My grandmother was named for the full moon. She hated her name. Badri was short for Badrosalat, and perhaps the awkward syllables tripped on her tongue and on the tongue of the man who once loved her, and on the children whom she loved and abused as she loved and abused herself.

My grandmother died three times. Once, when her infant daughter shriveled in her arms; once, when her adult son's blood destroyed him inside-out; and then over at least ten years, where her body wasted away and her legs buckled beneath her and her fingers curled into her palms. On this final death, I was about four months shy of 21, coming up to the end of my third year in college. Exactly one week after she died, I tried to kill myself. 

Death comes in threes, they say. Death comes for all of us. It seems to...

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