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anticipate by next summer. He told her how often to water, and for how long, to wait until the sun had gone down. He showed her the bottle of fertilizer he’d bought, and told her when to add it to the watering. Patiently she listened as Akash dashed in and out of his pool, but she absorbed little of what her father said.
    “Watch out for these beetles,” he said, plucking an insect off a leaf and flicking it away. “The hydrangea won’t bloom much this year. The flowers will be pink or blue depending on the acidity of your soil. You’ll have to prune it back, eventually.”
    She nodded.
    “They were always your mother’s favorite,” her father added. “In this country, that is.”
    Ruma looked at the plant, at the dark green leaves with serrated edges. She had not known.
    “Make sure to keep the tomatoes off the ground.” He leaned over, readjusting one of the plants. “This stake should be enough to support them, or you could use a little string. Don’t let them dry out. If the sun is strong check them twice a day. If frost comes before they’ve ripened, pick them and wrap them up in newspaper. And cut down the delphinium stalks in the fall.”
    “Maybe you could do that,” she suggested.
    He stood up awkwardly, a hand gripping the front of his thigh. He took off his baseball cap and wiped his forehead with his arm. “I have a trip scheduled. I’ve already bought the ticket.”
    “I mean after you get back, Baba.”
    Her father had been looking down at his dirt-rimmed fingernails, but now he raised his face and looked around him, at the garden and at the trees.
    “It is a good place, Ruma. But this is your home, not mine.”
    She had expected resistance, so she kept talking. “You can have the whole downstairs. You can still go on your trips whenever you like. We won’t stand in your way. What do you say, Akash,” she called out. “Should Dadu live with us in here? Would you like that?”
    Akash began jumping up and down in the pool, squirting water from a plastic dolphin, nodding his head.
    “I know it would be a big move,” Ruma continued. “But it would be good for you. For all of us.” By now she was crying. Her father did not step toward her to comfort her. He was silent, waiting for the moment to pass.
    “I don’t want to be a burden,” he said after a while.
    “You wouldn’t. You’d be a help. You don’t have to make up your mind now. Just promise you’ll think about it.”
    He lifted his head and looked at her, a brief sad look that seemed finally to take her in, and nodded.
    “Would you like to do anything special on your last day here?” she asked. “We could drive into Seattle for lunch.”
    He seemed to brighten at the suggestion. “How about the boat ride? Is that still possible?”
     
     
     
    She went inside, telling him she was going to get Akash ready and look up the schedule. He was suddenly desperate to leave, the remaining twenty-four hours feeling unbearable. He reminded himself that tomorrow he would be on a plane, heading back to Pennsylvania. And that two weeks after that he would be going to Prague with Mrs. Bagchi, sleeping next to her at night. He knew that it was not for his sake that his daughter was asking him to live here. It was for hers. She needed him, as he’d never felt she’d needed him before, apart from the obvious things he provided her in the course of his life. And because of this the offer upset him more. A part of him, the part of him that would never cease to be a father, felt obligated to accept. But it was not what he wanted. Being here for a week, however pleasant, had only confirmed the fact. He did not want to be part of another family, part of the mess, the feuds, the demands, the energy of it. He did not want to live in the margins of his daughter’s life, in the shadow of her marriage. He didn’t want to live again in an enormous house that would only fill up with things over the years, as the children grew, all the things