Chapter 1
The kitchen smelled like cardamom, fried onions, and the sharp edge of something burning at the bottom of a pot.
Not fully burned. Not ruined. Just that warning smell, the one that says if nobody turns the heat down in the next thirty seconds, everyone will pretend it was supposed to taste smoky.
I stood in front of my mother’s stove with a wooden spoon in one hand and sweat crawling down my back under my blouse. The windows were fogged from steam. The counter was crowded with bowls of chopped cilantro, lemon wedges, sliced cucumbers, and a tub of yogurt so big it looked like it belonged in a cafeteria. Three trays of naan were stacked under kitchen towels. The biryani pot was heavy enough that I had needed both hands and my hip to move it from one burner to another.
In the next room, twenty-five men were laughing.
I could hear shoes on my parents’ marble floor, the clink of ice in glasses, my brother Zain’s loud voice rising above everyone else like he had personally invented celebration. Someone called for more chai. Someone else asked if the kebabs were ready. A cousin I had not seen in two years shouted my name as if I were part of the service staff.
“Leila! More plates!”
My mother appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.
She was dressed in a deep burgundy silk outfit with gold embroidery at the sleeves. Her lipstick was perfect. Her hair was pinned back with pearl clips. She had spent the entire afternoon walking through the house like a wedding planner at a hotel, pointing at things, correcting flower arrangements, telling my aunts where not to stand.
Now she looked at me the way she had looked at me my entire life.
Not angry exactly.
Worse.
Certain.
“Go,” she said. “Start serving.”
I turned the flame lower under the biryani. “Where is Dadi sitting?”
My mother blinked once. “What?”
“Dadi.” I set the spoon down on the ceramic spoon rest. “Where is she sitting?”
Her face tightened. Not enough for the guests to notice if they glanced in, but enough for me. I had spent thirty-four years learning the weather patterns of that face.
“This is not the time,” she said quietly.
I looked past her shoulder. The dining table was visible through the doorway, shining under the chandelier. Twelve places set properly. The rest of the guests were spilling into the living room and family room with plates in their hands. Zain sat at the head of the table, laughing, his watch flashing under the light.
My grandmother was not there.
“Then when is the time?” I asked.
My mother’s eyes moved toward the hallway, then back to me. “She is tired.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She is eighty-two years old, Leila.”
“That was not my question.”
The laughter in the next room dipped for a second, then rose again. Someone had started a video on their phone. A burst of music played and cut off.
My mother stepped farther into the kitchen and lowered her voice. “Do not embarrass us in front of guests.”
I almost laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because that sentence was the family anthem. Do not embarrass us. Do not speak too loudly. Do not ask why Zain gets praised for breathing while you get assigned dishes. Do not mention who paid the electric bill last winter. Do not point out that Dadi eats alone in a room at the back of the house while everyone else talks about family honor over plates of food she taught us how to make.
The clock on the microwave read 6:47 p.m.
My flight to Honolulu boarded at 9:15.
I had not told anyone about it.
My phone was in my purse by the back door, sitting under my folded coat and the small blue envelope I had carried around for three days without opening in front of anyone.
My mother followed my eyes to the clock.
“What are you looking at?”
I wiped my hands on a towel. “I’m looking at how much time I have.”
She frowned. “For what?”
I untied the apron slowly. The strings were damp from hours against my waist.
“For the first time in my life,” I said, folding the apron and placing it on the counter, “I think I have just enough.”
Her mouth opened slightly.
Behind her, my father appeared in the hallway. He was wearing his gray suit, the one he only took out for important occasions and arguments he expected to win. My brother’s friend Sameer leaned around him with an empty plate in his hand, then froze when he felt the temperature in the room.
My mother saw the apron on the counter.
“Leila,” she said, and this time my name was a warning.
I did not pick up the ladle.
I did not serve the first plate.
May you like
I stepped around her and walked down the hall toward my grandmother’s room, while twenty-five hungry men waited for a daughter they had all assumed would never leave the kitchen.
And the strangest part was, my hands were finally steady.
