Page 125 of The Rut in the Road

As usual, I’d gone about my life entirely backwards. Not that it had necessarily been my fault, but I was really sick of not doing things the right way, in the right order, at the right time… Right in any capacity.

I hadn’t bothered sharing those thoughts with anyone, since it would only have sounded like I was whining or begging for attention, and while I certainly felt like whining, I knew that wasn’t a very nice thing to do to the people who had given you a job out of pity and were now working extremely hard to help you figure out what the hell you were doing with yourself.

Also, I liked them and wanted to help, and we were all tired and overworked, because even though we were now officially done with Halloween season, it was only by a couple days, and we really hadn’t gotten an actual break, since one day spent sleeping after two or three days of not sleeping at all wasn’t enough to refresh anybody.

And we’d all just expended a considerable amount of magic.

“Your bosses are cool and all,” Vi called from where she’d collapsed on the inflatable mattress in my main room. “But right now, I kind of hate everybody.”

I mustered up enough energy to answer her. “Me, too.”

“Night, bro,” she called back.

“Good night, Vi.”

I wished Raj were here.

23

He ranhis fingers over the case of the watch, a reminder of the day Pita had given it to him—the day he’d graduated from Quantico.

He was soproud of Rajesh. While he knew his father had hoped that he and Ishani would come back to Punjab, he didn’t think that was in their future. Especially with their children having careers so close to home. He knew Ishani worried about Rajesh’s career—about the fact that he would have to risk his life sometimes.

He didn’t like that, but he respected his son’s desire to make the world a better, safer place. He wasn’t sure how successful that would be, but he respected it nonetheless.

He knewhe’d held onto the watch for too long—longer than his father had held onto it. He’d been given it when he’d married, and Farhan had married years ago. His granddaughter was two already, in fact.

But it was time.

He pushed himself up from his son’s recliner and walked out onto the back patio, where Farhan was grilling marinated cubes of goat and vegetables. He brushed his fingers over the watch—his great-great-grandfather’s. The back still bore his name: Rajesh Farhan Parikh.

I pushedmyself out of the memory, which must have belonged to Raj’s grandfather. “Did you want me to go all the way back?” I asked him. “To the first owner?”

He smiled, shaking his head. “No. I just thought you might have enjoyed something that old—and not traumatic, at least I don’t think so.”

I smiled. “No, nothing traumatic. Did you want me to tell you?—”

But he was shaking his head with a smile. “It belonged to my…” Raj paused, thinking. “Great-great-great-great—I think—grandfather.” His face scrunched into a small grimace. “Serving the purposes of colonial oppression, although we generally don’t like to talk about that part.”

“What does that mean?” I asked him, handing him back the watch.

A smile flickered across his lips as he returned it to the box. “It means he worked for the British Raj—the British colonial government.” He shrugged. “He used it as a means of getting his family to the UK, which is where my Pita grew up.”

“Your father is British?”

He smiled. “Yeah. But his family still travels back to seetheirfamily—my great-grandfather, for instance, moved back to Ludhiana, but he kept business contacts in London, so then mygrandfathermoved back for college and after, but then retired back to Ludhiana...” He smiled. “So I have aunts and uncles and cousins there. And Mata is from Kattupalli, down on thesouthern coast, and she has two brothers and a sister who work in Chennai.”

“But you were born here?” I asked him.

He nodded. “All three of us were. Me and Meena and Gibran.” He smiled. “My parents live in Annapolis, Gibran’s in Baltimore, and Meena’s down in the Outer Banks.”

I nodded. I couldn’t really respond in kind, since he already knew Vi lived in Williamsburg and that my parents were dead.

I was saved from having to come up with something by a chime from the oven. Raj smiled at me. “That’ll be dinner.”

He pushed himself up to his feet, and I followed.

The kitchen smelled incredible.