For one terrible moment she thought she was going to faint.
“You are not a bastard.”
“But he said—”
“I don’t care what he said. YOU ARE NOT.”
The sharpness in her tone startled him into silence. Immediately guilt flooded her. This was her fault. She should have been more careful of her reputation. They stood out like a sore thumb and she had made it worse. She pulled him gently closer until his head rested against her shoulder.
“You listen to me carefully. You are loved more than anything in this world,” she whispered into his hair.
“And your father was a very brave man,” she lied. “He would have been so proud of you. It's just that he died.”
Tanay nodded slowly against her coat.
But after a moment he asked quietly—
“Then why don’t they like us? Danny and his friends?”
"Well, we fear things which are different from us, don't we? Like that caterpillar with all those hairs. Or the bee that almost stung you. But caterpillars turn into butterflies and bees make honey. It's just that we fear what we don't know."
Tanay chewed on that all the way home.
***
Asha was standing by the stove stirring vegetable curry when she heard the steps like thunder on the staircase outside.
There was nothing stealthy about them.
It was almost a relief when the knock finally came. Asha told herself it was best to get this over with. Maybe then he would leave them alone.
He had abandoned the silent prowling way he usually climbed the stairs at night. No, this sounded like a herd of wild elephants descending on a field of sugarcane.
The old staircase groaned beneath his weight.
Tanay looked up from his homework like he too was expecting this.
Asha’s stomach dropped despite expecting it when a fist beat loudly against the door.
BANG.
The entire building seemed to shake.
“James!” Mrs. Burton shrieked from somewhere below. “Keep it down afore I call yer mother!”
Then James’s voice roared back down the stairwell, his accent thicker than usual.
“She already bloody knows!”
Asha stared frozen at the door as another bang rattled it.
A wild pulse hammered in her neck. Without realising it she began chewing anxiously at a torn hangnail.
“What do you want?” she muttered to herself under her breath.
BANG.
Finally, she yanked the door open. And there he was. He looked more massive than ever in his anger. And he was raging. He filled the narrow landing so completely it felt impossible there was enough air left for anyone else.
