Seema is seated by the bay window in the living room with the book of poetry she’d bought Tahera, while her mother naps in the next room. She reads what she remembers as her sister’s favorite poems, recalling the intensity and earnestness with which Tahera used to recite them. But the poems evade her—she remains unmoved by their lyrics or music. She has recited poetry herself in competitions at school, but they’d been mere performances, to be crafted and perfected. She stares outside the window, idly stroking her stomach, while she works on shoring up her will to talk to Tahera. Are there traces of the childhood sister still lurking in the stranger moving about the apartment?

Tahera is restless, too stirred up to remain idle. The asr namaz doesn’t take long, even with all the voluntary rakaat in addition to the obligatory ones. She calls Ismail, but he is busy at the mosque, overseeing the arrangements for the fundraiser that evening, and the children are having too much fun in the air castle set up in the parking lot to remain on the phone for long, even Amina. At least there’s no sign yet of any trouble. Tahera throws herself into tidying the apartment. She puts away her stuff and straightens the living room; she cleans the kitchen, and washes and shelves the dishes in the sink; she even mops the kitchen floor. When she’s done, she looks around for something else to do.

“Tahera, you’re making me tired just listening to you,” Seema says. “Come sit down. I want to speak with you.”

Tahera is thrown off balance by Seema’s request. “I don’t want to talk about Ammi right now.”

“No, not about Ammi.” Seema notes Tahera’s pinched face, which shows more anxiety than the hostility her voice suggests. “Please?” Almost unconsciously she employs the tone her younger self would use with Tahera to get her way.

It still seems to work. Tahera hesitates, then says, “I’ll make us some chai first.”

While Tahera brews chai, Seema counts fetal kicks. Her hands slide slowly over her stomach inch by inch, fingers spread wide. Both sisters are intent on their tasks as the minutes drag on, as though the future somehow depends on how conscientiously each carries them out.

Tahera returns and places one cup by her sister’s feet, then pulls another chair to the bay window and sits down, studying her. “How many so far?” she asks.

“Good boy,” Seema murmurs to me, reacting to a particularly vigorous kick. “Ten in fifteen minutes,” she tells Tahera. “He seems very active.”

They sip their chai deliberately, with exaggerated care, as if that were the sole reason for their sitting together.

The sun streams in through the window, the rays cutting into the living room, glancing off the hardwood floors, bathing them in a golden afterglow. The light softens them, making them appear less substantial, almost translucent.