Deepak soaks in her words. Once, when the kids were little, she told him she couldn’t even use the bathroom alone. Every second, someone needed something from her.

“I never saw it that way,” Deepak says. “I’m sorry.”

People sometimes assume men don’t have strong emotions, but that’s not true. Deepak has plenty of them. He has plenty of regrets, too. He saw his wife every single day and still didn’t know what she was carrying inside. He didn’t say the things he should have said to her. He forgot that appreciation is a vaccine for resentment. Now, as he digs under the layers of Bina’s emotional debris, under her irritation and sadness and anger, he uncovers her fear that she as an individual no longer matters.

But he can fix this. He can be there for her in the ways she needs him to be. And he has to find a way to make sure things are better for others, too.

“It’s fine,” Bina says. “Actually, Chats Over Chai has helped me move past some of this.”

An idea materializes in his mind as he processes her words. He lingers on it for a few seconds and makes a quick note in his phone before he forgets.

“I know it has. And it has helped so many others.” Deepak puts his phone away and faces Bina. “You really have built something so powerful.”

“Eh, I don’t know about that,” she says.

“I do,” Deepak says.

She doesn’t go on her drives anymore. Instead, their evenings are spent together. Sometimes they sit side by side as she watches something on Netflix and he reads on his iPad. Other times, they lose themselves in the latest Bollywood film.

“Yes, well, at least if Samachar in America shuts us down, I learned some things from it,” Bina says.

“We’re not going to let that happen.” Deepak wraps his arms around her as if to seal the promise.

Twenty-Nine

Natasha

Families take on personalities of their own. And here our goal is to look at your family as a system, where each member is shaped by the others.” Dr. Eze keeps her tone firm and clinical as she continues to give an explanation of family therapy and what they should all expect from their first session.

Sweat pools under Natasha’s arms. Even though everything Dr. Eze says is clear, she still can’t believe she’s sitting here. It takes all her self-control to not bite her nails or, better yet, run out the door.