“Out? What’s that supposed to mean? In case you didn’t notice, you didn’t come home last night.” She was pretending to tease her, but Josie could hear the edge in Mary’s voice.

“I noticed.”

“So? Who was it?”

Josie wanted to tell her, to unload this sandbag of a secret, but she couldn’t, and she stared at her toes and tried to figure out what was worse: hurting Mary or not seeing Devesh. The first was terrible, but the second was inconceivable.

“It was Dr. Bob, wasn’t it?”

Josie scuffed her flip-flop against the first step of the porch.

“It was, it was! I knew you’d like him. He’s a good guy; unlike some people,” she muttered.

“I’m going inside,” Josie said.

“What’s the matter with you?” It was the same voice she used with Tyler, and Josie felt it in the whole of her stomach.

“Nothing, I’m just tired.”

“Well, you don’t have to be rude. I had a bad day yesterday, and I don’t need another one today.”

Josie took the steps slowly. “Okay,” she mumbled, waiting for her mother’s “Just watch yourself,” but Mary said nothing, and Josie walked to her bedroom and sat down on the bed. This was ridiculous, she thought. Mary was a rational woman, she would understand. But Josie knew this wasn’t true. If Josie told, the invisible tether she felt between her and Mary would snap like a dry rubber band.

She lay down on the bed and put her arms over her face. She could still smell his aftershave from when he kissed her goodbye, and it made her heart quicken. Oh, God, he was beautiful. She had walked home feeling as if the air were suddenly infused with nitrous oxide. She could spin all day on this feeling, and he had asked her to come over again that night. They would watch a Bollywood movie and drink Fanta and eat egg rolls and pretend they were Samosas, and later maybe he would do that thing to her. She pressed her hands against her chest. This was bad; it was bad, but it was also good, it was very, very good.

For weeks, Josie would sneak out after the children were asleep and meet Devesh at his house. They watched movies, and read supermarket tabloids, and drove all the way to Charlotte for mithai and bhel puri. They took night walks, and he told her about India and his childhood and the schoolmaster who smacked him nearly every day for reading Phantom comics in the classroom; and about his work, and how he was researching the role of gene therapy in wound repair. And he gave her a house key that he strung on a red ribbon and hung around her neck.