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returned with a knife. Standing before her, holding the knife by the handle and pointing it at his stomach, he said, “Kill me. Go ahead; kill me. I know that’s what you want.”
    “Do some work instead of being dramatic,” my mother said contemptuously.
    I became infected with the anxiety that Birju and my parents appeared to feel. When the sun shone and I went to Flushing Meadows Park, I had the sense that I was frittering away time. Real life was occurring back in our apartment with Birju studying.
    The day of the exam finally came. On the subway to the test, I sat and Birju stood in front of me. I held one of his test preparation books in my lap and checked his vocabulary. Most of the words I asked him he didn’t know. I started to panic. Birju, I began to see, was not going to do well. As I asked my questions and our mother and father watched, my voice grew quieter and quieter. I asked Birju what “rapscallion” meant. He guessed it was a type of onion. When I told him what it was, he began blinking quickly.
    “Keep a calm head,” my father scolded.
    “Don’t worry, baby,” my mother said. “You will remember when you need to.”
    The exam took place in a large, white cinder-block building that was a school but looked like a parking garage. The test started in the morning, and as it was going on, my parents and I walked back and forth nearby along a chain-link fence that surrounded basketball courts. The day was cold, gray, damp. Periodically, it drizzled. There were parked cars along the sidewalk with waiting parents inside, and the windows of these grew foggy as we walked.
    My father said, “These tests are for white people. How are we supposed to know what ‘pew’ means?”
    “Don’t give me a headache,” my mother said. “I’m worried enough.”
    “Maybe he’ll do well enough in the math and science portions that it will make up for the English.”
    My stomach hurt. My chest was heavy. I had wanted the day of Birju’s test to come so that it would be over. Now, though, that the day was here, I wished Birju had had more time.
    Midway through the exam, there was a break. Birju came out on the sidewalk. His face looked tired. We surrounded him and began feeding him oranges and almonds—oranges to cool him and almonds to give his brain strength.
    My mother was wearing Birju’s backpack. “It’s raining, baby,” my mother said, “which means that it’s a lucky day.”
    “Just do your best,” my father said. “It’s too late for anything else.”
    Birju turned around and walked back toward the building.
    Weeks went by. It was strange for Birju not to be studying. It was strange not to see his study guides on the living room floor beside his mattress. It was as if something was missing and wrong. Often Birju wept and said, “Mommy, I know I didn’t pass.”
    A month went by and then two. A warm day came when I could tie my winter coat around my waist during lunch hour, then another such day, like birds out of season. Spring came. In Delhi, they would be turning on fountains in the evening, and crowds would gather to watch.
    The results arrived. Because Birju had said it so many times, I knew that an acceptance letter would come in a thick envelope. The one that he showed me was thin and white. Tears slid down his cheeks.
    “Maybe you got in,” I murmured, trying to be comforting.
    “Why do you think that?” Birju asked. He stared at me as if I might know something he did not.
    Our mother was at work. She had said not to open the envelope until she arrived, that we would take it to temple and open it there. This made no sense to me. I thought what the envelope contained had already been decided.
    My father arrived home after my mother. As soon as he did, Birju demanded that we go to temple.
    Inside the large chamber, my mother put a dollar in the wooden box before God Shivaji. Then we went to each of the other idols in turn. Normally we only pressed our hands together before each idol