She knew he wanted to be reassured that everything was okay between them, and it was a struggle not to succumb. “Did you need something?” she asked.

There was a pause.

“I wanted to check on you,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she said. It was painful, and she gritted her teeth. “Look, I just … I can’t talk to you right now,” she said.

“Why?”

She wondered if he thought she didn’t love him anymore or perhaps he thought she was just overwhelmed by grief, and she wanted to tell him that neither was true. “I have to go,” she said.

“Let me fly you to India after the funeral.”

Her chest ached, and it was as if he had reached through the phone and worked his fingers insistently between her ribs.

“No.” It was enormous work to say the word, and she rested her head on the headboard. If he had just insisted she go with him from the start, stolen her away even a week earlier, perhaps the whole thing with Tyler could have been avoided. Everything could go back to the way Devesh insisted: thoughts would just be thoughts, no reasons, no repercussions. But this was not how things had happened, and trying to convince herself that a week’s absence would have prevented the whole business, was as ridiculous as believing that he had implanted the marble of shame she carried inside her. He hadn’t. It had been there long before him. Her mother had known it was there, had known who Josie was and what she was capable of from the time she was a very little girl. And now her mother was dead and no one was there to know who Josie was but Josie herself.

“I can’t do this right now,” she said. “I … I’m going.”

“Josie, no,” he said. “I need to tell you something. Just listen for a minute. The other night … what happened between us … I never wanted to do that. Do you understand?”

She could hear his need, and she gripped the phone.

“What we do,” he said. “It’s leela.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s leela,” he said. “It’s divine play. It’s up and down, yin and yang, both sides playing with each other. It’s what Shiva and Shakti did … it’s …”

She laughed, and she felt herself grow stronger. “Jesus Christ, Devesh. You think you’re some Indian love god, and what you do … is somehow holy? You beat women and you’re a mystic? You beat women and it’s divine? No Devesh, it’s not divine. It’s not leela.”

“Yes; yes it is.”

“No it’s not, and I don’t think even you believe this. I think at least part of you thinks that it’s wrong, that it’s bad.”

“No,” he said.