When Omkar and Aria opened the door of the Super Sun Market, the air was heavy with the smell of onion and ginger. Omkar’s mother was crouching in the kitchen, using the floor as a counter. She was making makki ki rotis while a curry of mustard greens sweltered on the stovetop.

“Hello, Mama,” Omkar said, placing a pile of mint that they had purchased on the counter. Not knowing how to act around the two of them together, Jarminder barely acknowledged them with a nod of the head when they came in. Instead, she directed her energies to what she felt confident in doing: her cooking.

Neeraj emerged from his bedroom to join them. He was no longer bellicose. Though he still maintained something of a graceless attitude, a smile just peeked out from beneath the bramble of his beard when he greeted Omkar.

Omkar introduced him to Aria as if they had never met before. Though Aria found it strange to pretend as if nothing had ever happened between them, she went along with it. When Neeraj took her hand, he held it instead of shaking it. Without thinking, she responded by doing a miniature curtsy. It made her feel like an idiot. A dense awkwardness trespassed between them. In response to it, they all put their focus on the cooking.

Jarminder pinched off a piece of dough from the rest and rolled it in her hands. She smacked it against her palm while rotating it again and again until it was flat and circular enough to her liking. She placed it on an unoiled griddle and turned it from one side to the next. Just like a tortilla, the bread began to blacken in spots. Just when Aria thought that Jarminder was about to put it on a serving plate, she took the griddle off of the flame of her little gas stove entirely and held the roti with a pair of tongs over the open flame. The roti responded by puffing up so it was no longer flat, like a pancake filled with air. When Jarminder took it off the flame, she ladled a spoonful of clarified butter onto the roti and spread it across the surface with the back of the spoon.