The room spun. Harjeet stood, stumbled toward the window. He tried to push away the image seizing his mind, the sharp blade of the sword slicing through his sister.

He covered his face with his hands. “No … no … Papa-ji, we could have hid Simran somewhere!”

“She was right to do what she did, to become a martyr instead. She died a righteous Sikh woman!”

A rage filled Harjeet. “How could you let that happen? How could you not protect her?”

His father’s eyes went wide, and when they did, Harjeet could see death gazing back at him, his mother’s death, his sister’s, Lacchman’s, and now his father’s own imminent end. Papa-ji had been a fool, a fool who believed there was a difference between martyrdom and murder, a fool who believed that fate demanded such brutality from a father’s own hands.

Harjeet released him. Without another word, he backed out of the room, down the hallway. When he reached the bathroom, he splashed water over his face and sunk to the floor.

It wasn’t his father’s confession that sickened him so. It was Harjeet’s realization that even when he was a little boy, he knew, deep down, that there was more to the story of what happened to Simran. It was one of the reasons he moved to the United States, to the opposite side of the earth. And by doing so, he’d become complicit in the lie too.

Harjeet pulled himself up, exited the bathroom. The nurse greeted him in the living room. She wore a stethoscope around her neck, was holding a blood pressure cuff. “Sahib, are you feeling ill? Will you be joining your father for his tea?”

He glanced one last time around the main room, a place where he once sat on Papa-ji’s lap, took sips from his chai, listened to his stories about their Simran, their former lives in Rawalpindi. The stories of their happy life covered up a horrific truth.

“No,” he finally said. “Please tell my father I said goodbye. I’ll be on the next flight out.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Atlanta

Later, April 15, 2017

It was the first really warm day of spring. The oval table sat in the shade of an oak tree. The breeze ruffled the buds of tulips not quite fully opened. Chandani removed her sunglasses, let the sunshine wash over her.

Something was on Shan’s mind. She could barely look Chandani in the eye, shifted several times in her seat. She stared at the menu in deep concentration, hummed.

“So many great choices,” Shan said. “It’s going to be hard to decide what to get.”

“I’m in no rush,” Chandani said. “Take your time.”