Seema grimaces every time one convulses her, biting her lips to contain her cry, clamping her hands tightly around Tahera’s. This is the second one in the last half hour, and in between, the sisters have maintained a drowsy companionable silence to the sounds of Seema pecking away at her laptop. Tahera finds the pressure on her forearm, where Seema’s nails dig in, strangely soothing—it makes her forget her own discomfort.

“And this is just the beginning?” Seema asks, after a particularly intense contraction.

“These are just Braxton Hicks. True labor contractions will grow progressively closer and become more intense, lasting up to a minute.”

“I can’t imagine how painful those will be.”

Seema sounds scared. Tahera is reassured: here’s the Seema she’d grown up with, the Seema who’d turn to her in moments of pain.

“You’ll be okay.” Tahera realizes, with some shame, that she’d looked forward to her sister’s vulnerability, the only moments she’d felt needed, and appreciated. “You can always take epidurals if the pain becomes too much. And we’ll be there as well.”

A momentary bitterness: Who had been there for her, during her pregnancies? Her mother had wanted to come for her first pregnancy, but she’d refused her, aware of her parents’ disapproval of the life in Islam that she and Ismail were creating for themselves. And she’d been glad for it: going through the process with only Ismail and Islam for support had brought her closer to both. She had fallen in love with Ismail then, the way he and his faith steadied her, finding a peace in the rituals of their life together. And doing namaz together till the last moment had allowed her to get through the delivery without needing an epidural herself.

But those times seem almost idyllic now, compared to what is currently happening at home. There are too many issues to reconsider. Perhaps the expansion of the Islamic center is misguided, and perhaps Ismail should rethink his involvement with it. And how to protect Amina and Arshad if the situation escalates? Maybe it wasn’t the wisest decision to send them to an Islamic school. Maybe they should dress less differently, less conspicuously in the future—

But pondering these issues serves no purpose other than to aggravate her headache, sapping the energy she wishes to reserve for the day.

“I have to go help Ammi with the dinner,” she says, pushing herself off the bed.

“Tahera, wait.” Seema restrains her. “I need you to witness this.”

Seema reaches over, awkward in her bulk, to pull a folder from the bedside table. She takes a printed sheet from the folder and fumbles in the drawer for a pen.

“It’s my will—it names you as Ishraaq’s guardian.”

Tahera holds out her hand, and Seema hesitates but gives her the sheet. Tahera scans it without really taking it in, except for the line where her name appears: printed like the rest of the sheet. “You already made this?”

“I like to be prepared. You’re still willing?”