See them promenading down the bridge. Anyone would think them a family: a mother and her two children, walking hand in hand. Arshad’s cap glows in the golden sunset. Amina’s hijab flutters in the breeze, as does Seema’s shawl. Seema has wound it tighter around her shoulders and head now, no longer pretending to be chilled. She’s glad for the children’s hands, warmth shared between them. The warmth reaches the inch of me, burrowed deep in her body.

Soon she’ll have to return the children, like books borrowed from a library. They sense the end nearing too. Amina clings tighter. Arshad becomes urgent with questions about growing up in Chennai with their mother. Seema answers, hesitantly at first, then loosening up. She talks about two girls who slept in the same bed, who went to the same school, who read the same books, who played the same games, who sang the same songs—including the one about the rocking horse that escapes.

“Why haven’t we seen you before, Seema Aunty?” Amina asks. “Will you come to Irvine to visit us?”

Before Seema can think of a lie, Arshad replies, “No, silly. If she’d wanted to, she’d have come before.” He glances sidelong at Seema, but Seema senses no hostility in his remark and is baffled.

“Don’t you like us, Seema Aunty?” Amina says. “I like you.”

“Why did you say that?” Seema asks, directing her question at Arshad.

They come to a halt under one of the towers of the bridge. Arshad hops onto the lower railing and peers over at the water.

“Don’t,” Seema says sharply, and he jumps off the railing back onto the bridge.

“Why did you cover your head this morning?” he asks, looking directly at her.

“I was cold,” she replies. “San Francisco’s cold.” She shivers involuntarily.

“Ammi says you don’t practice deen.”

“She told you that?”

“I asked her why you eat nonhalal meat. Why don’t you practice deen, Seema Aunty? Why don’t you submit to Allah?”

“Well, why do you?” The question slips out of her even as she recognizes the absurdity in interrogating a ten-year-old.

The three of them are protected from the wind by the tower, and they don’t have to struggle now to be heard. The world seems to be holding its breath.

“Because,” he says. He looks around, then points to the tower spearing the sky. “Because this is awesome. We couldn’t have built it without His help.”

“Muslims didn’t build it.”

“We’re all people of the Book. We all pray to the same God.”

“Do we all have to pray the same way?” she asks. “Do we all have to live the same lives?” She is alarmed by the bitterness in her voice, its vehemence. Why pick a fight with a child? This would earn her Tahera’s ire if she learned of it.