.14

The photograph was not from India. It was the tropics but not a continent. A cliff island in the Caribbean judging from the fat girl knees and the passport.

The knees were still the same, dimpled on the side, thighs sloping down and cupping the bottom of the bone, a little bowl of flesh for that vulnerable, floating cap.

How would he get her to India?

Bring those knees up to her chest, tie her up like a calf and mail her UPS ground? Would he then get a ticket for himself and meet her at the other side? Send her to a hotel room? Would he open that box and pull her out, bring her to the windowsill and say, “I brought you. Here you are, dead in India.”

Was that what she wanted?

It was hot, humid, sticky.

The back of his collar clung to the back of his neck.

He undid the top button.

Took a photograph of it. His button.

“She is born in India.”

She wanted a new beginning. She wanted a fresh start.

She saw in him an opportunity.

She had made a choice earlier that evening—to take her chances, bet that someone like him would be here, that he would collude with her—give her what she wanted. Give her a new life.

There was a reason why she had picked this night. The strip on the ovulation test kit in the trash was hot pink. She had made a choice.