Deepa had written the letter a dozen times in her head, never on paper, addressed to a father who had left when she was nine and never once looked back. For twenty years, she'd carried the anger like a stone in her pocket — always there, always heavy, rarely spoken about.

When she heard he was dying, something in her cracked open. Not sympathy exactly, but a sense that time was closing a door she hadn't decided whether to walk through.