“What shall I say when they ask how I know you?” Leigh whispers back. “Do I look okay?”

“You still look like a schoolboy. They’ll wonder what I’m doing hanging out with you.”

“But you love me.”

“Shh—go chat with my mother and sister.”

“Your sister frightens me.” Tahera seems so closed off. Her reaction to Tahera suggests some deep-rooted ambivalence she’s never acknowledged to herself before. She feels unsafe, threatened.

The receptionist hands Seema a urine container, and Seema leaves for the bathroom, handing the lilies back to Leigh. Nafeesa has sat down with Fiaz, and they’re both engaged in a conversation—in Urdu, Leigh assumes, envying the intimacy that seems to have developed between them. She wishes she hadn’t looked in Tahera’s direction, because now Tahera makes her way toward her.

“You’re Seema’s friend.” Tahera flashes a smile that surprises Leigh with its welcome. “I met another of Seema’s friends yesterday. Divya—do you know her?”

“I do.” Leigh is chagrined: even Divya has met Seema’s family before her. “Where did you meet?”

“Near the park, with that panoramic view. When Seema and I went walking. Divya is very nice.”

“She can be.” Leigh struggles to keep her voice even. “I’m sorry, but—when? I mean, what time?”

“Around noon. Why do you ask?”

Leigh shouldn’t have asked, but she did, and now the day loses it bright edge, flattens to match the gray outside. Not only did Seema turn her down yesterday, but she took her sister and Divya to their spot. And as the park is not Divya’s scene, her presence couldn’t merely be a coincidence.

The lilies in Leigh’s arms become a mocking reminder of the day she first whispered her love. Seema hadn’t responded but had arrived the next time with these lilies and an apology that she wasn’t ready yet to make such a declaration. And Leigh, who’d been expecting it to be their last time together, was relieved. Calla lilies would be their flower, she’d declared, the first flowers either had given the other. But if Divya is back in the picture, she wishes she hadn’t brought them today.

She would be foolish to confront Seema here, so she opts to engage with Tahera, discussing her journalism and Tahera’s practice in a pleasant exchange. Her initial response to Tahera now seems absurd: it’s not Tahera who’s the threat. When Seema returns, she’s immediately called in. Seema’s obstetrician, Dr. Jennifer Connelly, doesn’t object to having a partner or a friend present while examining her pregnant patients, and having accompanied Seema on previous visits, Leigh has been looking forward to this—until now.

She straightens to go with Seema. But so does Tahera. They both stop short, confused, looking to Seema for direction.

“Would you rather have your sister with you today, Seema?” Leigh asks, her voice small, both wanting to be the one chosen and fearing the moment when they’re alone together in the examining room, waiting for the doctor.