She told Smrithi what happened the day she was born. She thought of it often, and when she spoke, Nala was simply replaying a memory a little louder, so that everyone could hear what she heard in her mind every day.

Dhara sat on a hospital bed, holding her baby daughter in her arms. She lightly traced the lines of her face, her rib cage, the curve of her bottom and the angles of her joints.

‘She’s perfect,’ she said softly.

‘Yes, mahal, she is.’ Nala tried not to cry.

•

‘Ammamma, what are you saying? I don’t understand.’ Smrithi looked at her grandmother. Nala was lost inside herself.

‘Appa …’ she asked, turning to her father. He was always rational. He looked at her with tears in his eyes.

Priya cleared her throat. ‘You were—you are Dhara’s, mahal. Not mine.’

She heard a whimper escape her father’s throat, but she did not take her eyes from her mother.

‘After Dhara was … attacked, you were born. She loved you so much, Smrithi, and she wanted to do what she thought was right for you.’

‘Right for me?’ Smrithi whispered. They were all staring at her. They had gone mad.

‘Yes, mahal. Right for you—’

‘How is this right for me? I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ Smrithi replied. She was confused and yet she understood what they were saying.

‘You are Dhara’s,’ her mother repeated.

‘Why? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Smrithi asked. ‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ she shouted.

There were other questions later, many angry ones: How could you lie to me? How could all of you lie to me for so long? But all of these questions were incidental to the main one.

‘Why?’ she screamed at her mother again. Her mother, who wasn’t her mother.

‘Why?’ she screamed at her father, who wasn’t her father.

Priya tried to explain. ‘I begged Dhara—I pleaded for permission, and I was terrified I would receive it.’

‘Why didn’t you disobey her?’ she cried. ‘You owed me more honesty than you owed her loyalty.’

‘No,’ her mother replied simply. ‘I owed her everything. I owed her you. She was my sister.’

‘And I am your daughter,’ she screamed again—except she wasn’t her daughter. She was Dhara’s daughter, and Dhara hadn’t wanted her.

•

Sometimes the tears were silent, sitting quietly, coldly on her face. Sometimes wracking sobs tore out of her chest.

Why—why hadn’t Dhara wanted her?

She placed her hand on her abdomen. There was a black mass inside she wanted to expunge. She had been told a terrible story about a young woman and unknown men. The memory ticked like a metronome, it was all she could hear. She couldn’t escape it. Revulsion shuddered through her. She ran to the bathroom and gripped the sides of the toilet, retching into it. She watched a frothy liquid settle on the surface.