She tried to reason with Ashna, explain to her that Shobi couldn’t leave with them, and she couldn’t keep Ashna with her either. Shobi promised to make their time together make up for their separation. She didn’t account for the fact that to Ashna the abandonment would become the sum total of their relationship, or that the only way Ashna would know how to handle it was by completely withdrawing and insulating herself from Shobi.

Before she knew it Ashna stopped holding her, stopped calling her mamma, stopped hearing anything that came out of Shobi’s mouth. It was amid that tornado of Ashna’s rejection and withdrawal that Omar returned after making his way out of the lies his father had told him to save his own skin. It wasn’t much, but in some ways, it was everything.

Chapter Thirty-One

The last thing Ashna had expected was to return to him today. But it felt natural. Essential.

At first she had walked aimlessly, without knowing where she was going. Past the restaurants her aunt called “hip” that were the beating heart of Palo Alto, the giant Whole Foods that was perpetually crowded, the Philz Coffee that made her feel like she was soaking up the coffee aroma with her skin. Little things that had made this place her home for so long. A home that had terrified her and excited her in equal parts when she had first come here.

“It’s going to be fun,” Baba had said to her. “We’ve always had fun together, haven’t we?” Baba had encouraged her to play soccer instead of cricket. He’d taken her hunting, something her mother hated. Shopping trips to Milan. Oysters in Catalonia. Macarons in Paris. Decadence had been his weapon.

Decadence that had filled Ashna with guilt when her mother railed against it as she draped on her white cotton saris and went to war in places so neglected no one had even heard of them. But at least it had made Shobi stop and take notice. Missing her mother had been a live thing inside Ashna for as long as she could remember.

“We’ll make it a fresh start. Your mother wants us to be miserable. We’ll be happy. That’ll show her.”

Even at ten Ashna had known these were not things one parent should say about another. A part of her had hoped that if Baba got them out of his system maybe he wouldn’t be so pathetic around Mom. In her presence, all he could do was drink and whimper, and no one stood up for him.