But no way would I have let her take you from me, Maya, not that she tried, I’m sorry if it hurts you to hear. She seemed to have lost interest in you over the last year or so, and truth be told, in me as well. This may be too personal a disclosure between mother and daughter, but I’m telling it to you because I believe it will bolster your self-esteem, reassure you that it was not your fault, if you knew that our sex life, Geeta’s and mine, was virtually over. It was a classic case of lesbian bed death, which usually hits around the five-year marker (not too different, by the way, from sex apathy in the heterosexual single-partner bedchamber), though for us it struck between the third and fourth year, still within the statistical range if that’s any comfort. But coming back to you—knowing Geeta, there’s no doubt she emotionally disconnected because you had blossomed into such a mature, beautiful young woman, and if there was one thing her royal highness did not appreciate, it was competition; like Snow White’s wicked stepmother, this queen too had to be the fairest of them all. Still, had she tried to stake a claim, I would have fought like a tigress to keep you, like a desperate wild woman I would have fought even from my disadvantaged position with regard to power, influence, money, and, let’s face it, my hopeless situation as a stranger in a strange land far from my home turf, condemned to a life sentence as an outsider with no reprieve, no matter how hard I might struggle to fit in. Still, I would never have let them have you, Maya, I would have stretched myself out under the wheels of their rolling motorcade rather than give you up. You were the one thing in our joint household, Geeta’s and mine, that was nailed to the floor. You were not a movable feast. Even now I cannot bear the terrible thought of how things might have turned out had I let you go.