“That’s normal—I don’t have much time on weekdays.”

You and Seema are infected with Tahera’s energy and want to help. But she waves you away: “Go make sure Seema’s packed and ready for the hospital. I can cook faster by myself.”

The kitchen comes to life. Cabinets and containers open and close, pots and pans clang, the knife goes chop-chop, mustard seeds splutter, ladles scrape the sides of pans in a frenzy, water whooshes in the sink, papads sizzle. A parade of aromas tickles your nose—curry leaf, asafetida, turmeric, onion, frying oil, rice steam, cilantro.

Meanwhile, you and Seema have little to do because Seema has already packed her bag for the hospital. So you look into her closet and take out my belongings, newly purchased or gifted, and you show her how to correctly fold my little outfits, not in quarters, bunched up, but with sides folded in, as they were laid out in the store. Seema doesn’t complain but returns the stacks to the closet and brings you more things to fold, including some of hers.

“Everything’s ready,” Tahera calls out before you know it. “I just need to finish my isha namaz.”

The dining table is laid out with plates, silverware, napkins, covered dishes, moons of papad, glasses, water—just like you used to do, for your daughters to carry up to the rooftop. You’re impressed by Tahera’s speed, but saddened too: some things you’ve taught her, and some things life has.

She’s taken a shower, and is dressed again in her hijab and jilbab. Her twin plaits have disappeared, and with that her previous frenetic, animated self. Her isha namaz is back to its unhurried deliberation. She packs plastic bags with the picnic material as methodically.

Seema leads the way up, you follow, Tahera behind you with the bags. The stairs require grim determination—the pain intensifies with each flight, especially the last, and you proceed slowly, sustained by the sliver of the luminescent sky visible through the door.

San Francisco, lit by a thousand lamps, including a giant one in the sky, lies twinkling before your eyes: the sky a deep peacock blue, the moon saffron, the bay glistening with silver reflections, the city crisscrossed with garlands of light like strings of jasmine. Everything gleams—rooftops, railings, leaves, walls, roads—polished by the rain. And though this is not Chennai, it is a city under the moon, and cities under the moon everywhere have the same ethereal loveliness.

Tahera unpacks the bags while Seema points out the various landmarks: the Christmas-tree-shaped Transamerica building, the double necklace of the Bay Bridge, the blazing Market Street, and across the bay, as though on another continent, the faint shimmering lights of Oakland and Berkeley.