She had begged her sister to change her mind. But, with each conversation, she had started to fear Dhara would change her mind. With each kiss, each cuddle, each innocent stare, each time the child curled her tiny hand around her finger, Priya sank into a primal place where nothing existed except her and her children. Her child. This child.

Priya touched the bronze feet of the Goddess, and brought her hands to her face to receive her blessing. Her face was wet. Nala was right about Goddess Lakshmi—a family’s wealth was not in its gold but in its children.

•

‘This is madness, Nala,’ Rajan spoke softly but angrily. ‘Please tell me you haven’t encouraged this?’

Nala couldn’t meet his eyes.

‘Kadaval saithe, Nala!’

She took a step back, alarmed. Rajan never said for God’s sake. His mother had raised him better than that.

‘We need to put a stop to this, right now.’ He paced the floor of his surgery, stopping intermittently to straighten piles of letters and patient reports.

‘Everything is straight,’ Nala whispered.

‘What?’

‘Everything in this office is straight already,’ she repeated more loudly and motioned to the perfectly ordered room around them.

‘This office—you, Rajan. Everything about you and around you is straight. But there is no straight answer or solution. There is only what Dhara wants right now.’ She watched him carefully, her face tight.

‘What about what Dhara wants in a month’s time or a year or a few years? When she asks for the baby back—think about Priya. How will she feel? She will have to give the baby back, but it will kill her. And the child, Nala—what about the child? This is wrong.’ Nala, Dhara, even his level-headed Priya had all gone mad. ‘It’s just wrong!’ He slammed his hands down on the desk.

Nala refused to be swayed. ‘What happened to Dhara was wrong. Think about the life Priya could give this child in Australia. That feels right, doesn’t it? Think about the love she could give this child that Dhara might not be able to. You know what Vani was like after—’

He cut her off. ‘Dhara is nothing like Vani—she’s stronger and she’ll have us, we can help her.’

‘She is stronger. And she’s devoted to something neither of us can fully understand, Rajan,’ Nala replied.

‘Are you suggesting that we support Dhara? That we allow her to abandon her child so she can join a group of idealists and ruffians in a doomed struggle?’ His voice cracked with incredulity. Nala’s resolve unnerved him. She had thought it through and had decided it was right. He couldn’t see how.