With a sigh, Reeva put her phone away and dragged her leather carry-on up the paved stone drive. She could do this. Everything would be fine. She took a deep breath and reached out to press the old-fashioned bell, but before her finger could touch the plastic, the front door swung open to reveal a young woman in thick, black square glasses. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy bun, and her arms were crossed firmly across her oversized gray jumper. “Took you long enough.”
“Sita. Hi,” said Reeva, lugging her stuff onto the porch step, noticing her sister made zero effort to help. “So, this is it, huh? Dad’s house.”
Sita stepped back so Reeva could navigate past her in the narrow corridor. “Yep. Jaya and I got here last night, so we’ve taken the spare bedrooms. You’ll have to stay in Dad’s bedroom.”
Reeva dropped her suitcase and looked at her sister in horror. “You’re kidding! I can’t stay in his bed! Isn’t that where he . . . you know?”
“Died? Yeah. Heart attack in the middle of the night. Didn’t see it coming. There are clean bedsheets though. I left them on the bed for you. And there’s not exactly anywhere else for you to sleep.”
“I’ll just take the sofa. Is it through here?” Reeva pushed open the only door in the hallway and found herself in a small square living room with glass French doors that led into a kitchen. A two-seater white sofa was pushed against the back wall. Next to it were a chrome floor lamp and a small pine side table. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a wide television on a stand against the opposing wall. Propped up against the screen was a blown-up photograph of a serious-looking Indian man in wire-frame glasses. A homemade garland of garish fresh flowers—the bright yellow and pink ones that were always on offer in supermarkets—was draped over the photograph.
“Meet Dad,” said Sita. “He doesn’t look exactly like the pics Mum had of him and us as kids, does he? To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a different person than the man she told us about. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
Reeva stopped in her tracks. As a child, she’d gone over every single photograph she could find of her dad. But they’d come to an end after her dad had turned thirty-five. That was it. He was frozen in her memory as that young man—practically the same age she was now—with his wavy brown hair and big smile. She knew his face by heart. But if she’d walked past her father in the street days earlier, there was no way she could have recognized him. It made her heart clench. She took a step toward the photo, examining it closely. His expression was serious, but his eyes were kind. And the wide nose and strong jaw were the same as the ones she’d studied as a child. “It’s definitely Dad. Look at the eyes.” Sita shrugged in response. “Hey, who did the flowers?”
“An elderly woman who knew Dad from the mandir. There’s a lot of them around.”
“Right,” said Reeva, looking around the room. The sofa was shorter than she was, and she wasn’t sure that sleeping in front of a huge photo of her dad’s face was much better than sleeping in his room. “Where are the twins? I bought Alisha a vampire book she’s going to love. And soldiers for Amisha.”
“I’m trying not to encourage their obsession with war and murder.”
“Sorry. I just wanted to get them things they want rather than dumping dolls on them like Mum did with us.”
Sita lowered her arms. “Well, at least you didn’t buy an actual gun like Nitin did. I mean, it’s a kids’ gun. But still.”
“So are they upstairs?”
“They’re at school. I can’t just drag them out.”
Reeva’s face fell. She’d been counting on her nieces being there. They were the only members of her family who seemed to like her—and she, in turn, adored them. There was no way she’d be able to survive the next twelve days without them. “What? I thought they’d be here. Can’t you just take them out of school?”
Sita shook her head in annoyance. “Only someone who doesn’t have kids would suggest that. You can’t just pull them out of school these days. It gets marked down on their record.”
“For bereavement? Their granddad’s dead.”
“Granddad? None of us knew he existed,” scoffed Sita. “Anyway, it’s October half term on Monday. Nitin’s bringing them up tomorrow.”
Reeva’s face relaxed in relief. “Oh, thank god. I mean, cool. Can’t wait to see them.”
“Right. So are you going to take your stuff upstairs or what? You obviously can’t sleep here.”
Reeva took one more longing look at the tiny sofa, calculating whether discomfort beat sleeping in a deathbed. She would give anything to be back in her king-size bed with its natural fiber mattress—perfectly shaped to her body after four years—and soft bamboo sheets. “He has a double bed upstairs?”
“Yup. IKEA’s finest.”
“Fine.”
She dragged her belongings up the stairs—yet again Sita hadn’t offered to help—until she reached the landing: a narrow cream-carpeted space framed with four brown doors. She opened the first. Bathroom. Clean. White. Sad-looking bathmat. The second: a sparse double bedroom with brightly colored kids’ toys in it that suggested it was already claimed by Sita. The third: a single bed with a young woman in a crop top and tight jeans sprawled across its maroon bedsheets.
Reeva froze.
She hadn’t seen her youngest sister since Rakesh had chosen her over Reeva. And now here she was. Scrolling through her phone, less than two meters away.
Reeva felt sick. She couldn’t do this. It was too much. She wasn’t ready. She tried to back out of the room and close the door before Jaya saw her, but it was too late. The floorboards creaked and Jaya’s head whipped around. Reeva locked eyes with her sister and swallowed. Before she had time to react, Jaya squealed loudly.
“Reeva!” she cried, springing off the bed. “It’s been forever!” She wrapped her arms around Reeva, embracing her tightly.
Over the last four years, Reeva had imagined endless scenarios of what it would be like to meet her youngest sister again—from icy coldness to blaring arguments to flat-out silence—but never once had it occurred to her that Jaya would do something as outrageous as hug her. She stood in rigid shock as Jaya squeezed her. She could smell her sister’s perfume—the same sickly sweet one she’d been wearing for years. Baccarat Rouge 540, that was it. By Maison Francis Kurkdjian. She’d given Reeva some for Christmas once. Before everything, obviously. Reeva had been touched that her sister had spent so much on her, but then Jaya had let slip that the luxury brand had gifted it to her. Of course her sister hadn’t actually paid for it. Jaya always got what Jaya wanted with minimal effort. Whether it was perfume or other people’s boyfriends.