“Deepa, one of our new patients is having very high blood pressure this pregnancy. The baby will be born in a few weeks, but it will be a difficult birth. If I don’t stay to help, I don’t know what will happen.” Her lips quivered. “We’ll will miss you, terribly. But it’s for the best. Please, try to understand, Deepa.”

Heat rose from Deepa’s chest. They could not do this. They could not send her away and stay here without her with no one to protect them. Not when the violence had begun encircling their clinic like a kettle of vultures over a corpse.

She released her mother’s hands. When she kissed her cheek, her lips met a tear rolling down her mother’s face. Her mother seemed so small in that moment, helpless. Deepa had never seen her like this before.

“I’ll just go finish my school work now, Mummy-ji.”

In her bedroom, Deepa threw open the top drawer, grabbed the money from Madam Grover and the poem she’d written in class that day. She draped a dupatta over her shoulders, pushed her hair behind her ears.

“Deepa,” her mother called from her bedroom. “I’ll be there in a few minutes to help you pack your trunk.”

In the kitchen, a pot of rice bubbled on the burner. Rows of okra lined up in the pan. Bala hummed. Her knife pounded the cutting board. Deepa turned away, slipped on a pair of chappals, entered the patio.

Darkness cloaked the skies. A faint glow from a candle across the way served as the only light. She folded her poem in half, slid the money inside. She then parted the money plant’s leaves and laid the money and poem on the damp soil. She hoped Amir would come by later that night and find them both.

She then faced the wall, braced her hands on the top edge and heaved herself over. She would find Papa-ji and convince him not to send her away. It was the only way. Her soles slapped the dirt ground. Her eyes blinked in the darkness. She gathered her hair, shoved it inside the collar of her kameez, tied the dupatta under her neck.

She began sprinting in the direction of the clinic.

When she turned the corner, her chappal slid halfway down her foot. She tripped, careened forward. Her knees collided with the ground, skidded across sharp pebbles. Blood seeped through her thin cotton pants. Her palms burned. She pushed up to standing, hobbled a few steps, took off again.