The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

CHAPTER 1

If her mother had been surprised at all to see Amina come home from the airport, she had not let on, frowning briefly at Monica’s car idling in the driveway before walking straight back to the kitchen, opening the fridge, and pulling out the dosa batter and potato masala for lunch.

“So you’re staying?” Kamala ladled white batter into a flat pan, slowly circling it into a thinner and thinner round.

“Yes, for a little while.” Amina sat at the kitchen counter, starving, her bag at her feet. “A few weeks, at least. I just talked to Monica, and she said—”

“Then I will get some beef and some chicken.” Kamala straightened her braid with a sharp tug.

“What?”

“You need to eat, don’t you?”

“Yes. Right.” Amina sipped at her water, as though it could satisfy her roiling gut. The hunger was making it hard to think.

“And then you can photograph the Bukowskys’ wedding, too,” Kamala said.

“What?”

“Julie’s daughter! I told you about it! The wedding this weekend?”

Amina looked at her mother blankly.

“Jenny Bukowsky is one of the nurses in the OR. Her wedding is Saturday and we have to go anyway. You can take some pictures. We’ll buy them for them as a present.” In one smooth move, Kamala flipped the thin pancake onto a plate, adding a fist-sized clump of potatoes in its center and folding it in half. She handed it to Amina. “Coconut or tomato chutney?”

“Yes, please.”

Kamala spooned a generous amount of both onto her plate before turning back to the stove. As she placed the ladle back in the batter, she said, “I canceled the dinner with Anyan. Eat.”

The pancake cracked under Amina’s fingers with a burst of steam that smelled of turmeric and chilies, filling her with relief so sharp that it erased everything but itself. She ate one dosa and then another, dimly aware of her mother spooning more chutney onto her plate and refilling her glass with water. Finally, in the middle of the third, she sat back to breathe, mouth tingling. She knew she should tell Kamala about Monica, the car, the conversation, and instead found herself saying, “Ask him if Wednesday works.”

Her mother took a quick glimpse over her shoulder. “What?”

“For dinner. Dr. George.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Amina felt momentarily guilty at the pleasure that fanned out over her mother’s face. “This is really delicious, by the way.”

“I’ll make you one more.”

“No! Jesus. You’re going to get me fat if you keep feeding me like this.”

“No Jesus,” Kamala scolded lightly. She lifted the pan from the stove and placed it in the sink, turning the water on so it hissed as it cooled. One by one, she replaced the chutneys in the fridge door and turned around. She walked over to Amina, hugging her so briefly and furiously that she was five steps out of the kitchen before Amina thought to hug her back.

Half the village of Corrales and most of the OR staff of Presbyterian Hospital turned out for the Bukowsky wedding the following Saturday night. Just-shined cowboy boots escorted broom-skirted ankles first across the horse-patty-strewn parking field, then to the dance floor, a patch of dirt stamped level in the middle of some cottonwoods. Up on a nearby trailer bed, the Lazy Susannahs played bluegrass at top volume under a ring of Christmas lights, while dogs and small children hurtled through folding chairs and Johan Bukowsky clutched his shirt.

“I’m all right!” he proclaimed loudly at several intervals, drawing hoots of appreciation from the crowd. “It had to happen sometime, right? I just didn’t think so soon.”

This got a good laugh from everyone as his daughter’s seven-year engagement had been made much of during the ceremony, and Jenny herself ducked a shaking head into the groom’s neck. Amina stepped lightly onto the dance floor, snapping a photo and then receding as the hired photographer popped into her frame.

“Did you get it?” Kamala asked anxiously from behind her. “Do you need to get another?”

“Nope.” Amina turned the lens on her parents, who were looking particularly dashing and out of place in their best silks, like Bollywood actors who had wandered mistakenly onto the set of a western.

“Not us!” Kamala dabbed her upper lip with the tip of her sari. “You need to get the bride and groom standing and kissing! And then one of all those people that stand at the altar in fancy clothes and do nothing. And the cake! Don’t forget the cake!”

“The real photographer will do all that,” Amina reminded her. “I’m just here as a favor, remember?”

“It won’t be a good favor if you don’t get any nice pictures.”

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Thomas crowed. “Can you believe it?”

At least his inability to stay tear-free during a wedding was still firmly intact. Amina took a few quick shots of the Christmas lights reflecting in her father’s eyes, his hands rising as he danced at the side of the floor. It hadn’t been hard to convince him that a few weeks of her events had canceled, suddenly opening up her schedule. Harder was convincing Jane she needed to stay, and to get freelancers to cover the gaps for three weeks of work. Or, as Jane called them, “people who really want your job.” The laugh that she had inserted to take the sting out of the threat only made Amina more nervous.

Amina pushed through the ring of people watching the dance to the backyard.

Tubs of beer glistened like buoys across the evening. A smattering of chatty groups had settled in for the night, and she tried to take a few candid shots of each before they grew aware of her. A dark-haired girl, one good year away from being self-conscious, was trying to make a black Labrador dance with her, paws to shoulders, and Amina backed up to get the right angle, not realizing until after the picture was taken that her ass was pressed into someone’s very still hands.

“Jesus!” She whirled around to find a tall old man in a huge suit looking vaguely stricken. “I’m so—”

“S-sorry about that,” the man stammered, looking down. “I wasn’t trying—”

“No, no, it was me. I wasn’t looking.” She felt herself blushing and held up her camera like it had pushed her. “Pictures!”

“Right. Yeah, okay.”

He was not old at all, she realized, on closer inspection of the man’s face. It was the baldness that had thrown her. His face was actually youngish, all thick eyebrows and rocky lines. The man smiled apologetically, and Amina automatically looked into her viewfinder, liking something about the shape of his skull and the curve of the cottonwood trunk behind him.

“Oh no, don’t do that,” he said, stepping out of the frame but not before she caught something. A flash of deep-set eyes. The girlish mouth. The cover of her high school copy of Heart of Darkness veered sharply into her mind, and she lowered the camera.

“Jamie Anderson.”

His smile was the same, a wince. “Hey, Amina.”

“I didn’t recognize you.”

“I know.”

“You’re bald.” Her shoulders jumped Tourretically. “I’m sorry! That’s not — I just, uh, you know, you used to have”—Amina held her hands out from her head a foot in either direction—“hair.”

“I shave it in the summer.” Jamie rubbed his ear, which was burning pinkly. “Less hassle.”

His head glowed like a porcelain dish, and she fought the absurd urge to lick it. Time had rendered him taller, a little thicker, fuller in the face and shoulders. But that mouth. It had not changed even a little — heavy-lipped, petulant, hanging open slightly as if ready for argument. Amina stared at it, dimly aware that it was asking her something. “What?”

He pointed to the camera. “You’re the photographer?”

“Yes. I mean, not the photographer, like the wedding photographer, but a photographer. In the world. For a living.” Was she speaking English? She looked down and patted her camera like it was a lap dog.

“Ah.” Jamie took a sip of beer. “So what do you photograph? In the world. For a living.”

Amina colored, cleared her throat. “I can’t believe you still live here.”

“I just moved back six months ago. Position at UNM.”

“You’re a professor?”

“Anthropology.”

“Seriously? I mean, that’s great.”

Jamie looked at her curiously, half grinning. “So you’re back, too?”

“Visiting. Just for a little while. A few weeks. Something is wrong with my dad.” Why on earth had she said that? Amina’s face grew warm as Jamie looked at her with a little more concern than she felt comfortable receiving from near strangers. She looked away. Across the courtyard, a thin woman sat alone in a folding chair, a full paper plate of enchiladas on her lap. Amina lifted her camera and took a quick picture. “Is it serious?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t know.” Amina shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry—”

“You’re not. I mean, you are, but it’s fine.” Amina fiddled with the flash on the top of her camera. “Anyhow, I should get back to it. I promised my mom I’d get pictures for her.”

“Oh. Right, sure.” Jamie backed up to let her pass, and she moved swiftly toward the bar.

“Good to see you,” he called after her, and she waved behind her, too unnerved to turn around.

Ridiculous. She had been ridiculous. Talking nonsense and still undone by the lower half of his face. The wine the bartender handed her a few moments later was a little too sweet, but she sipped it steadily, not daring until it was mostly gone to turn around and look at the party. Jamie had walked clear across the lawn, where he was bending down to give the bride a kiss on the cheek.

“Kiddo!”

Amina turned to find Monica coming at her, arms pinwheeling, hair spooling out of a French braid. She spilled a little white wine down Amina’s back as they hugged.

“Shit! I got you?”

“A little.”

“Forgive me, hon. It’s been quite a week.” Her intonation begged for elaboration, but Amina let it pass. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Amina said. The band kicked it into high gear, banjos ringing, and out on the dance floor a circle formed, thick with clapping hands.

Monica leaned in close, dropping her voice. “Any news?”

“Not yet, but I’ve got a plan. I’m talking to Anyan George about it.”

“Dr. George?” She looked worried.

“I know, but listen, we need help. And better him than anyone else.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Smart. Man, I’m glad you’re home.” Monica threw an arm over her shoulder, covering her in the smell of flowery deodorant and white wine.

She whooped suddenly in delight. “Oh my God! Will you look at him! How long has it been since you’ve seen him look like that?”

Lunging from haunch to haunch, Thomas had moved into the center of the circle, arms crossed in front of him like a Russian folk dancer. Three kicks drew three glorious cries from the crowd, and he rose up with the last, his palms opened to the air, chin tilting toward the sky, curls bouncing. Amina found him through her viewfinder. A smile broke across her father’s face, charming it.

“He’ll be okay, you’ll see,” Monica said, taking a swig of wine, and Amina let the shutter fall over and over and over, willing her to be right.

CHAPTER 2

How had she forgotten how the flat light of a desert afternoon could suck the dimension out of anything? The first of the Bukowsky wedding photos were complete tossers. Garbage. The newlyweds looked like line drawings, gashes for mouths and empty sockets for eyes. Amina flipped through them quickly, leaving the worst in a pile on Akhil’s desk. At least by the time the evening light rolled in she had found her rhythm. She lingered over the shot of Jamie Anderson, glad to be able to stare at him without having to make conversation. His features, once soft and strange, had hardened into deep crags and furrows. He had turned just as she was taking the picture, his eyes cast down, his mouth beginning to purse in a way that made her feel a little sex-starved and desperate. True, the actual conversation with Jamie hadn’t gone so well, but conversations with men almost never did, for her.

The phone was ringing.

“Ami, get that!” Her mother called from below.

She reached for it on the desk, but the cradle was empty.

Amina stood and looked around the room. The phone rang again.

“Ami!”

“Hold on!” She turned to the bed, lifting up one pillow and Thomas’s blazer before her arms understood what her brain could not, throwing open the closet door. Inside, the phone trilled at her maniacally, as though delighted to be found. Amina picked it up, brushing a film of dirt from the mouthpiece.

“Hello?”

“I think I’m choking.” Dimple did not sound like she was choking. She sounded like she was lighting a cigarette. Pioneer Square’s morning hustled around her, the drunks and the bike messengers and the ferries floating through the phone line. “I don’t think I can get this show up.”

“Of course you can.”

“No I can’t,” she said, sounding irritated. “And I don’t need a fucking cheerleader right now, Amina, I need a realist.”

Amina walked back to the desk, phone in hand. “What happened?”

“I still haven’t found someone to pair with Charles White. I swear, I’ve looked everywhere. Nothing fucking works.”

Amina flipped through a few more wedding shots. Red chili enchiladas did not photograph well. Guests hunched over white paper plates, looking like they were devouring piles of bloody flesh. “Isn’t it getting late?”

“That’s not helpful.”

“You asked for a realist.”

“Yeah, not an asshole.”

“Jesus, Dimple.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. Or, well, it is, but not really.”

“What did I do?”

“I want to show your work.”

Amina swallowed. “Oh.”

Dimple snorted. “Oh, she says.”

“What do you want me to say? I don’t have anything.”

There was a short, unsettling silence, the kind that precedes fights between family like a growing electric field precedes lightning.

Dimple cleared her throat. “Okay, listen, I found the pictures in your closet.”

“You what?”

“I found—”

“You went into my closet?”

“Yes, I did. Listen, I was at your house for the plants and then I needed a jacket, so I—”

“Bullshit.”

Dimple was quiet for a second. “Okay, fine, I was looking through your stuff. I don’t actually know why. I know that sounds weird. But I found them and I fucking love them. And listen, I know this isn’t a great time to ask, and I hope you know I wouldn’t unless I felt really, you know, desperate. Well, no, desperate and compelled. Because your work is compelling.” She took a breath, changing her tenor to one Amina had heard her use with others too many times to feel flattered by. The honeyed tone, the easy pump of ego. “You know, the thing is, I can’t stop thinking of how great it would be, actually. It’s a good pairing, a really spot-on counterpoint to Charles’s selection. I think we could actually go small with this — make it concentrated. Eight or ten—”

“No.”

“Wait, stop, just listen for a second, okay? You know we’re exploring the idea of domestic accidents, and it’s, like, perfect. So if we go with the fainting grandmother, the peeing ring bearer, and those two bridesmaids fighting over the bouquet—”

“Are you listening? No.”

“—lead with the picture of Bobby McCloud jumping—”

“No!”

“The puking bridesmaid. We’ve got to show that, obviously.”

“Dimple, it’s not happening! Period. And if Jane ever finds out anything about those pictures, I’ll be fired instantly. There’s a reason they were hidden.”

“Wait, these are hidden from Jane?”

“Yes! But also the clients. They don’t know about them, either. And this isn’t the way they’re going to find out.”

“I’m not sure why Jane’s opinion really matters,” Dimple said.

This was not a good path to go down. “Look, you asked. I am saying no. Clear?”

Exhale. Silence.

“Dimple, do you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I know what you’re saying. And I know we’ve had this discussion before, but somehow, Amina, I’m just never quite convinced that you don’t want me to keep bothering you about it. I mean, right? You do, a little, don’t you?” Dimple took another sharp drag. “I mean, you don’t, like, lose ambition because you switch tracks for a little while.”

“Switch tracks? I’m a wedding photographer!”

“So what? What if showing your stuff was, like, what you needed to get past it? You know, like on fucking Oprah. Scared-of-her-shadow housewife remembers her inner fire, starts a multimillion-dollar business, takes care of orphans on the side. Full circle!”

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait! No! Okay, look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to do that. I just hate having to beg you for something you should be thrilled to give me. I mean, this is business. It’s an opportunity. You took these pictures, the best fucking pictures I’ve ever seen you take, by the way, and what? You think if you show them, you’re somehow worse off?”

“When did this become about me? Your job gets hard and I’m the jerk?”

There was a brief pause on the line, punctuated by the anxious bleat of a ferry.

“Okay, fine, that’s fair,” Dimple said. “Yes, I’m stuck. I don’t have a good match, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have a pristine set of prints that I love all ready to mount! But you do. And you’re here, so we could bang this out fast. And I really do think you’re a great fit for the show. Please.”

She sounded like a junkie. Like a photography junkie. The saddest, most pretentious thing in the world.

“I’m not there,” Amina said.

“You’re coming back this week.”

“No. I need to stay here for a little bit.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Something is really wrong with my dad.”

“What?”

It should not have felt so good, or easy, to tell Dimple everything, given the preceding conversation, and yet it did. It felt like taking off a tight helmet.

“Oh God.” Dimple’s shoes clacked as she paced. “Does the family know? I mean, obviously my mother doesn’t, or everyone would, but the others?”

“I don’t think so. It depends on how far it got around the hospital. But don’t say anything about it yet, okay? I need to figure some stuff out.”

“Of course. Right. I won’t mention it to Sajeev.”

Amina frowned. “Why would you tell him?”

“What? Oh, just because he asks about everyone from home when we talk.”

“You talk?”

“He’s been coming by. Talking about digital cameras, blah blah blah. Not important. How long are you going to be out there? Like, a few days or what?”

“Maybe another few weeks.” Amina leafed through the remaining pictures on the desk, trying to channel Monica’s strange, flat tone from the day in the car. “We just need to get him checked out and then take things step by step.”

She stopped on a picture of her parents. She laid it flat on the desk. Dimple was telling her she’d keep picking up the mail, watering her plants, but Amina barely heard her. Technically, the photograph was beautiful. Taken at that moment when the sun pulls all the color in the desert to the surface, it showed Thomas at his radiant best, mid-dance, his arms thrown to the sky, a ring of blurred, smiling faces surrounding him. Except for Kamala’s. Even slightly out of focus, Amina could see the wary pinch of her mother’s brow, the look of someone assessing a traffic accident.

For half an hour after she and Dimple hung up, Amina sat at her brother’s desk, listening to her parents tumbling around the house, banging into and out of it at regular intervals, opening and closing cabinets and drawers and doors without ever seeming to run into each other. It was amazing really, a dance so intricate it felt choreographed, executed to perfection through years of practice.

And what would they do if something was really wrong with Thomas? How could they possibly face it any better than they could face each other? Amina looked at Kamala’s blurry face in the picture. It was useless, really, to fear whatever was making its way toward them, its slow progress dismantling the familiar routines of their lives, but that did not stop her from sitting as still as she could in the brightening day, as if stillness could keep the worst of it at bay.

CHAPTER 3

Anyan George was endearing in his own way. It wasn’t a way that made Amina feel like reproducing with him, or even getting close enough for a friendly hug, but his offer to help in the kitchen, his attempt to appear casual in a button-down shirt and a horrible argyle sweater vest, his inquiries about Kamala’s many sisters, and the tittering laugh he released generously at anything even resembling a joke made dinner the following night somewhat less of a chore than she had imagined it would be.

“More cabbage?” Kamala asked, pushing the bowl toward him. “Amina, hand him the cabbage.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Dr. George said, patting his sweater vest. “I am finally stuffed. It was absolutely delicious.”

“We’ll send it home with you! Don’t want you becoming skin and bone!” Kamala smiled a bit too hard, her eyes darting across the table. “Amina will be quite a cook someday, you know.”

“You must take after your mom in the kitchen?”

“God, no. The only thing I can do in the kitchen is try not to hurt anybody.”

“Amen to that!” Thomas said.

“Oh, pah. What for dessert, Anyan?” Kamala asked, annoyed. “We have ice creams and we have cookies and we have ladoo.”

“Much as I hate to, I should go. Early-morning call and whatnot.”

“Sure, sure.” Kamala was already walking toward the kitchen with hands full of dishes. “Let me just get your leftovers together. Amina, come.”

In the kitchen, her mother’s smiled vanished. “Can’t cook! Who tells people the worst thing about you first? Why not let him get to know you?”

“You think that’s the worst thing about me?”

“I’m just saying, let him get to know you! All night you and your father are acting like clowns so he will laugh.” Kamala threw open a cabinet, whipping out two empty Tupperware containers. “How will he take you seriously?”

“We were having a good time.”

“Well, there are times to have a good time and times to put a good shoe forward.”

“Ma, stop. It was a perfectly nice night, and you’re about to ruin it.”

Kamala spooned heaps of potatoes into one bowl and cabbage into the other, sealing the lids with a tight mouth. Amina took them from her, walking back into the dining room.

“Are you sure there’s not too much?” Anyan smiled when he saw the food.

“Take, take,” Kamala said. “When you are ready, we’ll have you back for more.”

“Thank you so much. I really had a lovely time.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Amina said, reaching for the door.

“Oh.” Thomas, on his way out the door, stopped, looking confused.

“Good, good, excellent!” Kamala snaked her arm through Thomas’s to keep him back, and for once, Amina was relieved by her mother’s enormous will. “Good night! Nice to see you, Anyan! Bon voyages!”

The door closed with a gaudy thump, and Amina, too embarrassed to look at the doctor’s face, turned and walked down the steps. Their feet were loud across the gravel in the drive. Anyan kept a careful distance between them and seemed relieved when they had reached his navy blue BMW without incident.

“Well, Amina, very nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, you too.” She looked at him expectantly, wishing he could read her mind, and the silence around them grew fatter.

“Listen,” he said at last, softly, apologetically. “I feel I should tell you that I am, in fact, seeing someone.”

“You are?” Amina asked, before remembering that she didn’t care.

“A nurse, actually. She’s very nice, really, and though of course we’ve been a little less than public about it due to our work life, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it.”

“I need to talk to you about my dad,” Amina said.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, that’s great, about the nurse. I’m happy for you. But I need to talk to you about my father. I’ve been hearing some stuff about him.”

Even in the fading light, she could see Anyan stiffening, his eyes traveling back to the house.

“Don’t worry, they can’t hear you,” she said. “You can’t hear anything from the front yard when you’re inside, just the back, for some reason. And I can talk to you at your office if that’s easier; I just didn’t want to show up in the middle of a workday without you knowing what it was about.”

“And what’s it about, exactly?”

“What happened in the ER,” she said. “Did you hear about it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And …?” He looked at her blankly.

Was he trying to irritate her? Amina gestured impatiently. “What did you hear?”

“Oh.” Anyan straightened, smoothing his mustache. “You know, that there had been some kind of miscommunication.”

Miscommunication? Amina almost laughed out loud. “I heard that he tried to save a kid who had died.”

The doctor gave a short nod. He had apparently heard that, too.

“Look, Dr. George—”

“Anyan.”

“Sure.” Amina felt the heat rising to her face. “Can you just level with me? Give me some idea of what’s going on?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I want you to tell me what’s happening to my dad. People know, right? That’s what Monica said. And if something is really wrong with him, then I should know.”

“I’m sorry,” Anyan said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I’m just surprised that you’re bringing it up. You seem genuinely worried about him.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s fine.” He paused, waiting for her to accept that, and when she didn’t, he continued: “Look, I know Thomas very well. I’ve seen him under great duress, and I recognize that this was an anomaly, not a pattern of behavior. And even if no one wants to come out and say it, things like this do happen in hospitals. Medicine’s a human practice, with human errors. Thomas made an error, that’s all.”

“You really think that,” Amina said, unable to keep the wonder out of her voice.

“I do.”

“But then why would he try to work on a kid who was already—”

“Who knows? It was a friend’s son, right? It must have touched off something in him momentarily. At any rate, it was one incident in an otherwise sterling career, and no one was harmed by it. We don’t need to make it into something bigger.” He patted her awkwardly, the gesture fumbling between bedside manner and brush-off.

“But it wasn’t just one incident,” Amina said.

“Excuse me?”

“He’s had other incidents. Here. At home. I think he’s been hallucinating regularly.”

Anyan smiled thinly, as though waiting for a punch line. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s why I came home. My mother called and told me that he was on the porch all night talking to his mother, who has been dead for years.”

Anyan’s smile faded. “Talking?”

“Yes.”

“You saw him do this?”

“My mom has. And to be honest, I thought she was overdramatizing until I talked to Monica the other day. Now I’m not so sure.”

“But what …” Anyan shook his head at the car in disbelief. “What does Thomas say about it?”

“He doesn’t. That’s why I’m talking to you.”

It took a few moments for this information to find purchase in the doctor, moving, against the current of mentor and friend, to patient, to illness. Disbelief redirected to concern. Anyan turned from her, pacing a few steps before looking back at her. “Do you know how long these episodes last? Their duration and frequency?”

“No.”

“Is there any sort of manic or depressive behavior immediately before? Do you notice that he’s in a heightened state of activity, or—”

“Honestly, I have no idea. And I know you can’t just make a diagnosis with a bunch of sketchy details, but …” Amina trailed off hopefully, willing him to disprove her. He didn’t. She sighed. “I think I should bring him in to see you. I know it’s not totally kosher, and I’m sorry to put you in that position. But if it’s nothing, or, you know, even if it’s something, I’d just rather figure that out with you first before word gets out.”

“But he won’t come. I already suggested it to him once, right after the ER, when it was just due diligence. He said no.”

“I’ll get him there,” Amina said with an assurance she did not feel. Anyan smoothed his mustache. “And what about Monica? What does she say?”

“She doesn’t know about everything. I wanted to talk to you first. But she’s on board.”

“Okay then, I’ll talk to her tomorrow. See if she can switch his schedule around for the time being so that he’s not doing surgeries.”

“Yeah?” Amina said, relieved. “You can do that?”

“I have to do that,” Anyan said. “If what you’re saying is true — though I think we should give that a wide improbability, considering that you haven’t seen the behavior firsthand — then he shouldn’t be practicing.”

Amina nodded, feeling acutely ill at ease, as though she’d just sold classified information to the enemy, though she was unclear of who that enemy was, really. The disciplinary board at the hospital? Anyan George? The world at large, in which her father saw everything through the lens of his work?

“Your mother is watching us,” Anyan said, sounding a totally different kind of upset now.

Amina turned around just in time to see the curtain falling back across the dining room window. “I should go back in. So is there some way for me to set up an appointment without, you know, alerting the entire medical community?”

“Call me directly. Do you have my number?”

“Mom does.”

He opened the door to his car, putting his leftovers behind the front seat before folding himself inside. He moved slowly, as though the air around him actually weighed more, and Amina fought off the urge to apologize. No, she had wanted this, had sought him out specifically, guessing his admiration for her father would make him want to shelter Thomas a little while they figured things out. She waved as he started the car, and moved out of the way so he could leave.

CHAPTER 4

Moldy eggplant. Curried potatoes. Something that looked like a pile of slugs but turned out to be decomposing okra. The following Saturday, as Kamala headed out to the garden and Thomas tinkered on the porch, Amina pillaged the refrigerator, rounding up its worst offenders. A few rutty-looking tomatoes sat on the back of a shelf, and she set them carefully on the counter. Then she went to the gardening shed, pulled out the wheelbarrow and loaded everything in, wheeling it back to the porch.

Decked out in a headlamp and overalls, Thomas was hunched over a clamp as she walked in.

“I’m making a chest,” he told her, not looking up.

“I brought you some things.”

“What things?” He looked up, blinding her.

“Ow. Come see.”

She led him outside to where Prince Philip hovered over the wheelbarrow.

“Leftovers!” Thomas said, opening a container. “My God, why didn’t I ever think of it?”

“Because you’re not the genius in the family.”

“Pssht!” Thomas thumped her on the head, pleased. “Meet me out back.”

She walked the wheelbarrow to the backyard while Thomas ran and got the truck, driving it through the tall grass and into a clearing. Kamala, weeding ferociously a hundred yards away, stood up, hands on her hips.

“Raccooner!” Amina shouted, and she went back to weeding.

“Did you see? I made a target.” Thomas pointed to a piece of plywood fifty feet away, emblazoned with the black outline of a raccoon.

“Holy hell.”

She helped him set up the Raccooner this time, and when she was done, she lined up the leftovers, smallest to biggest.

“Potatoes first?” she asked.

“You got it.”

They loaded it in and Thomas pulled the slingshot back. “Ready?”

She nodded.

“Psshooom!” he yelled as a clump of mustard streaked a wide arc across the yard, missing the target by a generous amount. Prince Phillip dashed after it.

“Oh, man, should we worry about that?” Amina asked.

“He’s eaten worse.”

The okra were the next to go, slimy fingers shot one by one across the yard, two of the dozen actually hitting the target, though not within the raccoon outline. The beets fared worse, which disappointed both of them if only for the promise of a bloody-looking hit. Prince Philip dutifully hunted them down, returning with horrible pink teeth.

“You do a biggie,” Thomas said.

Amina lifted an eggplant from its Tupperware, shuddering at its cold, soft weight in her hand.

“Okay, so you’re going to try to get the sling back as far as possible, but don’t worry about that so much. Put it more in the center, okay? Right. That’s pretty good.”

Amina pulled back another three inches, grunting.

“Strong girl,” Thomas said approvingly. “Good. So once you feel secure, try to angle it toward the—”

“Shit!”

The sling sprang from her grip, hurtling forward with a horrible whipping noise. They both ducked and, when nothing happened, straightened up, looking hopefully at the target. It was clear. Amina looked at Prince Philip, who looked anxiously back at her. The eggplant had disappeared.

“Jesus, kid!”

“Goddamn it. Give me the other one.”

“Are you kidding?” Thomas laughed. “You’re dangerous!”

“Give it!”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Thomas bent to retrieve the other half of the eggplant, just as a high, thin, keening cry pierced the afternoon. It left a wake of silence behind it, and Amina looked fearfully at the sky.

“What the hell was that?” she asked.

“No idea.”

And then they heard it again, a cry so wild and raw that they stood up on the truck bed. Prince Philip shot out an alarmed bark, and they turned to each other, eyes widening in recognition. The third cry sent them jumping into the open field and running through the tall grass, Amina’s legs chasing her father’s toward the garden.

And what was there to say about Kamala’s figure huddled in the dirt, her fingers covered in mud, her face streaked with it, the howls that exploded from her throat? Amina and Thomas ran toward her, hurdling compost bins and piles of mulch. Kamala had fallen down. She was on the ground. Prince Philip barked angrily at the closed garden gate.

“Ma!”

The ground had been ripped apart, black clumps of soil strewn everywhere. A garden shovel lay where it had been dropped. Next to it, Kamala clutched herself, rocking, rocking. Amina bent down, touching her mother’s shoulder.

“Ma? Are you okay?”

Kamala jerked upright, the cuff of a jacket spilling out of her arms.

“Oh my God,” Amina said. “Mom what are you doing with—”

“You!” Kamala shrieked. “You get away! Get away, you filthy devil!”

But she was not talking to Amina. She was looking with burning eyes at the garden gate, where Thomas stood.

“Dad? Dad didn’t …” Amina turned to look at her father, who was staring at Akhil’s leather jacket with the sad, stunned recognition of a dreaming man returning to the waking world.

“Dad?”

Thomas shut his eyes.

“Dad, what did you do?”

“I’m so sorry,” her father said.