But there’s this: the anguish in Arshad’s voice when he’d asked her, barely three days ago, “Why do they hate us so much, Ammi?” And she’d forsaken him, convincing herself his father was the right person to counsel him.

And also this: Amina’s voice on the phone, trembling at the mention of the brother she loved, her desperate plea: Come home, Ammi, make Bhaiya better. As if Amina sensed—but how? by what sisterly connection?—some fever waiting to carry her brother away, some tragedy poised to change their lives.

But what can she do?

What has she ever offered Arshad, anyway? A son to whom she has never felt the way she should feel toward a son and who, perhaps in retaliation, treats her with the same remote and ambivalent affection. A son who slipped away from her even as he slipped out of her, and now may be slipping away even further.

She’d been pregnant with Arshad during her residency in family medicine and felt resentful at the disruption to the career she needed in order to rebuild some semblance of the life she’d left behind in India. Following the delivery she’d left Arshad in Ismail’s care, to return almost immediately to her rotations. Had Arshad sensed her resentment? After her daughter was born, she’d smothered him with the same affection and endearments she lavished on Amina, but perhaps by then it was too late. She had to be content with his forbearance, his quiet eyes always watching her as though he could see through her.

She has failed not only her son but also her daughter, who loves him, whose happiness depends on him. Just like Tahera’s happiness once depended on her sister.

She recalls her mother’s words from the afternoon: Why do this to yourself, Tahera? You must learn to fit in. If not for yourself, at least think of your children.

Meaning: there is no one to blame but herself.

She feels it in her body, a sharp and searing pain: a grief deeper than she has ever known. For she’s not just grieving the past but also some cherished future for her family, which seems on the brink of collapse. It includes the losses of the past—a sister, a father—and the losses yet to come—a mother, a son, perhaps even a daughter. The grief comes upon her so suddenly that she has to grip the terrace wall to hold herself up, as though the bones in her legs have melted.

But no! The floor under her has vaporized. She’s hovering over the city of San Francisco, whose trees and houses and streets and hills are shimmering under her, awash in a fiery light she hadn’t noticed until now, as though the city were burning and its flaming tongues were leaping toward her, threatening to swallow her up. The scorching flames of the guilt and remorse of mothers, daughters, sisters, unable to love or incapable of protecting those they hold dear.