The Art of Inheriting Secrets(111)

He laughed. “Let’s start with a dog.”

“We’ll have two cats and a dog!”

“They’ll be all right.”

“Are we doing this, then? Me and you?”

He gave me his wide, inclusive, benevolent smile. “Has there ever been any doubt?”

As he kissed me amid the treasures my mother had spirited away, I felt her in the room, smoking and cheerful. I felt Violet and Nandini, swirling together, at last, in us, in our blood.

“Let’s be happy,” he said.

For all of them, for ourselves. “Yes,” I said.





Acknowledgments

Sometimes, a book simply arrives, practically whole, and this one did exactly that, flying into my life on a dark Thursday morning when almost everything in the world seemed upside down. I’m so grateful to the people who helped me bring it into the world, including my agent, Meg Ruley, and the publishing team at Lake Union. My fellow G, Kaumudi Marathe, was very generous with her expertise in helping me develop the idea of Coriander and the fresh, beautiful food that would be served there, as well as the vast differences in foods across various regions in India. I learned more than I could have imagined from her books, including her cookbook, The Essential Marathi. I am also deeply grateful to Sonali Dev and Monica Pradhan Caltabiano, who made room in their busy schedules to read the manuscript and sometimes had conflicting comments, which emphasized even more that India is indeed vast, not One Thing but many, many, many. Thank you for helping me sort through it.

Finally, I’m grateful to the Writer Unboxed gang who were gathered in Salem, Massachusetts, that week and Sarah Ramsey, who shared it too.