He rolled onto his knees, stood. “The crowd began to swell. I tried to go around.” He walked the length of the patio, paused near the birdbath. His fingertips skimmed the surface of the water. “Someone started smashing bottles and hurling them through the air. One piece caught my face. Several people ran right over me trying to get away. No one stopped to help me up.”

She saw him in her mind—his body, curled on its side on the ground, his face, bloody, his arms and legs pinned by trampling feet, his mouth, open, crying out for help. The scene filled her with a rage she’d never known.

The light drained from him. His body slouched. A shame seemed to wash over him, as if he suddenly realized what happened was his fault. She wondered if that night had been a turning point for him, as Hari’s outburst was for her. If the moment before the violence he inhabited one world, and after another. This knowledge—that his mere existence inspired such hatred in others—seemed to have changed him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her words rang hollow. The same words had failed her father, too, who continued to wear his despair about Partition like a heavy overcoat, and they had failed her friend Faseelah. Surely, there were better words to express the agony of not being able to prevent or take away others’ pain. Despite Deepa’s “expansive” vocabulary (according to Madam Grover), she didn’t know what those words were. Because words were no longer enough.

“Where were you trying to go?” she asked tentatively. She did not want to press him, but the way he was looking at her made her think he wanted to tell her more.

Her question loosened something. His face became more relaxed. “I was coming here again,” he said. “I was delivering this.” He reached in his pocket, held his hand before her, opened his fingers. “I wanted to add to your collection.”

A swan. A long, curved neck, like the top of a question mark. Wings opened slightly, as if contemplating flight. A narrow, slight beak. She ran her fingertip from the top of its head, down the back of its neck, traced the four pleats of each wing.

“It’s lovely,” she said. “You risked your safety to bring this to me?”

His hand rose to her face. He touched her cheek, let his fingers linger on her skin. “It was worth it, to see your face light up like this.”

She held her breath, slightly swayed. She’d never found it so difficult to stand on her own two feet. When he finally removed his hand, she exhaled. But he remained close. His breath was slow and deep.

“Deepa?” Bala called from inside. “Come eat please.”

“I have to go,” she said.

“Can I keep leaving notes for you in the plant?”