“Mom!” He ran and crouched down beside Dr. Nataraj, who was sprawled on the floor near her desk. A purple scarf was unfurled beside her, like an afterthought. He was stroking her cheeks, smoothing the tangle of hair from her eyes. But just one look at the pallor of her face, and I knew. Her warm brown skin was tinged an ashen gray, the set of her limbs that of a corpse, not someone who was unconscious.

“No!” Arun wailed as he pulled her inert form to him, so that he was cradling her in his lap. “No, Mom!” He rocked her, grabbing her hand, rubbing her fingers, as if holding her could somehow bring her back.

His grief brought a knot to my throat. I kneeled beside him, clasping his shoulder. I went through the motions of searching for a pulse, and Arun raised a fist, as if to punch me, or hit my hand away. I shook my head, confirming what we both already knew. Sorrow and rage washed over me, and suddenly I was thirteen again, alone, helpless, holding my slack mother in my own arms. I didn’t want comfort then either. I wanted to beat the world to a pulp.

Not Dr. Nataraj, too. Not our auntie.

“But how?” he roared, my gentle friend who never raised his voice. “Why?” He grabbed a cushion from a nearby chair and placed it under her head. Arun then lunged to his feet and cast his eyes wildly around the room.

Dr. Nataraj’s neat desk was in disarray, with the top drawer pulled out. Two empty plastic tubes were discarded on the desk and another had fallen to the floor. Arun stumbled to the desk and picked one up. “Epinephrine. These were her injections in case she suffered an allergic reaction.” He shook the empty syringe. “She’s allergic to peanuts—but was vigilant.”

“We should call an ambulance,” I said.

On the wall behind us, the screen was on, but I wasn’t paying attention to the murmur of voices on whatever program it was tuned in to.

“No,” Arun replied. He picked up one of the empty syringes, tapping it against his palm. He lifted the syringe and held it to the fluorescent light above us, shifting it this way and that, then repeated this with the other two. Arun brought his fist down hard on the desk, his pupils constricted to sharp points. “All three syringes’ liquids are tinged brown. Epinephrine is clear.”

What he said took a moment to sink in.

“Shit,” I said.

“It means they’ve expired,” Arun said, “but the dates on them are current. She was so careful. There’s no way she would have let one syringe expire, much less all three. Her life depended on it.”