“Fine. I’ll let your mother help you. I think she knows exactly how to handle this.” He threw Ma a glance that summed up all the understanding in their marriage. “But make sure you do what it takes to win her back.” With that HRH dropped a kiss on Vansh’s head; squeezed Aji and Esha in a hug; gave his wife a full, on-the-mouth kiss that made them all groan; and then left.

Aji and Esha went into their rooms to rest. It had been a long day. Nisha left to go back to work. They all offered to call Naina and apologize, but Vansh told them they were jumping the gun.

Finally, he followed his mother to the kitchen.

“You said she doesn’t want a relationship. Do you have any idea why?” Ma asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Vansh said.

For a while Ma was silent, then she looked at Vansh, an odd flatness in her eyes. “You know, I knew she and Yash didn’t have feelings for each other. That should have bothered me more, but I thought I saw something familiar in her. The way she was around Yash reminded me of when I first met Shree. Did you know I felt nothing for him?”

Vansh took his mother’s hand. He had some idea about his mother’s turbulent relationship with her own father, who’d forced her into being a child actor and then a Bollywood star. Vansh had picked up pieces from conversations, but this was the first time Ma was talking to him about it.

“It wasn’t just Shree. I just felt nothing in general. It was the only way for me to survive my childhood. I was completely dissociated from my feelings. That’s what the therapists called it later. It was good to find a word for it. I don’t think Shree felt much more than sympathy for me either when we first met. He says it was love, but it was really his hero complex. He wanted to save me because what had happened to me was wrong and he felt violated by my violation. But then he did fall in love with me.

“I didn’t feel anything in return for a long time. I had to feel things for me first. I had to fall in love with me first. Being the smart man he is, Shree realized that. For the first years of our marriage he gave me as much space as I needed to find things about myself I liked. My singing voice. My need to run. My love for decorating our home.