Deepa turned away, could hardly look at this disheveled version of a man she loved like a father. He moved about as if stumbling through a fog, responded in clipped, unfinished sentences, if at all. He was no longer the doctor who mended, who healed, who reassured. He, who had once talked so bravely, so confidently about Independence, had left her parents behind to their violent fates.

“We spoke with a lawyer,” Nora continued. “About what happened to your parents.”

Deepa cocooned herself tighter in the crook of the sofa. Despite the heat, she chilled. Her hands and feet were frozen like blocks of ice. She massaged the ball of her foot.

“John and I have decided to move to London permanently.” She leaned toward Deepa, laid her hand on her back. “We want you to come live with us.”

Deepa turned sharply. “What?”

Nora took hold of her hand, squeezed. “We’d like you to move to London with us. We’re your legal guardians and we’d like to care for you there.”

Deepa pulled away. She had a husband. She had to wait for Amir, to be here for his return. She didn’t have his new address in Lahore. She had no way of communicating with him. If she didn’t stay, he would never find her. “I live here,” she finally said. “This is my home. India is our home. I can’t go to London.”

“Deepa, darling,” Nora said. “You can’t stay here alone.”

John blinked, as if he’d just noticed there were other people in the room. He pulled out a chair, sat down at the table. He eyed the steel pitcher, dragged it toward him. Water sloshed over its sides. He poured some in a cup. His gulps resounded in the room. “She’s right,” he muttered.

Deepa uncurled her limbs, scooted off the sofa. Surely a man born and raised in India would never leave the only country he knew and loved. Surely he meant Deepa was right, not Nora.

“Uncle,” she said. “You understand why I can’t go to London, don’t you?”

He grunted, gazed over at a family photo hanging on the wall, one of Deepa’s favorites. Her parents sat in high-back chairs with wide arms like thrones. Two-year-old Deepa was propped on her Papa-ji’s lap. Her hands were mid-clap, her smile wide. Mummy-ji and Papa-ji’s mouths were tight lines, their backs stiff straight. Deepa used to tease them about the photo, about their serious faces. “You can’t smile in photographs, beta,” Mummy-ji said. “You’ll attract the evil eye.”

Her mother had believed in such things, that one could take certain actions to protect oneself from outside forces. In this, her mother had been foolish.