The circumstances of his sister’s death had weighed on Harjeet with each of Simran’s birthdays, each anniversary of her death, each anniversary of India’s Independence, each memory of his bhenji that gradually faded over the years. Harjeet’s guilt and grief had been one in the same, entwined so intimately he couldn’t tell where one emotion ended and the other began. When Chandani finally got pregnant, after years of trying, he prayed for a daughter to name after his sister. A part of him felt Simran’s loss all over again when Kush was born. He loved his son but wanted so desperately to see his sister again, to see any semblance of her in a daughter.

“I should not have stayed away,” Harjeet said. “It was selfish of me to act as if I was the only one in pain, as if only I had suffered. Please forgive me, Papa-ji.”

His father slowly shook his head. “You are wrong. I am the one who needs your forgiveness. I am the one responsible for Simran’s death. No one else.”

“You couldn’t stop the raid, Papa-ji.”

“That’s not how your sister died,” he whispered.

“Of course it was.”

His father fell silent. He shut his eyes. “I woke in the night to chaos, Harjeet. I told Lacchman and Simran to stay put while I found out what was happening. You were still sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you—you’d only be frightened. Outside several Sikh men huddled together, frantically exchanging information. Invaders had started setting fire to the tents on the other side of the camp. They were slaying people, taking the women and girls.”

“We didn’t have enough weapons to fight,” Papa-ji continued. “One of the elder Sikhs suggested we martyr our women and girls while we still could. He called for them to be brought out of the tents, to kneel in a straight line, for each of the men to take a turn with the sword. I couldn’t bear the thought! But Simran ran to us with the other women. She hugged me and said she was ready to go be with God. I told her to run. She refused! She knelt down with the others. Then came my turn with the sword.”

Harjeet felt sick. He could hardly breathe. He had heard stories like this one, some of the darkest chapters of Partition, where husbands, brothers, and fathers killed their own wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters, for fear they’d be kidnapped, raped, and converted.

He never imagined this was his own family’s story too.

“Simran was so brave, Harjeet!” His father’s voice livened. “Lacchman saw with his own eyes how courageous she was. She did not cry. She was not afraid. She put her hands together and began praying. With one slash of the sword, your bhenji was with God!”