“Uncle told me to come up,” I said. “I just wanted to say bye.” I gripped my belly to stop the sloshing and spoke deliberately, unable to calibrate whether she could discern my drunkenness. I glanced around the room for some sign of Shruti tugging on her curls. I felt sure I would never be able to sit in a room with Anita or Anjali Dayal without the ghost of Shruti hovering, waiting for the right moment to manifest.

“He was leaving,” Anita said.

“I have to go to Michigan,” I said. No one budged. “Not now. Tomorrow, I have to go to Michigan. To East Lansing. Tomorrow.”

“Both of you,” Anjali Auntie said tightly, “come downstairs. It’s not nice that Anita’s up here when we’re having people over like this.”

And she waited in the doorway, arms folded, as I trudged downstairs. Before I could actually say good-bye, Anita had entered her public self once more. Her voice pitched upward, and she padded over to the Shettys, saying, “Auntie, Uncle, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA, had some things to get done….” They subsumed her, then, these aunties and uncles with their scripts: Where are you going to school in California? Will you stay in touch with all your friends? Ho, ho, it’s Miss Teen India! And as I saw the last flash of her calf, I felt more alone than ever.

“Neil.” Anjali Auntie glanced at her husband on the other side of the living room. He was entertaining a ring of engineers, all of whom seemed to be regarding him as the apex of something. (“This hardware versus software issue, Tarun…”) “You’ll be good. Make use of it.”

I nodded, though I hardly knew what I was agreeing to. I felt nauseous, but still liked what the alcohol provided—this sense of self-obliteration, this warping.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out—my father had noticed I was missing and was frantic. I told him I was just saying good-bye to Anita. The panic in his voice quelled.

“You could have let me know,” he said. “It is worrisome—to not be able to find you.”

“Come, Neil,” Anjali Auntie said. “I’ll walk you out.” She glanced back at Pranesh Uncle, who was talking over an engineer. I had the sense that just as the auntie-uncle scripts had once more subsumed Anita, many other scripts—for marriage, for a nuclear family—were waiting to reclaim Anjali Auntie as well.