The God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined.

It was the kind of time in the life of a family when something happens to nudge its hidden morality from its resting place and make it bubble to the surface and float for a while. In clear view. For everyone to see.

She was twenty-seven that year, and in the pit of her stomach she carried the cold knowledge that, for her, life had been lived. She had had one chance. She made a mistake. She married the wrong man.

This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.