“I meant to clean up the high chair,” Rahul said when she joined him in the kitchen. He was dressed in one of Roger’s bathrobes, squinting, as if the subterreanean space were flooded with light. His voice was gruff, the effects of the liquor clear in the delicate yet awkward way he was moving about. He had filled the kettle with water, turned on the gas, measured coffee into the glass pot. “Sorry about that.”

“I thought you were better.”

He glanced at her, only for a second. He looked like an idiot to her, dull and slow.

“What the hell happened, Rahul?”

He didn’t reply.

“Is it me?” she asked. For she had wondered this, during the long hours she had lain awake: wondered if seeing her had reminded him of the past, of those nights they had defied their parents together, pouring warm beer into cups of ice and forging a link all their own.

The water began to boil, the kettle emitting a thin whistle. She switched off the gas, poured the water into the coffeepot. “You have to go to the airport,” she said.

“My flight isn’t until evening.”

“Now, Rahul. You have to get dressed and go now. You left Neel in the bathtub.” Her voice quavered and at the same time it was beginning to rise, the sickening image flooding her all over again.

“I did?”

“Yes, Rahul,” she said, fresh tears streaming down her face. “You passed out and you left our baby alone in a tub. You could have killed him, do you understand?”

He turned away, his back to her. He pressed his head to a cupboard, twisting it slightly to either side, swearing to himself under his breath. Then, still without facing her, he said, “But he’s okay, right, Didi? I peeked into his room this morning and he was asleep in his crib just fine.”

“You have to go now.” Her words were coming out in almost a whisper. She was aware that she sounded like a broken record. Fury had raged through her all night; that storm cloud had unleashed its rain, and now she was simply tired.

“I’ve stayed away from it for months,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I just had the tiniest bit—”

“Stop,” she said, and he did. “I don’t want to hear your explanation. Do you understand me? I don’t want to hear it.”

He didn’t try to speak again. He went upstairs to dress and get his bag and then stood in the sitting room as she called a minicab for Heathrow. She held out fifty pounds to cover the fare and he took it from her. Then he left, going out to the street before the cab arrived. When it pulled up to the house she went to the window, held back the lace curtain, and watched him slip into the backseat. Then the cab pulled away, leaving her to stare out at the gray morning light. She wasn’t aware of when she’d stopped crying. She felt wide awake suddenly. She heard Neel upstairs, stirring in his crib. In another minute he would cry out, wanting her, expecting breakfast; he was young enough so that Sudha was still only goodness to him, nothing else. She returned to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, took out a packet of Weetabix, heated milk in a pan. Something brushed against her ankles, and she saw that the balloon tied to the back of Neel’s high chair was no longer suspended on its ribbon. It had sagged to the floor, a shrunken thing incapable of bursting. She clipped the ribbon with scissors and stuffed the whole thing into the garbage, surprised at how easily it fit, thinking of the husband who no longer trusted her, of the son whose cry now interrupted her, of the fledgling family that had cracked open that morning, as typical and as terrifying as any other.