Chapter 22: The Restaurants

The Anand kitchen at eight in the morning smelled like cardamom, burnt toast, and a family that had not slept.

Priya's father sat at the table in his bathrobe with a letter in front of him.

Her mother stood at the stove, stirring something that did not need it.

Cass sat on the counter in last night's clothes, eating dry cereal from the box.

I stood in the doorway, behind Priya, with one hand at the small of her back.

"Sit," her father said.

We sat.

He pushed the letter across the table.

It was a single page on thick paper with a lawyer's letterhead, and it said, in six polite sentences.

That the Treadwell family regretted the termination of the engagement and would be calling the loan on the downtown location in thirty days.

"Two million, one hundred thousand dollars," her father said. "With interest."

"We don't have it," her mother said, to the stove.

"We have the other two restaurants," he said. "We have the house."

"Papa, no."

"Priya." He raised a hand. "I am not telling you what we have lost. I am telling you what we have."

Priya took the letter.

She read it once, and then she did something I'd never seen her do in front of her parents.

She took out a pen.

"Papa, can I see the books?"

"The books?"

"Anand Kitchen's. All three locations, the last four years. They're on your laptop, in the study."

"Beta, it's Saturday."

"It's the only day I have." She stood. "I keep the books, Papa. I've kept them for six years. Nobody else has ever looked at what they say."

She went upstairs.

We heard her moving around in the study, a drawer, a keyboard, a chair rolling.

Nobody said anything.

Her mother set a plate of toast in front of me and said, "Eat," and I ate.

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