The truth is, Grandmother, just as you couldn’t find it in you to be angry with your husband all those years ago, you can’t fault Tahera for her departure now. You don’t disagree with everything Tahera has said. Though you want to be, you’re not yet entirely comfortable with all the choices Seema has made. And you’re not unaware of Seema’s shortcomings—unlike your husband, you’ve mostly had a clear-eyed understanding of your elder daughter’s sometimes manipulative and self-serving nature. Some of Tahera’s accusations have insinuated new misgivings in your mind, which you don’t know what to make of yet.

In your defense, Grandmother, you’ve had only a few hours to digest the reality of what your elder daughter is asking of you for the second time.

“I’d rather have no daughter,” her father had proclaimed the first time, during one of their many rancorous fights on Seema’s last visit from England, “than one who makes me hang my head in shame.”

“I cannot lead a life of falsehood,” your daughter had declaimed in reply, “just to save your face.”

What life she wanted to lead, you didn’t ask then—because you couldn’t imagine that life as being anything other than impossible, unhappy, fruitless. Even the words to describe it—homosexual, lesbian—have sibilant, sinister overtones. You refused to use the words and dismissed the matter as another of Seema’s attempts to shock you. You reproached her for her willfulness, you begged her father for forgiveness on her behalf.

Even on the morning you found Seema gone—her room bare, her clothes and suitcase missing, pale rectangles on the wall where her favorite photos used to be—you didn’t take her seriously, thinking it a ploy to bring her father around. You thought she’d gone to your sister’s house, where she’d been spending a lot of time during that trip. Only when you learned she was not with Halima did you start panicking.

You’ve seen today—finally, at the dinner with Seema’s partner and friend—the contours of the life Seema could lead. But you’ve not been given time to grapple with the knowledge; you’ve once again been asked to pick sides, this time between the two daughters you’d hoped to bring together as your last act of motherly consideration. The rift you’d come to heal has ripped open wider than it had been before.

You want some time alone with your sorrow—your multiple failures as a mother—before you face your elder daughter again.