Her ringing phone jarred her out of her thoughts. It was a sound she didn’t hear often. Her dearest friends, in their old age, had moved into their children’s homes in nearby towns, a few all the way to Karachi. Her building now burst at the seams with young families. She knew them enough to smile or make small talk while passing in the hallway. She doted on the children, offered them lollipops. But the community she and Mahad had known over the course of their lives had moved to quieter, smaller towns.

The phone rang for the fourth time. She was tempted to stay put, but something told her to answer it.

“Hello?”

“This is Dr. Enami. I’m following up after our meeting last week.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Laila. She took a deep breath. “It’s so good to hear from you.”

“I’d like to talk to you about showing your work at the museum. I’m thinking summer of 2017. I was so impressed by your pieces. You have a strong point of view, a powerful voice, and a unique perspective on Partition. Let’s set up a meeting next week at my office to sort out the details for your debut.”

Laila sat down slowly as if not to break the spell. She was not expecting this news. Last week, she had spent all morning scrubbing her studio from top to bottom, washing the floors, tilting her pieces just so to capture the natural light. The museum director, Dr. Farah Enami, hadn’t said a word when she toured Laila’s studio, didn’t ask a single question, didn’t write anything down, snubbed Laila’s offer of snacks, addressed her directly only upon leaving, by simply wishing her a good day.

She didn’t expect to hear from the director again, assumed that at Laila’s age it was too late for her to begin a new career as a sculptor. She didn’t give a public showing of her art another thought.

“I can’t believe it,” Laila whispered. She puttered around the flat in a trance. She searched for paper, popped open drawers, lifted magazines from the coffee table. When she came upon an old envelope, she jotted down the names and dates Dr. Enami rattled off for the duration of Laila’s show. She could hardly take it all in, thanked her profusely before hanging up.

Day had begun burning the chill off the earth. Sunlight seeped through the crevices in the curtains. Laila set the phone down, examined her fingers and the blunt, unpainted nails of a sculptor. They were almost unrecognizable to her now. When she worked with silk, she spent hundreds of hours soaking, filing, and painting her nails so that when she laid them against a swath of silk, they magnified its opulence. Her nails had lost their luster working with metals.

But they had gained strength.