Then Baby Kochamma wrote to say that Estha had been reReturned. Rahel gave up her job at the gas station and left America gladly. To return to Ayemenem. To Estha in the rain.

In the old house on the hill, Baby Kochamma sat at the dining table rubbing the thick, frothy bitterness out of an elderly cucumber. She was wearing a limp checked seersucker nightgown with puffed sleeves and yellow turmeric stains. Under the table she swung her tiny, manicured feet, like a small child on a high chair. They were puffy with edema, like little foot-shaped air cushions. In the old days, whenever anybody visited Ayemenem, Baby Kochamma made it a point to call attention to their large feet. She would ask to try on their slippers and say, “Look how big for me they are”. Then she would walk around the house in them, lifting her sari a little so that everybody could marvel at her tiny feet.

She worked on the cucumber with an air of barely concealed triumph. She was delighted that Estha had not spoken to Rahel. That he had looked at her and walked straight past. Into the rain. As he did with everyone else.

She was eighty-three. Her eyes spread like butter behind her thick glasses.

“I told you, didn’t I?” she said to Rahel. “What did you expect?’ Special treatment? He’s lost his mind, I’m telling you! He doesn’t recognize people anymore! What did you think?”

Rahel said nothing.

She could feel the rhythm of Estha’s rocking, and the wetness of rain on his skin. She could hear the raucous, scrambled world inside his head.