John picked at the skin on his lower lip. “You can’t stay here, Deepa,” he finally said. When he poured another cup, water spilled over the edge, pooled onto the table. He filled the cup to the brim again, guzzled, as if trying to drown himself. “None of us can.”

She wrapped her arms around his legs, laid her head in his lap, just as she used to when she was a young child, begging him for more candy. If John and Nora had loved her as they claimed, if they wanted her to be a part of their family, they would not drag her away from her home. This was the only place she knew her parents, the place that rooted her to this life. “We have to live here. Please, we can’t leave Delhi, Uncle,” she sobbed.

Earlier that morning, she had crawled into Mummy-ji and Papa-ji’s bed. It was the first time she had entered their bedroom since their deaths. Her mother’s rosewater perfume and her father’s musky aftershave lingered on the sheets. Strands of Mummy-ji’s hair wove through the teeth of her comb. Deepa laid in the dip where the mattress had molded to their conjoined weight.

This house was all that was left of them, the couch where her father perused medical books, the kit that held Mummy-ji’s needles and thread, the mirror where she had applied her kohl, the plants Deepa cared for. None of the items had monetary value, but their emotional value to her was incalculable. They told the story of her family, bonded to her memories like glue. If the items were packed away or sold, her memoires would dislodge, float away, like her parents’ ashes in the Ganges River.

Nora tugged her gently at the elbow. “Deepa,” she said. “Please hear us out.”

She shook her head. “No. I can’t leave. I’m staying here.”

“I’m so sorry,” John said. His face contorted, as if he knew his apology made no sense, was uttered at the wrong time during the course of the conversation. “We should have brought all of you to Bangalore with us. It’s our fault we didn’t.”

They were all to blame. If she had taken Amir’s warning at the market more seriously, if India had stayed unified, if, if, a million and one ifs. Perhaps if Deepa could relieve John of the whole burden of their deaths, he’d let her stay.

“Uncle,” Deepa said. “Mummy-ji and Papa-ji could have left with you. They chose not to.”