Some days his longing for home sat inside him like an infestation, eating away at heart and brain. On those days, he could not tolerate seeing Karak pore over the accounting ledgers, planning coldly for the next season. Ram would not say out loud that he hoped he would not still be in the Valley then. That he longed to be back in his hut with Padma, that he yearned to meet his son. He felt he was neither here nor there. Nonexistent.

When Jivan and Karak argued, this feeling only grew worse. Home loomed beyond his reach as the place of peace, the Valley as a place of division. He knew this was too simple to be true.

Jivan and Karak’s melon crop was late that winter. So by February, they had joined the other Valley farmers desperately seeking workers, prowling past the labor office looking for the usual line of sun-weathered men. But no one was there. Lettuce had come up in the northern part of the Valley. The shipping companies sent their laborers out to their corporate land first, as they always had, ignoring contracts with the family farmers. Ram heard about it in town, he saw it himself: some small-farm lettuce wilted in the field, some cantaloupe turned soft, and a half year’s work was wasted.

Jivan was known among the migrants to pay well, and once a foreman came to offer the services of his crew, two families who brought eight children between them, standing on the dirt path to the Eggenberger farm. Karak and Ram had just arrived from town, where they had been looking for workers too. When Jivan saw the children, he asked, “You are bringing them to work?”

“They are better for you, señor,” the foreman said.

“It is against the law,” Jivan said. But Ram knew that he had refused children working in his fields even before the new laws were passed.

“They are cheaper.”

“No,” Jivan said.

“We can pick fast, señor.”

“No.”

Karak had been listening. “Bhai-ji, what are you thinking?” he said. The ride into town had been too hot, and unsuccessful, and Ram knew Karak’s frustration was mounting.

But Jivan would not be swayed. “What will you do when the sheriff comes and sees the children working here?”

The workers had begun to walk away. “The sheriff will not come!” Karak screamed.

“No,” Jivan said again.

“Can you see this?” Karak yelled at Ram as he turned away. “What is happening here? The entire crop shall be lost!”

Later, in private, Ram said to him, “You do not understand his concern, because you do not have children.”

“And you do?”

He did not know whether in that instant Karak had forgotten, or whether he had meant to be cruel. “I do, Karak Singh,” Ram said. The words seemed to clog his throat, prevent him from breathing. Was he a father or not? He was surprised at his reaction.