Seetha went into the kitchen and returned with two plates of warm rice and a piece of mango. She set a plate in front of him and sat with her own. She did not ask him to stay. She did not demand he choose. Instead she told him a story of the river that split at the foot of their village: both channels had water—one went past the temple, the other curved through fields. The villagers loved both, she said, because both carried life in different ways.