Chapter 14: The Microphone

Dev took the microphone from his sister's hand, and she let it go.

That frightened him more than anything she had said. She wanted him to speak.

Forty faces looked up at him from the folding chairs. His father sat in the middle of them in a cream sherwani.

Dev had run a company for twelve years. He had never been so aware of his own voice.

"My father turned seventy today," he said. "I want to thank every one of you for coming."

"Dev," said Harish. "Sit down."

"I will, Papa. After this."

He turned his back on his father and faced the chairs.

"Twenty-five years ago, my father and I came home from a wedding on the Mehrauli road."

"I was fifteen. I sat in the front seat."

"Dev." Harish was on his feet. "Enough."

"My father had been drinking. There was fog at the bend by the old tomb."

"A small white car came around it, and he did not brake."

A woman in the second row put her hand flat against her chest.

"A man and a woman died in that car," Dev said. "Their daughter was nine years old."

He did not look at Rhea. He knew exactly where she stood, three steps to his left.

"My father told the police the other car had swerved. He looked at me, and I said yes."

"That was the first lie, and it was mine."

"This is a disgrace," Harish said. His voice had lost its force. "Switch that off. Somebody switch it off."

Nobody moved. An uncle in the first row stared at the grass.

"Three months later my father brought the girl home," Dev said.

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