“I don’t know what transpired between you and your grandmother, or why you two are estranged,” Gertrude said. “But if she’s still alive, you need to do what you can to reach out to her. Before you know it, you’ll be as old as I am, shut up in a nursing home somewhere, your life dependent on the call button next to your hospital bed.”

A voice emerged in the background, urging Gertrude off the phone. “Shan, we’ll need to continue this another time. I’m being told I’m tired, even though I’m not, that I need to get some rest, even though I don’t.”

“Wait, Gertrude, one last thing. If you lost touch with Deepa, how did you know about her book? How did you know she was Kavita Grover?”

“I didn’t, initially,” Gertrude said. “I found the copy of the book waiting outside my door the year it was published. It was wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine. There was no return address, no other identifying marks. It wasn’t until … oh, here it is, on the third page. It wasn’t until I read the dedication that I knew, with certainty, that Deepa had written it.

The voice in the background grew more persistent. “I’ve got to be going now, Shan. Good luck on finding Deepa, and please, keep in touch.”

The line went dead.

Shan set the phone down, opened the cover of the book. She flipped past the copyright page, a blank page, to the dedication, to another name she’d never heard of before but one she seemed to know, intimately, as soon as she read it.

For Amir Rahim.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Atlanta

April 15, 2017

Shan sliced through the packaging tape of the large cardboard box with an X-Acto knife, winged the flaps open, removed a layer of sweaters, sweatshirts, a few scarves she’d never worn in winters never cold enough. She lifted out picture frames shrouded in bubble wrap, set them on the coffee table of her new, temporary abode, a small, one-bedroom apartment a few miles from her former marital home.

She stood, stretched her legs, walked over to the desk. In a single relocation, she’d downsized decades of her life, reverted to the postcollegiate living quarters of a cramped apartment, minimal furniture.

Before her laptop, she considered, briefly, following up on the twenty or so resumes she submitted to potential employers, all law firms of various sizes and specialties.

The truth was she didn’t actually miss practicing law.

She needed an income eventually. She and Max had amicably worked out the division of their property. She would keep all of the money in the investment account, all of her retirement (an amount far more substantial than his), her share of the proceeds from the sale of her home.

The money gave her wiggle room.