He ruffles her hair.

Leela shrieks, "I'm flying, I'm flying,"

as they launch her kite into the clear sky.

It's my turn next.

"Keep the string taut." Govinda shouts instructions at me.

I feel a gust of air catch my kite, lift it, then suddenly drop away, almost sending it crashing into the trees.

I reel the line in.

The yellow paper tail loops, swirls, climbs until it's a tiny golden streak, long tail glittering.

I take tiny steps, forward and back.

The sun warms my face and I feel the wind racing as if my kite is carrying me into the sky.

I feel small. Light.

Hear a tinkling tune in my ears-high and sweet- the sound of silver bells.

I almost feel the way I did as a child, dancing.

Govinda says, as though he can read my mind, "That's what the best dancers do.

They focus on dance.

They forget their feet, their bodies, their dancer selves.

They let dance tug their souls upward.

And as they rise, they lift their audiences closer to heaven, too."

ABSOLUTE.

Joyful music plays in my head all the next day. But when I come home from school, an ambulance is screeching away from our building.

"Paati collapsed," I hear Ma say.

"Pa's in the ambulance with her."

The music stops.

Mrs. Subramaniam runs out of her apartment.

I hear her shocked voice asking what happened, which hospital.

Calling a taxi to rush us there.

My tongue is frozen.

Chandra told me once about absolute zero, a temperature cold enough to bring the universe to a standstill.

My heart feels like it's at absolute zero.

Pa meets me and Ma in the hospital waiting room, his cheeks shrunk with worry.

Heart attack, he says, but she survived.

Thank G.o.d. Ma sobs.

Pa and Ma lean against one another.

Shivering, I sink into a chair.

NIGHT.

My room feels deathly silent without Paati's breath lulling me to sleep.

I run my fingertips over the feet of my bronze statue of Shiva dancing on the table between our beds.

"Please. Let Paati come back home."

Moonlight drips into the dark room.

I slip out of bed, crawl on the floor, yank open the metal trunk beneath Paati's bed, in which she stores her things, and drink in the soothing basil-aloe scent of her soap.

Paati's saris glow, a sh.e.l.l-bright patch of white.

I take a sari out of the trunk.

Lay it on my pillow.

Bury my face in it.

Let it soak up my tears.

Bathed in her fragrance and her softness, I drift toward sleep.

GHOST WHITE.

Lying in her hospital bed, in her white sari, Paati looks like a ghost.

I rub her fingers. "Are you in pain? How are you feeling?"

"Well enough to get out of here soon.

Tell me about you," Paati says.

I half sob, half laugh with relief. "I'm okay."

"Tell me more or I'll throw you out myself," she says.

"Paati, I'm waiting for you to come back. I miss you so much I've been praying to my Shiva at night."

Paati circles my wrist with her fingers. Her touch is frail but her eyes brighten and she says, "Good."

I stroke the folds of skin on her cheeks, her forehead, the silvery strands of her hair spread out on the pillow, thin as strips of moonlight on a cloud.

A nurse pokes in, saying an old student of Paati's wants to see her, can she let the woman in?

"So many years since I taught.

Yet students keep remembering and returning with love.

Maybe you should try teaching dance someday.

Maybe if I've acc.u.mulated enough good Karma, I'll be one of your students in my next life." She chuckles.

I don't. I don't want to think about Paati's future lives.

I'm just glad she's still here, near me, in this one.

THE DANCE.

of

ATOMS.

Chandra comes over to ask about Paati.

I ask her to go to the temple with me so we can pray for Paati's health.

We walk past the empty lot where Paati and I met the beggar who wished me better Karma in my next life.

Lightning and thunder rip the sky.

Within moments, the road turns into a brown river.

Plastic bags, banana peels, coconut husks float on the dirty water like disoriented boats.

Chandra and I shelter under the eaves of a nearby fruit vendor's hut.

Craning my neck, I see the beggar crouched beneath his tarpaulin, shivering.

I have so much, even though I lost a leg.

I have Chandra walking beside me, Govinda helping me relearn what I love, Ma and Pa both supporting me, Paati still alive and soon to return home.

But the question I asked Paati returns to me.

Why did G.o.d leave that beggar with nothing?

"Chandra, do you believe in G.o.d? In Karma?

If He's the soul of compa.s.sion, why does He let people suffer?"