I called Ammi, who picked me up after an Uber shift. “Men are like that,” she said when I told her what happened. She didn’t yell at me at all for being at a party with drinking. “Fatima’s rebelling because he cracks down on her so much.” She set her hand on mine. “You are a good friend to her.”

Now Fatima rests her head on my shoulder. I breathe in her minty-coconut shampoo smell. “You’re right, Rania. What would I do without you?”

What would I do without you too? I think. But I can’t stop the spinning motion inside me. What if everything tilts so fast, we’ll be pulled apart?

A black car pulls up to the curb and her father gets out, slamming the door. I tense. He’s a thick-limbed man, with rumpled hair like Fatima, and an angry air. Fatima says it’s just because he’s got too many responsibilities with the business and all his relatives wanting something from him. “Fatima! Why aren’t you inside, helping your mother?”

She sets her mouth into a hard line. “Just a little lie about the party,” she whispers, her fingers brushing mine.

Lies, I think. Big, little lies. What are the ones that matter?

Later, back at the apartment, I’m doing my homework when the bedroom door creaks open and Kamal sidles up to me, climbs onto my lap, and sets his head on my shoulder. He rarely does that. “When is Ammi coming home, Aapi?” he asks. Only sometimes does he call me big sister.

“Soon,” I say.

“Soon when?”

I don’t answer, but hold him tighter until he softens with sleep and slips away, back to bed. I am left with an ache in my bones, as if I have the flu. I’m wide-awake. I pace the apartment. Ammi rarely allowed us to touch on the past. I’d ask all kinds of questions—remember that girl I used to walk to school with and who was allergic to avocadoes? Or the ice cream place across the road that had the best pistachio flavor? Sometimes she’d get a little sentimental and we’d curl up on the sofa, watch silly Bollywood movies or sing ghazals.

Rahiye ab aisī jagah chal kar jahāñ koī na ho

ham-suķhan koī na ho aur ham-zabāñ koī na ho

be-dar-o-dīvār sā ik ghar banāyā chāhiye

Let’s live in that place where there’s no one, let’s go

Where no one knows our tongue, there’s no one to speak to.

We’d build a house without doors and walls…

She’d slip her arm around me, squeeze tight. “See, Rania? That’s what we are. A house without doors and walls. We have ourselves. And that’s enough.” She’d slap her knees. “Come! No more dwelling in the past. We are here now. Remember that.”