He wanted to retreat to a time before he knew his father, a time when he was buffered from the world and its sorrows by his mother, spared any sound but the drumbeat of her heart, a time when memory had not existed, and so loss could not. He wished everyone would leave so he could be alone with his mother. He felt so sorry for her. She’d lost her father when she was much younger than Ravi was. And now this.
