Loving her father was Ashna’s right, and Shobi couldn’t snatch that from her even as Bram trapped them in a power struggle. As Shobi’s popularity in the media grew, Bram found new and increasingly exasperating ways to humiliate himself publicly. The more the family tried to curb him, the more creative he became in his wildness. Until finally, on a hunting trip, he shot a blackbuck, an endangered antelope, one of earth’s most majestic creatures. It was a repeat offense that came with a jail sentence, and not just a fine like the first time. A fine that would’ve crippled anyone not born with a diamond-encrusted spoon in his ungrateful mouth.

A weird sort of thing had happened in the two years when Bram was gone. Shobi had developed an internalized mechanism to shut him out. Maybe her subconscious knew that it was the only way to achieve everything she wanted to achieve without letting him take that away from her.

The more she shut him out, the less he was able to do the same. The numbness toward Bram, combined with the fire her work gave her, might have worked had it not caused the collateral damage that Shobi didn’t quite acknowledge until it was too late. Her Ashna.

Whenever Shobi’s work conflicted with something Ashna needed—unable to demand it because that wasn’t her—Shobi told herself she would have time to fix it. But Bram sought out the gaps between Shoban’s shrinking time and Ashna and stole her affection away. When other children had only the natural distance between generations to chart, to Ashna’s lot fell navigating the grotesqueness between her parents.

By the time Bram laughed in Shobi’s face, the perpetual tang of alcohol on his breath, and told her that the one thing she would never have was her daughter back, it was too late. The most precious thing in Shobi’s life had become too tenuous and slippery for her to hold on to.

After the hunting incident, Ma-saheb couldn’t get the authorities to bury the charges a second time. The only solution the family could come up with was to remove Bram from the country to avoid arrest. Shree was able to extract him to America amid a media circus. Ashna became the butt of teasing at school, and a target for hungry paparazzi. Once that happened, Shobi lost all avenues to win. She had to focus on damage control for Ashna, even as she struggled to hold her foundation together, because far too many people depended on it.