My to-be mother knows the risks associated with bearing me at her age. But she’d not been overly concerned until learning of Nafeesa’s condition. In the last two weeks, witnessing her mother’s decline heightens her awareness of how quickly the pillars of our lives—hers and mine—could collapse, how suddenly the ground could shift beneath us. We are, after all, in a land of earthquakes. She’s single, and she needs to assign a substitute parent for me.

But in asking Tahera to be my guardian, isn’t she motivated by another reason too? In addition to securing someone to take her place were something to happen, isn’t she also trying to find someone to take her mother’s place? The prospect of being set adrift again, unmoored, when Nafeesa’s gone, agitates her. Who else can she turn to but Tahera?

And so she comes up with this way of testing her sister, of checking how solid the walls separating them might be. Some ancient compulsions persist, she hopes, despite the barriers built up by history and time. That a dammed-up stream of love may yet find its way through and flow again, ending years of drought.

On that rain-cocooned afternoon when Tahera, breaking down, accepts provisional charge of me, Seema believes both prayers to be answered. Afterward, Tahera sits by Seema’s feet, watching the rain make patterns on the windowpanes, while Seema finishes braiding her hair. A peaceful silence has descended between them.

For what more can be said, with both sisters unwilling to imperil the fragile, dearly bought peace?

Presently, Tahera gets up for the asr namaz. Seema moves her chair so Tahera can use the corner for her prayers, but she continues observing: There’s a fierce grace to Tahera’s motions, a strength in their sureness, each gesture, each posture unfolding without hesitation, as though inevitable. As though ordained.

3

Sweet Grandmother! Sweet mother of my to-be mother and could-be mother! You do not know yet of the reconciliation between your daughters—however unspoken and tentative—when you hobble into the living room as day turns into evening. You are unrested from your nap. All afternoon you’d been worried that the pain, returned since the morning like a spring refilling a well, would overflow the confines of your body, once again no longer yours to conceal. It has receded to more manageable levels now.

But look—Tahera and Seema in twin plaits!