Deepa gasped sharply and gripped her mother’s arm tighter.

Her father stepped within inches of Hari’s face.

“Hari, I don’t want to see you or your band of RSS ingrates here again, do you understand me?” he said. “I know it was you who threw that bag of shit against our doorstep last week. It would break your father’s heart if he heard you speak so horribly about our Muslim and Eurasian friends. Next time, I’ll call the constable. Get out and don’t ever return!”

Hari’s eyes widened, his jaw tightened. He didn’t budge. His fingers formed into fists.

Deepa bolted up from the chair. “Hari, what are you doing? Hari, bhai, look at me. Look at me!”

The sound of Hari’s panting filled the room. He slowly turned to face her, blinked several times. His fingers gradually unclenched. For a moment, it was as if he suddenly remembered who she was, who he was from the old days. But then he closed his eyes. A grimace returned to his face. “This is a house of whores!” he spat as he ran out the door.

Papa-ji exhaled, shook his head. He carefully set the bat down.

“Beta, that was very brave of you,” Mama-ji said. “Are you okay?”

Deepa nodded, even as her heart continued to race through her chest. She didn’t know what had come over her. But in her mind, she had pictured Hari striking her father to the ground. She had to do something to stop it.

The truth was more complicated, though. Deepa had pretended all this time that the violence was elsewhere, that she and her family were safe. But it had now broken through her small sheltered world. She had witnessed the evil firsthand, and how it blossomed in someone who was once dear to her.

“What has become of our Hari?” her mother said. She made her way to a stool, sat on the edge, massaged her knuckes in her lap. “I remember delivering that boy as if it was yesterday. He was breech, remember, Nora?”

Nora nodded slowly. She couldn’t seem to find her words.

“I couldn’t turn him,” her mother continued. “Sheila had been pushing for half a day. Within seconds of Hari’s arrival, she took her last breath.” She paused. “I don’t think Hari has ever forgiven us. Is this why he harbors so much hate?” Sheila’s death continued to haunt Deepa’s mother. She had wondered, many years later, whether she was really cut out for midwifrey after all.

“You’re not responsible for Hari’s radicalism, Kavita,” said John. “Besides, after Partition, many of these swayamsevaks will settle down. They’ll go back to being boys playing cricket in the streets again.”

Papa-ji wiped his face with his handkerchief. “I don’t know, John. I worry they’ll only get more extreme.”