And, as though your heart and mind—revolting against being asked to withstand the extremes you’ve swung through the last few minutes, from boundless affection toward Seema to censure—have released some check on your body, the pain from earlier this morning comes surging back. You begin to shake uncontrollably.

Seema has left the room with her friend and the doctor before your distress is noticeable. Tahera and Fiaz surround you.

Ammi? Aunty? What’s happening? Are you okay?

You clench your jaw and breathe out—I’m fine, I’m fine. You don’t want to make a scene. Already the sonologist is gaping at you, unease on his face. You grasp Tahera’s hand to steady yourself and ask her to lead you out of the room. Fiaz and Tahera assist you back to reception, the pain pulsing every step of the way. Fiaz eases you onto a seat, and Tahera sits beside you, stroking your still-shuddering shoulders and chest.

Fiaz hovers about with questions: Shall I get her some water? Should we call someone?

The receptionist makes as if to hurry toward you, and you wave her back. “Where’s Seema?” you pant. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“Don’t worry about Seema,” Tahera says. She rubs your palms and blows into them, as you’d done to her many times when she was a child, in a futile attempt to ease the pain.

You’d been caught off guard by the suddenness with which it returned. You know its course, its peak and gradual ebb—you’d like to be alone with it. “I want to leave. Everybody is staring at me.”

You try to push yourself off your seat. Fiaz lends you his arm.

“Ammi, stay here till you feel better. It’s raining,” Tahera says.

Yes, outside everything is a blur, only smudged shapes visible through the raindrops that break against the glass and speckle the window.

“We can wait in the car,” Fiaz says, responding to your tightening grip on his arm. “Leigh is with Seema. She’ll take care of her.”

You hobble past the receptionist, holding tightly on to Fiaz’s arm. Downstairs, you wait on the steps under the glass canopy for Fiaz to drive his car up to the entrance of the hospital. You ignore Tahera’s pleas to take a seat in the lobby inside or to at least take her arm for support.

She is distraught. “Ammi, why won’t you listen to me?”

Because: this pain is an appropriate punishment for your unforgivable anger toward Seema. How could you start blaming her, like her father and sister? Instead of making amends, your visit to San Francisco is now tainted. Clutching the ends of your shawl to your chest, you huddle in your misery and your suffering. “Leave me be, Tahera. Nothing can be done.”

The spasms in your legs make it painful to stand, and you know you should take the arm Tahera has offered, but you can’t ask for it now. “You can’t help me, Tahera. If you want to help me, there’s only one thing you can do. Help your sister.”