Keith felt hot shame at the mention of his fate in the same breath as those offenses. He hadn’t thought about how he would explain the asset transfer to Jaya, whether he could bring himself to admit to her his questionable behavior. His criminal behavior. She had always thought him too ambitious and driven by money, and now she’d be proven right. And yet, he wished he could talk to the woman he remembered, who was smart, thoughtful, grounded. He missed having her insight and perspective in his life. But that woman was gone, and Jaya now seemed, at best, indifferent to him.

Keith couldn’t even imagine telling Karina about this. She didn’t have to know anything yet, and hopefully never would. The last time he’d seen her over winter break, she’d seemed happier than ever. She was bubbly and full of stories about the classes she’d finished, the community garden she shared with her friends, new recipes she had been trying out. He missed hearing from her as often now, but other parents had told him to expect this; it was all part of the normal development process, a sign that she was truly ready for life on her own.

* * *

Jaya sat across the table from Christophe, who had arrived only three weeks earlier from his native Ivory Coast. “Any work, I will do any work,” he was saying earnestly. Christophe was thirty-eight and trained as a physician in Africa. But with three children and a wife to support, the modest savings with which he’d immigrated were quickly being depleted. He had applied to drive a taxi with every company in the Bay Area. Christophe was wearing a suit and tie, as he always did, though Jaya had told him he could dress casually for their meetings.

“Your first job is always the hardest to get,” Jaya said, as she’d told many other new immigrants at the Refugee and Immigrant Support Center, where she volunteered. After returning from India, with her mother’s reproach in mind, Jaya had decided to get involved in some new pursuits. Seva, service to others, was one of the pillars of the Guru’s mission, to strengthen communities by supporting the most vulnerable members of society. Alongside other devotees, she tried working at a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter. It was uncomfortable interacting with strangers and making small talk after living in a world of her own making for so long. But then Jaya heard about RISC on the radio and sought it out on her own. She’d felt an immediate connection the first time she came here, and she became a regular volunteer.

“Missus, where are you from?” Christophe said, finally comfortable enough at this visit to ask her a personal question. “You are not from here, a . . . native American?”

Jaya smiled and did not correct his use of the term. “No, I’m a naturalized citizen, originally from India.” After years of struggling with this question, she had decided that the definition of who she was and where she belonged was far broader than any one nationality. Jaya’s true home was her inner consciousness that traveled with her everywhere. It was inside herself that she either felt at home or out of place. At first, she’d found this an unsettling thought, that her inner demons would follow her everywhere; but gradually, she came to find comfort in the idea. If she invested the time and energy to follow the Guru’s teachings and progress along the path toward a higher consciousness, it was something she would always have, that could never be taken from her. Her essential humanity was untethered to geography, place, even to people. In this way, she had made some peace with being so far from her parents and Dev’s family, and even took strength in knowing her lattice of support was as expansive as the earth.