Miss Trudy taught him how to make dough rise for bread, how to sew on a button, how to draw a dragon, kick a football. She took him on his first Ferris wheel ride, bought him a pink tuft of cotton candy. She tended to his skinned knees, comforted him when his classmates called him a half-caste bastard.

Miss Trudy let him be weak, so that when his mother picked him up in the evenings, he could pretend to be strong.

When he first asked Miss Trudy if she knew anything about his father, she fumbled with the seam on her skirt, encouraged him to ask his mother. But over the next few weeks, he wore her down. She finally said his mother loved his father, that Partition separated them. When Vijay asked for his name, she claimed she didn’t know it.

Vijay never believed her.

Still, he’d at least gotten somewhere. Ma had insisted his whole life he never had a father, scolded him for even asking. He couldn’t understand why Ma wouldn’t tell him this. If his father had loved her, maybe his father would also love him. And he wouldn’t know unless they tried to find him.

Ma wrapped her hand around the doorknob. Her breath slowed. Her eyes flitted between him and Miss Trudy. Her face wore an expression of betrayal, reflected a sudden understanding about the special closeness her son shared with his babysitter, instead of his own mother.

“Vijay, get your coat,” Ma said softly. “We’re leaving right now.”

“Deepa, please,” Miss Trudy said. “Let’s step out in the hall and talk this through.”

“I trusted you, Trudy. You were my friend.”

“I’m still your friend, Deepa!”

Ma rushed toward him, grabbed his hand, yanked him through the doorway, down the stairwell to the building’s foyer. Miss Trudy tore down the steps behind them, one hand grazing the banister, the other hiking up her skirt. “Wait, Deepa. Please. Please, hear me out. I’m sorry. I told him what I did out of love. I thought he should know the truth.”

Ma’s fingers dug into his wrist. “Trudy, I’m trying to protect him from the truth.”

“What truth is that?”

“That his father didn’t want me!”

“Deepa, you don’t know that!”

Their voices echoed in the foyer, ricocheted off the windows. A first-floor doorknob rattled. An old, bald man stuck his head out, narrowed his eyes, slammed the door shut.

Miss Trudy took his mother’s hand. “It’s not too late to try to find him, Deepa. He could still be out there, looking for you. If he knew he had a son—”