“May I say something? I know you don’t want to hear this.”

Dear God, every single time that line came out of Shobi, she followed it up with something that started a fight.

Please don’t do this today. That sense of barely holding it together that Ashna kept firmly at the edge of her consciousness closed in. Every time Shobi showed up, it pushed its way to the center of her. What kind of dumbass let someone do that to them over and over?

But of course, no one stopped Shobi from doing exactly as Shobi wanted.

“I think you’ve forgotten what it means to be happy.”

Ashna sank down to her knees next to the tub. A stray hair marred the spotless floor. She picked it up and threw it in the garbage.

“Are you going to say anything at all?”

Ashna wanted to, but her words had a way of hiding away when they sensed Shobi’s presence.

“Ashna?” She couldn’t tell if Shobi was reprimanding her or if that was concern in her voice. Not that she had any experience with recognizing concern in Shobi’s voice.

“You’re wrong, Mom. You can only forget something you knew.”

Her mother gasped and Ashna realized that she had said the words out loud.

In the moment that Shobi said nothing, relief and hope rushed through Ashna. She imagined her admission filling Shobi with regret and understanding.

“That’s not fair, Ashna.”

How could Ashna not laugh at that? Of course Shobi would make Ashna’s admission that she had never learned how to be happy about herself.

Ashna knew exactly what Shobi would say next. “Why is it so hard for you to understand your mother?” Bingo. And then . . . “You always understood your baba no matter what he did. No matter how wrong his choices.”

How many times could you have the same fight? Baba had stuck with Ashna, always. Well, until he hadn’t, in the end. But Ashna had never known Shobi as anything but a visitor who was either arriving or getting ready to leave.

Shobi had been gone a lot when they lived in Sripore, and then she hadn’t moved to America with them. Just visited. At first Ashna had tried hard to believe the visits weren’t reluctant, but over time, they grew shorter and farther apart, proving how wrong she’d been.

“Anyway, I didn’t call to have that conversation again. I was hoping maybe we could move past all that. Isn’t it time to fix things?”

Wasn’t this just precious? Now that Shobi had achieved the ultimate validation for her work, it was time to start taking stock of collateral damage.