Chapters (40)
- Cover
- Also by Saumya Dave
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Acknowledgments
- Readers Guide
- Discussion Questions
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“Since I’ve stepped back and gotten closer to retiring, I’ve been missing work even more than I thought I would. This is the best field. And the one everyone needs exposure to,” Deepak says. Even though his words are sincere, none of them knows the reason he picked psychiatry in the first place.
“Well, Anita always said you’re the most pensive man she knows,” Jiten says. “It makes sense that you enjoy thinking about people all day.”
Deepak laughs. Bina and the kids always tell him he’s lost in his own thoughts, unaware of what’s going on in the world. But he notices a lot. He sees Suhani falling asleep while Zack tries to talk to her. He sees Natasha running to her room when she hears him and Bina downstairs. He sees Anuj keeping everything inside, for the sake of peace.
He wants to tell them it will all be okay eventually. They’ve been through much worse than this. But he knows they aren’t ready to listen. Families break when everyone argues to win, not understand. So that’s what he’ll do.
He’ll help them understand.
Five
Natasha
Ican’t believe you’ve been working on this for months behind all our backs,” Anuj says. He stretches and leans back in Natasha’s black leather chair until his toes rest on her desk. He used to sit in her room like this all the time, alternating between doing calculus problems and talking to Natasha while she was busy thinking of more ways to procrastinate on her homework. Unlike Suhani, who always nagged Natasha—“if you’d try even a little, you could get better grades”—Anuj left her alone.
“I’ve had to,” Natasha says. “And I can’t believe it’s actually happening in a few hours. I have to kick ass.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” Anuj gives the same lackadaisical smile he’s had since he was a toddler. He never seems to have a worry in the world. Must be nice. “And, hey, if you change your mind about telling anyone, you can always send them to your YouTube channel!”
“Do not send that to anyone!” Natasha commands. Anuj is going to record her tonight so she finally has something to put on her still-nonexistent YouTube comedy channel. But nobody can see it.
“It’s weird enough that I have to talk in public about how I lost my job. The last thing I need is for Mom or Dad or Suhani to be reminded of that,” she says. “And anyway, if I make it to the next round, I have a chance to get a secure spot to perform every month at the comedy club. And maybe after that, maybe, we can tell them. I mean, a routine spot and Alexis’s class should put me in a pretty good place.”