The Cost of Living

C H A P T E R 21 THE COST OF LIVING When the old house had closed its bleary eyes and settled into sleep, Ammu, wearing one of Chacko’s old shirts over a long white petticoat, walked out onto the front verandah. She paced up and down for awhile. Restless. Feral. Then she sat on the wicker chair below the moldy, button-eyed bison head and the portraits of the Little Blessed One and Aleyooty Ammachi that hung on either side of it. Her twins were sleeping the way they did when they were exhausted—with their eyes half open, two small monsters. They got that from their father