“You told her before you told me.” Tahera has gone rigid, knife paused midair.

“I had to tell her, Tahera. Otherwise she wouldn’t have agreed. I was planning to tell you both when I came here. I didn’t want to break it over the phone.”

“I’ve been a good daughter, haven’t I?” Her words are clipped, matching the rhythm of the knife as she resumes, hewing through the beans. “I would have come to Chennai. I didn’t because you said you were coming here. You didn’t give me a chance. Are you even planning to come to Irvine?”

Now you understand the earlier bitterness in Tahera’s voice. You do want to visit Irvine, perhaps after a few weeks of helping Seema with the baby—but who knows what your condition will be by then. “Seema’s alone,” you say. “How could I let her go through the delivery by herself?”

“You could have come to Irvine first.”

You’re on the brink of tears. Why hadn’t Tahera suggested that earlier? You knot and unknot the edge of your saree, biting into your lower lip to stop it from trembling. Tahera is a blurred outline.

But her voice is sharp, knife-edged. “Is it our fault she’s alone? Did we ask her to call herself a lesbian, then get married, then have a baby after deciding to get divorced? She’s always done what she wanted. Yet it’s Seema you come to spend your last days with, while I, who’ve always done what you wanted, am treated like an afterthought, like I don’t matter.”

Words fail you. They’ve always failed you. When you need them the most, Grandmother, they shrivel up somewhere deep within you and die.

Seema’s voice cuts through the moment; neither of you noticed her return. Peeking warily into the kitchen, she says, “Who doesn’t matter?”

“Nobody.” Tahera plunks down the knife and sweeps the beans onto a plate. “We’re just gossiping about Chennai.” Her eyes are downcast and hooded, but you can’t miss their angry glitter.

You soak up your half-formed tears with your saree before showing your face to your daughters.

17

How airless the apartment feels that afternoon, how strictly its space seems carved up among the three women.

After a meal that is almost as uncomfortable as the previous night’s, Nafeesa tosses restlessly in the bedroom, Seema shifts restively in her seat by the window in the living room, while Tahera, trapped in the kitchen, speaks to Khadija, her partner, in whose charge she’s left their family practice in Irvine.

It’s Nafeesa who suggests a walk, giving up on the elusive nap, not able to unhear Tahera’s accusations from the morning.

Seema and Tahera leap at the idea. But will the walk be too tiring for their mother? It’s obvious she will not be turned down. Tahera has to finish her asr namaz first, though.

The mid-October sun drips honey, doling out its warmth liberally, San Francisco’s vaunted fog still crouching behind the hills to the west. The two sisters flank their mother, each holding on to one of Nafeesa’s hands.