“Soon. It’s always sooner than you think.” Right there I wanted to tell Mohini about Neel, but I wasn’t sure what she would think. I decided not to mention him.

That night Mohini gave me her set of four books written by Munshi. They were historical fiction set in Gujarat a thousand years ago. “Why are you giving them to me? You should take them with you.”

“I can’t. There are more important things for me to take than books.”

“Certainly not more important. Only more practical.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Once I go, you may want to read them again.”

I opened the first book. Inside, Mohini had written:

At the edge of an ocean, the past is carved on the stone, and the future lies deep under the water. Only the present we write and wipe in the sand of time.

For Jeeta,

With whom I’ve shared the beach and the sand of my childhood.

I held Mohini close.

Unlike Mummy, I didn’t cry at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport or even when we rode home in the taxi. At three in the morning, the city was silent, and so was I. I gazed out the window. The salty air filled my lungs as we drove by the Verli Sea-Face. When we passed the Haji Ali Dargah, I knew that Mohini was going to miss us; she was going to miss Mumbai; she was going to miss India.

The open ground of the Race Course stretched out on the opposite side of the road. We had never walked on the meandering rocky path that led to the Haji Ali Dargah, or seen a horse race on Sunday afternoons, and yet, how many times had we passed the cluster of ethereal white domes of Dargah floating on the water, or admired the open space of the Race Course? During the wedding season, rich people held their big weddings and receptions on the Race Course, and the trees were all aglow with lights and festivity.

I wondered how many years, months, days, and nights would pass until we brought Mohini home, passing right by this very same road? How happy I’d be on that day, talking to her and not noticing anything around us. But tonight I saw it all.

Our servant Naran had made up the beds, and as soon as we got home, Mummy told Chiraj, Vivek, and me to go to sleep. I lay down on my mattress. Tonight, there was only one mattress—only my mattress with two pillows stacked up on one end. I don’t know why Naran gave me Mohini’s pillow too.