Anita began to dig in the bags. “Mama,” she said metallically, “you need ibuprofen. A hot water bottle? Or, no. Is there an ice machine?” Her hair fell over her face, obscuring her features. Here she was, taking refuge in the hard edges of efficiency. Never one to dwell in grief or fear, or love. Then she looked at the basin next to her, at the gold that had settled into something pudding-like. “What do we do with this?” she muttered.

Which was when Lakshmi Joshi rose from her position perched on the desk chair. Her light eyes flicked themselves alive. Had we reached her plane now? A plane where something could be done?

Lakshmi Auntie said, matter-of-factly, her English clear but tentative, “We put it in river.”

Like dumping a body.

“That’s it?” I said.

Anita’s grandmother rapped the vessel. “You take. Neeraj, you take.”

“You didn’t know about any of it?” I asked her, hoisting the basin to my hips obediently. “The alchemy, the—the affair?”

“Absolutely I did not know. If I knew, I would not have said go chase bridal gold. I would have done some other thinking.” She took my elbow, unconcerned about overburdening me, and shuffled beside me. “So last night after Anita’s mother tells me all this, I sit and think for a long time. New rite I am trying. Let us see.”

“Where did you learn all this, Auntie?”

She pursed her lips and smacked them a few times. “You pick up things from mother, mother’s mother, mother’s sister. Like recipes. Cannot remember who starts it all.”

Behind me, Anita carried out the Manish Motilal lehenga. We descended the stairs to the parking lot. I placed the basin in my passenger’s seat, covered it with my dirty T-shirt.

Anita was in an authoritative mood now. “Drive. We’ll follow you, Neil.”

We squeezed through the narrow streets in that neatly gridded downtown and arrived at Sally’s Saloon, with its swinging doors. We parked and passed the red Taoist Bok-Kai temple. I was holding the basin against my belly like a large pumpkin. Anjali Auntie stopped for a moment in front of the temple’s high red gate. Anita was helping her grandmother up the steps that preceded the slippery gravel slope down to the riverbank.

Anjali Auntie turned from the red pillars of the temple.

“Do you know…?” I began, and then stopped myself.

“How long I have?” Those white-gray streaks framing her face were handsome.

“Yeah.”