‘Sorry, who are you?’ I say.

‘Mrs Subhalakshmi is a psychoanalyst. She works with special-needs children.’

‘Sorry to ask,’ Mrs Subhalakshmi says, ‘but do you think this has been the right move for her? Do you have daily activities planned? Are you engaging enough? She seems much more withdrawn than when I saw her last.’

‘I was actually on my way out,’ I say, looking at Teacher. ‘You might have called to let me know you were coming.’

‘Do you leave her often?’ the shrink asks.

‘Once or twice a month, yes.’

Mallika has sauntered into the house and started washing dishes even though it’s earlier than her usual time to do so. She wants to listen in on the action. Teacher must have called her last night to find out whether I’d be here and to make sure the gate would be unlocked.

‘The problem is that if I don’t leave her I might go mad,’ I say, smiling insincerely.

‘Of course, of course,’ Teacher soothes. ‘Nobody is saying you shouldn’t go, but is it the best thing for her to be alone? Shouldn’t you drop her off with me on your way, and pick her up on the way back? That way she can be with her peers. Otherwise, here she is all alone. What do you think?’

‘Remember the last time we tried that? How much she kicked and screamed and I had to come and get her?’

‘Yes, but that was so long ago. Now she must be missing us.’

The shrink wants to prescribe antidepressants for Lucia.

‘Why?’ I say. ‘So she can be more of a zombie?’

The shrink looks at Teacher as if to say, So this is what you’re up against.

‘We can take a call a few months down the road,’ she says. ‘Next time, perhaps you can bring Lucy to my clinic. We were just passing by here, so thought we’d drop in.’

‘Of course,’ I say.

After they’ve gone I realise I didn’t even offer them a glass of water.

Mallika loads the car with the rubbish bags, cooler box and shopping bags. ‘Don’t forget to bring liquid cleaner to wash the floors,’ she says. ‘And a new broom. A proper one this time.’ I press 500 rupees in her hands and remind her to lock the gate when I’m gone.

The nights I’m away, Mallika sleeps on a jute mat in the corridor between my room and Lucia’s room. When I call to ask whether Lucy is being good, Mallika says, ‘What is there for her? Eat and bathroom and sleep. She is fine.’

I take the two kilometres from the house onto the highway slowly because it is always a little startling to re-enter the world. On my way out I see two bee-eaters perched on the electrical wires, a bespectacled goat herder sitting outside his house, smoking.

Once on the highway, I turn up the music. I briefly think of taking off my top and driving in my bra. Hoot hoot. Here is the world and it is chaotic and loud.