Lakshman, an Indian-American teenager, reflects on his mother's drinking habits. His paternal grandmother encourages his father to beat up his wife, but Lakshman's father refuses, which Lakshman finds weak. At parties, Lakshman's mother drinks a lot and leaves the room with the other women to talk with the men. She pushes alcohol on all her party guests, which makes Lakshman feel like he has to take care of her. Lakshman's father grows increasingly angry with his wife. When Lakshman is fourteen, his father leaves for a long business trip in India, and his mother decides to stay in bed all day and drink. Lakshman grows concerned as his mother stops leaving the bed to use the bathroom or eat real meals; he calls his father often enough that his father flies home and calls A.A. Lakshman's mother goes to rehab for four weeks, but starts drinking again soon after returning home. Lakshman hears his father laughing on the phone at night, and he concludes that his father is calling a young girl out on the family farm in India, whom he must be cheating on Lakshman's mother with. Lakshman's father thinks about sending his wife back to her family to be killed for her alcoholism. Three days after Lakshman's mother leaves for India for a family vacation, Lakshman's father informs him that she has died of dengue. He's confused and in denial, but when he goes to the farm in India the next summer to visit his father's family, they gossip extensively about the possibility of his mother's murder. Lakshman resolves to never return to the farm.