Homeseeking

But Howard noticed Suchi still sang with her features pulled wide—her eyebrows high on her forehead, her eyes enlarged, her nostrils flared—an expression of passion that had made her self-conscious the one time he’d pointed it out to her. In another two hours he will be on the train with the other enlistees, a bulging backpack pressed against his belly, a photograph of Suchi against his breast, a tremble in his heart, waving at the receding image of his family. It should still be in there.” Suchi’s heart leapt. He understood she loved him and his siblings in a way no one in this world would ever love them again—selflessly, unrelentingly, unrequitedly—and it would hurt her in the end, had probably already hurt her many times over, was hurting her at that very moment.