“Jamshed?”
“Her husband. I told you about him, remember? They are both in love with this child.”
“But you will be her primary guardian? You won’t let them . . .”
He touched her wrist. “Smita. Stop fretting. I told you—” He broke off as Zarine entered the room.
“Please. Come to the table,” Zarine said. “What will you drink? Something hot or cold?”
“A soft drink, please,” Smita said.
Mohan placed his hands on the older woman’s shoulders. “Come on, Zarine Auntie,” he said. “You’ve been cooking since morning. Smita and I can do everything else. I mean, at your age, you should not tire yourself.”
Zarine grinned. “See how he teases me?” she said to Smita, who had noticed that Mohan’s accent sounded thicker, more Indian, when he spoke to Zarine. There was also no mistaking his affection for her. Was he like this around his own mother? The thought of never finding out saddened her.
Smita sat sipping her raspberry soda while Zarine and Mohan brought the dishes to the dining table. “Auntie,” Smita gasped. “So much food?”
“Eat, eat, deekra,” Zarine Auntie said, spooning some sali boti onto Smita’s plate.
“Oof, Auntie,” Smita groaned. “Stop.”
“Smita,” Mohan said with his mouth full, “eat up, yaar. You will never get food like this in America.”
She nodded and did as she was told. A peaceful silence fell at the table, interrupted by Smita’s occasional murmurs of appreciation. “I remember this drink from my childhood,” Smita said as she took another sip of raspberry soda. “My father had a lot of Parsi friends. Any time we visited, they served us Duke’s raspberry.”
Zarine snapped her fingers. “Go to the fridge and get your friend another bottle,” she told Mohan, who rose immediately, a broad smile on his face.
The older woman followed him with her eyes until he was out of the dining room. “So how long have you known my Mohan?”
“Ah, er, not really that long,” Smita stammered. “That is . . .”
Zarine shook her head dismissively. “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter,” she said. “When two people love one another, time doesn’t matter.”
Smita kept her gaze on her plate. She jumped as she felt Zarine’s hand cup her face. “So beautiful,” the woman murmured. “No wonder my Mohan is lattoo-fattoo over you.”
“Laddoo-faddoo?”
Zarine laughed. “Not ‘laddoo’—lattoo. It means, how do you say? ‘Head over heels.’ ”
Smita smiled back. Then, she yelped. Zarine had pinched her forearm.
“Don’t you dare hurt this poor boy,” Zarine said. Her eyes were blazing. “All these years I’m knowing him, and this is the first time he’s brought a girl home.”
“Auntie,” Smita said. “You . . . you know that I live in the US, right?” She waited until Zarine nodded. “So, you know that I’m scheduled to go home in three days?”
Zarine looked stricken. “Three days? What about Mohan? And the child?”
“I—I wanted to place Abru in an orphanage. But Mohan said no. He said he . . .”
“Chokri”—Zarine rose to her feet—“have some sense. Do you know what would happen to a girl in an orphanage? Of course Mohan said no. I thought you were more intelligent than that.”
She will blame me for hurting Mohan, Smita thought with dismay. She looked toward the kitchen. She could hear Mohan dispensing ice cubes into a glass. The food sat heavily in her stomach. Was this lunch an ambush? And if so, had Mohan been part of it?
But the puzzled expression on Mohan’s face as he came back in assuaged her suspicion. “Su che?” he asked Zarine in Gujarati. “What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Zarine said as she sat back in her chair. Then she added, with effort, “Eat some more, deekra.”
Smita shook her head. “No thank you,” she said.
There was a strained silence. “I will make some Parsi-style tea,” Zarine said. You will take? And we have lagan nu custard for dessert.”
“Arre, Zarine, give this poor girl a break, yaar,” Mohan said. “Let’s wait ten, fifteen minutes before we begin to eat again, okay?”
Zarine’s face softened. “You know what they say about us Parsis,” she said. “While we are eating breakfast, we are already planning the lunch menu.”