Sachin’s phone rang and he left the room to answer what was, no doubt, the daily call from the girlfriend he was trying to downplay. Smita had already gone to rummage through Jaya’s wardrobe. Dev took a cutting board and knife from the drainboard and motioned for Jaya to pass him some of the green beans she was dicing into small pieces. “I’m not completely useless, you know. I can do menial labor.” He smiled at her. “So, are you really going to do it?”

“Do what?” Jaya dropped a handful of bean trimmings into the compost bin.

“Start dating again.” Dev eyed her. “Smita will have you up and running by tonight if you agree. Actually,” he said, wobbling his head, “she’s not really one to ask permission, so maybe even if you don’t.”

Jaya didn’t take her eyes from her cutting board, watching the wide cleaver cut precisely through a dozen beans at once. “I don’t know, Dev . . .”

“Well, I think you should, for what it’s worth,” he said. “It’s been years since Keith, and you’re all alone now that Karina’s gone.” He raised a palm in proactive defense. “I know, I know, you’re not alone; you have a very full life and spend time with lots of people.”

But Jaya hadn’t been about to say those things this time. She enjoyed how full and happy her home had been this week, and she found she could carry on her daily prayers, her service work, her life, without feeling conflicted as she used to. Perhaps it was that she’d become more practiced at her spiritual work, more centered and less prone to distraction than she had in the beginning. Whatever the reason, she enjoyed cooking meals for them, and looked forward to spending evenings and mornings together.

“Don’t you miss the companionship?” Dev said, looking over his shoulder for the kids before lowering his voice. “Or at least the sex?”

Jaya smiled and lobbed a green bean at him in jest. He caught it and popped it into his mouth. She did miss the companionship. And the sex. For years, she hadn’t. She had been so shrouded in her own grief that she felt disconnected from her physical body. Then, when she had discovered the Guru, she convinced herself that the feminine, sexual part of her had served its purpose—mating, reproduction—and now she’d moved on to another phase of life, intended for higher order concerns.

“. . . just want you to be happy,” Dev was saying now.

“I’m fifty, Dev,” Jaya said.

“Exactly. You can find a nice, mature gentleman who already has an established career, who’s comfortable with himself. You don’t have to go through any of that tedious child-raising, career-building stuff. You two can just have fun together, travel, enjoy life.”

“I told you guys, leave the profile description to me. You old farts are hopeless at romance,” Smita interjected as she returned to the room, carrying two dresses with plunging necklines. Jaya recognized the black one from her last romantic getaway to San Francisco with Keith, Before. She hadn’t even realized it was still in the back of her closet; the woman who’d worn it seemed so far away, but perhaps not entirely forgotten.