I have just started getting into reading magazines and specifically using Libby to read bits of articles here and there. I like the current political stuff and some media coverage but on the whole it hasn't been a very interesting experience until I came across this short story
I didn't even realize The New Yorker published short stories, at first I thought it was just an excerpt. It's about an Indian girl who has to go live with her aunt for a little while while her mom and dad work through the grief of having gone through a miscarriage.
The mystery and intrigue builds up in little blocks, each paragraph showing us a little moment in Nidhi's (our protagonist) life: her life with her parents, the going away to live with her aunt, meeting her aunt's mentally handicapped daughter...
I thought it was really well-written and compelling and by the end of it it built such a well-realized cast of characters that each had shades of darkness and human qualities in them that I wanted to explore their stories more, to spend a little more time with their thoughts and personal griefs.
It's a simple coming-of-age story that read like a thriller that was brilliantly paced and I would love it if other people learned about it as there wasn't a lot of discourse online
spoiler
Ahh that reading of it makes a lot of sense, and certainly explains Padmini's change in attitude.
Yes the aunt's reaction to Sudhir being around is odd. Is it just that he reminds her of her son, or (and this felt more likely to me) she's attracted to him? Like you say, I enjoyed the uncertainty of the ending.