The blood has soaked through her clothes to the sheets, and she pulls her knees in to escape the wet patch, even though in the dark she can’t make out its extent. But her own body prevents her, a protrusion growing out of her, solid, globe-like, unexpected. It’s then she panics, awash in realization, one thought screaming through her mind: Ishraaq!

For one long paralyzed minute she wills Bill to be here, to help her out of this puddle of blood and carry her away, as he’d done once before. But, of course, Bill is no longer by her side, and neither is Leigh, and Tahera has left, and she’s sent Fiaz away and locked her mother out. Her father is oceans away. She’s all alone, like she’d always feared.

She fumbles for the switch of the bedside lamp. Her hand strikes a vase and sends it crashing down—first the splash of water, then the shattering, loud in the confines of the room. She forgoes the hunt for light and lurches out of bed, her only thought now to get out of the room toward help—for her baby, her baby!—for whom she would bear the pain of stepping on glass, though she tries to avoid where she expects the shards to be.

But it is the water that undoes her, slimy from the stems of calla lilies soaking in it for two days. The first hobbled step on the slippery hardwood floor, and her foot slides. She teeters for a moment, for the second time in a week, poised as if time itself has paused, and then her world pitches backward. Her hands flail, seeking a reprieve, something to intervene, but this time there is no sister to pull her to safety. Her head strikes the bedside table.

Her last gesture before she loses consciousness: one hand strokes feebly the dome of my world, offering and seeking comfort.

Oh, that each moment could be an age. Then we could live long in little space, and Time itself would be annihilated.

37

Grandmother, you’re sitting on the front steps of Seema’s building. When you return from seeing your younger daughter off, you find the door locked—it locked automatically behind you. There’s no response when you buzz Seema’s apartment, and you decide to sit down for a while, because it occurs to you that you don’t want to return immediately to Seema’s home. You will rue this lapse soon, Grandmother, you will beat yourself up over it.