He followed her and sat with them, even though he had already eaten. The others were unusually animated, their faces flushed and smiling. Karak was there, although Rosa was not. Amarjeet did not meet anyone’s eye.

He sat and Kishen served him as if he had not had dinner.

“Jeetu, your Karak Chacha will become a father soon,” Jivan said lightly. “What do you think?”

So that was the reason. “Mubaraka,” Amarjeet said, meaning it, finally meeting Karak’s gaze.

Karak reached across the table and put a plate in front of him. “Ladoo, which I made myself. I’m sure it is awful.” He glanced at Amarjeet with a strange, open smile, almost as if they were equals.

Amarjeet smiled back. He bit into the sweet.

“Bhabhi-ji, have one,” Karak said to Kishen. “Your blessings are needed.”

“May you be blessed with a son who shines like the moon,” she said, taking another piece.

Jivan placed two rotis on Amarjeet’s plate. “Eat, Jeetu,” he said. That was how Amarjeet knew the standoff between them had ended.

THE FAMILY DID NOT TALK ABOUT THE WAR. It was not their war, even though Karak’s younger brother was fighting in Egypt for the British king. How could it belong to them, when the Americans had sided with the British, and the British were committed to subjugating the Indians, and were fooling their countrymen at home into joining the British ranks? Into risking their lives to win spoils they would never enjoy?

In the Valley, there were melons and cantaloupes to plant. There was cotton to pick. Amarjeet helped his uncle purchase a second plow, a second cultivator. Meanwhile, Fredonia’s public spaces were filled with signs for Red Cross dances, posters demanding they buy war bonds, sign pledge cards, plant kitchen gardens, knit scarves and socks for the boys to take to Europe. What did that have to do with them? The family cared about the Hindu-German Conspiracy trial, about the Indian soldiers who were fighting alongside the British in France and Mesopotamia.

Only Amarjeet volunteered to go into town whenever necessary. He would see former high school classmates at the war drive events. Sometimes they would greet him and sometimes they would not.

When the draft numbers were drawn in Washington, D.C., Amarjeet rode into town, purchased a paper, and sat on the bench at the general store to read in the afternoon glare. His eye immediately caught the numbers—his own, and Harry’s too. He felt a wave of excitement.

ON THE LAST EVENING before Amarjeet was deployed to Camp Lewis near Seattle, Amarjeet and Ram were clearing silt in the canal when Jivan approached, carrying three small crates with him. They were often used as seats.

“I must see to some things in the house,” Ram said, stepping onto the bank.

“Stay, Ram,” Jivan said. “I prefer if you hear this. Come and sit,” he said.