When she sends the message, she’s surprised that instead of anger, she feels a surge of stillness. She always thought avoidance would eventually give her a sense of closure. But all along, she needed to face what they went through and give herself the space to heal.

Her pager emits the loud beep, beep, beep of an urgent message.

Doctor, Natasha is awake and asking for you. Shelly

Suhani goes back to the ward, ready to see her sister.

Twenty-Four

Bina

Ishould have canceled the meeting today.”

“No way!” Devi yells through the phone. “Everyone’s there. And you can’t let all of the work Deepak, Suhani, and Anuj did go to waste!”

“They did do a lot of work,” Bina agrees as she opens the Chats Over Chai Instagram page Anuj set up. She already has more than one thousand followers. Over the past weeks, Deepak and Suhani have been teaching her about group therapy and helped her make an agenda for the meetings so they’re more structured.

“Exactly,” Devi says. “Plus, you can’t visit Natasha for another few hours, anyway.”

Bina breathes a sigh of relief at hearing Devi’s voice. She had offered to take the next flight from Los Angeles when she heard Natasha was admitted to the psych ward. But Bina insisted there was no need. When she told Devi about today’s Chats Over Chai meeting, Devi said she’d be there on FaceTime.

“She must be so scared, all alone in that place.” Bina shakes her head. “I hate that they only allow visitors once a day there. Even Deepak and Suhani told me that was better for her but it doesn’t feel right.”

“I know it’s hard not to worry. But she’ll be okay. The girl is tough, like her mother,” Devi says with a wink. Devi can get away with things like winks and curse words in ways other people can’t. She looks the same as always in a bright-yellow dress and black biker jacket with gold trim. Her hair has streaks of dark red from her routine henna-dying treatments.

“Well, according to this, her mother is leading a cult.” Bina picks up this morning’s edition of Samachar in America. “Bipin strikes again! How am I even supposed to face these women after this?”

Ma was right all along when she said a reputation is like glass, transparent and easily shattered. Maybe Bina never should have done this.

She waits for Devi to tell her that she understands how humiliating this must be and not to worry, everyone will get over it and move on.

But Devi crosses her arms and stares at Bina like a disappointed teacher. Two frown lines are between her eyebrows. “Bina, you’re kidding me, right?”

She doesn’t have a trace of the Indian accent that coated her monologues when she and Bina used to perform together.

“Excuse me?” Bina asks.