The emcee introduced the evening’s readers, read a brief bio about Kavita Grover. The pen name had become her real name, her real identity. Perhaps one that let her forget her tragic past. Deepa rose, approached the microphone, thanked the audience for coming. She shuffled the pages of the book, landed on one, flipped to another. She pushed her hair behind her ears. A slight tremor moved through her hand.

“This poem is from my book, Exodus. It’s called ‘Child.’”

Your searching soulful eyes are

beams of a lighthouse.

You don’t know enough to forgive,

wrestle with demons you never wrought,

carry a legacy, a burden that isn’t yours,

that flows through your blood.

Shan closed her eyes. Her head rested against the wall. Deepa’s voice inhabited a color, a texture, a rhythm that Shan hadn’t sensed when she’d read this poem silently to herself.

She read four more poems after “Child”—all new work from a new, soon to be published book. She stepped back from the microphone when she finished. The audience broke out into applause. She bowed ever so slightly. A smile appeared on her lips, her first of the evening.

The audience thinned out quickly afterward. Deepa clasped her hands, greeted stragglers who seemed to hang on her every word. They handed her pens so she could sign their copies of her book. Shan hung toward the back, placed her empty dish on the table, pretended to look at the paintings on the walls. When the last student departed, Deepa scanned the back of the room.

Her gaze fell on Shan. She squinted. A glint of recognition appeared on her face. She looked away, swiftly exited room.

Shan grabbed her bag, rushed out after her.

Night had fallen. The moon’s glow glistened across the pebbled sidewalk of the courtyard. Deepa’s silhouette perched at the edge of a stone bench. A gas lantern cast a light on her profile. She opened her purse, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out. Her body curled over it. She lit it with cupped hands, released three puffs of smoke. Her legs extended out from under her. She gazed out into the twilight.

Shan took a few steps, lowered herself to the far end of the bench, dropped her bag on the ground between her knees.

Deepa kept her face forward, took another drag on her cigarette. “You look exactly like him. Seeing your face is like seeing his ghost.” She tapped off the dangling ashes. “I’ve smoked for over fifty years. You’d think I would have died first.” She brought it to her mouth again, inhaled. A few cinders splintered off, the orange glow grew fainter.

Shan didn’t know what to say. She had not expected this flood of regret to suddenly pour out of her estranged grandmother. “I miss him too.”