Omkar felt guilty for lying to his parents. He could not tell them the complete truth about Aria’s past. They would not understand it. They were too conservative to accept the idea that he intended to marry a woman who had a drug addict for a mother and who never knew her father, any more than they could accept that she had dropped out of school or was currently living on the streets. He would have to talk Aria into upholding the lie as well.

“Is her uncle looking for her?” Neeraj said, wanting to steer clear of involvement in a potentially dangerous situation.

“No … he said that if she wouldn’t sleep with him, he doesn’t care if she lives or dies.” Omkar felt himself winding them deeper and deeper into the lie he was telling to corrode their resistance to Aria.

Much as she might not want to admit it, Jarminder could feel some empathy toward Aria. She wiped tears away from her eyes with the tissue. “Well, one thing would be good … I wouldn’t have to share my grandkids on holidays.”

The three of them started laughing. “I’m not saying that I’m happy about it yet. You can’t expect that from me,” she said.

“Does this mean you are OK with it?” Omkar asked, knowing his life was flailing on the hook of her next statement.

“I’m saying we’ll live with it, Omkar. We want you to be happy. But don’t you dare ever, ever do that again!” she said, referring to Omkar’s disappearance.

Omkar rushed in to hug her. Her consent spoke for both his parents. It was more leniency than he had imagined either of them to be capable of.

In truth, in the hours of torment since Omkar and Aria drove off, they had already had it brought back to them with explosive force what it felt like to lose their children. When you lose a child, you never ever forget, but it’s something that over time can sleep in your mind because of the pressures of day-to-day life. Omkar’s absence had reminded them that as long as he was alive and happy, it didn’t matter what school he graduated from or even whether he graduated at all. It didn’t matter if he got a good job or didn’t. It didn’t matter if he married the sort of girl they wanted him to marry or even if he got married at all. Faced with the threat of losing Omkar from their lives, they realized that when you love your child, everything that you think matters no longer matters in comparison to having them be a part of your life.