh was living in Portola Valley as temporary—she told Lakshmi that he wanted a retreat up in the hills, with fewer distractions, to begin ideating a new company. Lakshmi knew better. “I have seen things change in Bombay,” she informed Anjali. The relatives in Navi Mumbai had a divorced son; the daughter was not even married to the man she lived with. Lakshmi was not unwise to the changing of the times. Perhaps she surprised herself with the expandable scope of her motherhood, how it swelled to make space for things previously unacceptable.

Lakshmi summoned her granddaughter to Sunnyvale, where Anjali had remained. (Anita’s mother’s sole victory in the divorce would be getting to keep the house she’d never wanted, in the suburb she’d always hated.) Anjali was asleep when Anita arrived. She poked her head in to see her mother breathing shallowly, her sharp wristbones and vertebrae visible through her oddly papery skin.

“There is something very wrong with your aiyee,” Lakshmi said sternly, bustling over the stove. Anita tried to make the chai, but her grandmother scorned her attempts.

“She’s depressed,” Anita said, taking her tea.

Lakshmi clicked her tongue to dismiss the Western psychobabble. “What is wrong, see, is this. I made a very big mistake. I fixed up your uncles’ lives. Got all their studies in order. Gave your uncle Vivek all kinds of special boosts. All this you know.” Anita nodded. “But I did not arrange anything proper for your mother. She needed some kind of boost, too. Understand?”

“Ajji,” Anita said. “Isn’t that all in the past? You can’t fix it now.”

They were quiet for a while, drinking their chai, and then Anita began to wash their emptied mugs. From behind the sink, she could see the Sunnyvale cul-de-sac, cousin to the Hammond Creek cul-de-sac, only with squatter houses and more citrus trees. The sight gave her hot pangs between her ribs. Her mother had spent so many years here, in this place meant for certain types of families, certain types of lives. Was there no way out for Anjali Dayal—no, Anjali Joshi? No other way of being on offer?

“What could you do now, Ajji?” she said.

“I would not have given your mother the same-same kind of gold drink I gave your uncle,” Lakshmi said. She came to stand by Anita. Together they surveyed the street. “What I should have given was a good gold tonic to ensure her marriage and home life were happy.”