In a certain morning light, Manju could see the name MEENA traced faintly in a broken piece of cement just outside the toilet. “Only in that light,” she said, “and even then, it’s barely there.” Another, lesser Meena lived in Annawadi, and a man who loved that Meena had once carved her name on the inside of his forearm. Manju thought he’d probably written MEENA in the wet cement, too. It stood to reason. But she preferred to believe that Meena’s own finger had made the letters, and that the first girl born in Annawadi had left some mark of herself on the place.
