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her chest. “Ma—”
    “You want to get married?” Chandani shot across the room and stood over her daughter. “Hmm? That is what you want? Well, why you didn’t tell me that, Vimla? I go find somebody for you to marry!”
    Vimla stared up at her mother, wide eyed. “I done pick Krishna, Ma.”
    Chandani gasped and swiped at Vimla, who threw herself across the floor to avoid the blow. “Pick? Pick!” Chandani looked mortified. “You feel Krishna is a sweet sapodilla you could just
pick
from a tree?”
    Vimla winced. As bright as she was, she often expressed her thoughts unfiltered. This was one of those times Vimla wished she’d kept her opinions private. “Ma. I sorry.”
    Chandani sat on Vimla’s bed. “You sorry, Vimla? Tell me what you sorry for.”
    Vimla swallowed. This was a trap. There was no way to win an argument with her mother, and in truth, she wasn’t sure what she was sorry for yet. So Vimla waited for her mother to continue, which inevitably she did.
    “No more walking about for you, you hear? Concentrate on university applications. Unless it have Krishna and tra-la-la-ing with man in the bush on your syllabus, you better not study that again!”
    Vimla’s mouth dropped open.
    Chandani made for the door. “And while you waiting to hear back from schools, you go cook and clean and wash, mind the goats and the cow and the bull and the fowl.” She counted these tasks off on her childlike fingers. “In the meantime, Vimla, I go work hard, too. I go search high and low, upside down, round and round, to find a boy as dotish as you for you to marry.” She brushed her hands against each other. “I done talk,” she said, and walked away.
    Vimla followed her out of the room. “What about Krishna? To marry.”
    Chandani halted mid-step and her back went rigid. Vimla began to edge away even before her mother spun around and pounced at her like a vicious cat. “Krishna? Vimla Narine, what the ass make you think Krishna go marry you now?”
    “He love me.”
    Chandani flinched. “It ain’t have nothing like love here!” She gestured to the sunlit hallway. Vimla wasn’t sure if her mother meant this house or Trinidad, but she didn’t dare ask. “Yourreputation ruined, girl. The Govind family ain’t go want Krishna to marry you now.”
    Vimla stared, dumbstruck, at her mother, who sucked her teeth, stomped into her bedroom and slammed the door.

A Pundit’s Plea
    Monday August 5, 1974

    CHANCE, TRINIDAD
    A nand sat on the
mandir
floor by the concrete lattice window with his legs folded beneath him. A diamond patchwork of sunlight and shadow fell across his back and sagging shoulders; a mellow breeze drifted through the open spaces, ruffling the fine silver hairs on the back of his neck.
    Anand hadn’t worn his elaborate priestly attire this morning. Instead he had dressed in grey slacks and a simple cotton kurtha, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d tucked his
mala
, a string of 108 prayer beads, inside his collar and kept his gaze fixed on the ground as he’d hurried up the main road, slipped through the mandir’s back door and sat. Now that the doors were locked and he was alone, Anand could have this conversation aloud.
    He turned his bloodshot gaze to Mother Lakshmi, goddess of health, wealth and prosperity. “Karma?” His sleepless nighthung in pouches under his eyes. His lids drooped with the weight of them.
    The marble goddess, swathed in fuchsia, pink and gold, sat in her expansive lotus throne with her right palm turned toward Anand, proffering blessings. Sunlight dazzled off the gems sewn into her silk sari, lending her marble expression a celestial glow. She smiled at him the way she always had, but for Anand something had changed.
    He took a deep breath before he continued. The place smelled of yesterday’s prayers: sandalwood and smoke, cotton wicks burning in pools of rich yellow ghee. “I dedicate my life to your service and this is my reward?” He leaned