“Of course it was. But I suppose mentioning that would have disrupted the neat narrative arc from suffering through oppressive dictatorship to director of the Center for Civil Liberties.”

  “Well, we all create our neat narrative arcs, don’t we?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “You at twenty-seven, living with your parents because you were unable to pay your rent. And then boldly striding into a top VC office and using chutzpah and smarts to get a job.”

  In the wake of the dot-com crash, Layla had thrown Maryam out of the Notting Hill flat they’d recently moved into together because she was sick of her girlfriend moping around eating ice cream rather than getting on with finding another job. Maryam had moved in for a few days with her parents, who had brought with them from Karachi everything that might help London feel like home—from their art collection to their social connections. It was at their urging that Maryam had gone to see Margaret Wright, who was sister to an Oxford friend of Toff’s.

  “Oh, that,” Maryam said, acknowledging that Zahra could easily have mentioned there was another part of her story that had deviated even further from the truth—her grandfather’s death, the sale of Khan Leather. How calmly she’d talked about it in the interview, how accepting she’d sounded about her parents’ decision to move their family somewhere more “stable.” The Patriarch had died of a heart attack during Maryam’s first term at boarding school, and when she’d flown back for the funeral Toff was already in talks to sell Khan Leather—Maryam was all grief and rage, more animal than human. She’d lived at Zahra’s house during her brief return home, refusing to be anywhere near her parents except during the rituals of mourning.

  A knot of women approached the pond and called out in enthusiastic greeting to Maryam, who said her hellos in that pleasant but restrained way in which she’d always dealt with the mothers of Zola’s friends so they wouldn’t feel encouraged to ask her to join their poker games or spa outings. The sociable Maryam of their teenage years had been replaced by a woman who guarded family time too much to be drawn into new friendships.

  “Oh god, why am I so bad with their names?” Maryam muttered, taking out her phone and pretending to read something off it while using the camera to take a picture of the women as they approached. A single click, and the women’s faces were tagged, their names flashing up on the screen.

  “Thanks for picking her up on Friday, Louise,” Maryam said smoothly to one of the women, who smiled and said it was always a delight to have Zola over.

  The women had come to take pictures against the backdrop of the red bridge—It’s our spot, one of them said—and there was a slight awkwardness as they pretended that they thought “Zola’s mum” should be included, which Maryam sidestepped by offering to take the photograph, claiming that Zahra was useless at holding a camera phone steady. Zahra nodded her regretful acknowledgment of this fact. The school mums were full of gratitude, and everyone understood that to be about Maryam’s deft handling of the situation. As they walked away, Zahra heard one of the women say, “She is nice,” as though confirming something they all already knew but remained a little mystified by.

  “They were practically giddy to be around you, did you notice?” Maryam said.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “They were! When I said you couldn’t take a picture they had these smiles that said, Why should Zahra Ali have any photography skills? She’s Britain’s conscience. Let other people take the photographs. Let Zola’s mum do it.” Maryam’s tone was affectionately teasing, an apology in there for her earlier sharpness.

  “Now you’ve gone and ruined my reputation as a photographer,” Zahra said, rapping on Maryam’s boot with a fallen branch. “What app were you using there? Imij?”

  “Yes. We should start marketing it to older users as a memory aid for aging brains.” Maryam linked an arm through Zahra’s. “Did I say there’s some fish thing for lunch? By popular demand, you’re making those green beans with mustard seeds.”

  Zahra’s phone buzzed. She used her free hand to edge it out of her pocket and glanced down at the screen, angled away from Maryam’s sight. Singapore again.

  Another Sunday, and lunch ended with Maryam’s roast chicken reduced to splinters of bone. “Still astonishing after all these years,” Layla said. It was a long-running joke that the moment Layla realized she’d truly been accepted into the Khan family was when Maryam’s parents were able to gnaw through bone and cartilage in her presence without worrying about showing her their most unrefined side.

  Maryam’s mother extended her hand toward Zola’s plate, where wing bones had been reduced to nubs. “This one really is all Khan sometimes,” she said. Zeno never passed on an opportunity to comment on any similarity she could find between Zola and someone perched on Maryam’s family tree, even if the connection was as tenuous as Zola’s interest in gymnastics and some great-uncle who’d entertained several generations with his ability to do cartwheels all the way into his eighties—her comments always delivered in a tone that suggested the connection proved something that needed proving about this granddaughter of hers who was composed of no Khan DNA.

  Zahra looked across the table to Maryam, an unspoken Let it go in the slight movement of her head. All these years later, Maryam could still become enraged when one of her parents revealed the little bit of their hearts that still placed Zola in a separate category than their other grandchildren; she saw too clearly in that revelation the continuing wish that their eldest daughter had gone down another route in life, which they were sure she could have if she’d just been a little more concerned with how awkward, sometimes impossible, it would be for them to reveal to their friends that they had a lesbian daughter with a Black partner and a child born from some sperm donor of unknown family background whom they’d found in a binder. Layla almost always thought Maryam was being too hard on her parents, still holding against them their early resistance to the coupling (“What will people say?” her mother had predictably said), but thank god for Zahra, who’d had a lifetime of Zeno to learn all her subtexts.

  Perhaps that was the key to the longevity of childhood friendships—all those shared subtexts that no one else could discern. And perhaps shared subtexts felt even more necessary when you both lived far away from the city of your childhood that was itself the subtext to your lives. Childhood friendship really was the most mysterious of all relationships, Maryam thought, as she signaled Zola to get up and clear the plates; it was built around rules that didn’t extend to any other pairing in life. You weren’t tied by blood, or profession, or an enmeshed domesticity, or even—as was the case with friendships made in adulthood—much by way of common interests.

  Soon Zahra would be the only one left in London who had been an integral part of her childhood. Maryam’s parents were moving back to Karachi after three decades in London, taking all their subtexts with them, a development more unsettling than Maryam would have imagined. Their middle daughter had moved back when she married straight out of university and was living a life that closely replicated the one they’d left thirty years ago. By contrast, everything in Maryam’s life was a mark of her separateness to her parents—her work ethic, her partner, her child. Even this house with its elongated lower floor without demarcations between dining room, kitchen, and living room, all cement and oak and stainless steel enlivened by colorful furnishings and huge windows—everything about it was a world away from her parents’ Karachi-transplant of Persian carpets, calligraphy on the walls, cut-glass ashtrays, and silver ornaments, and the firmly closed kitchen door behind which the hired help cooked and scrubbed.

  “Do you think you might do the same one day?” her mother was saying to Zahra, as conversation moved to the Return.

  “Go back to Karachi?” Maryam said. “Some people leave in order to leave, not because they’re intent on disrupting everyone else’s life before flitting back to where they started.”

  “Mama,” Zola said. “Without the disruption you wouldn’t have Mum and me.”

  “Exactly,” Zeno said, as though her entire purpose in throwing Maryam to the wolves of an English boarding school had been to liberate her from conventions around sexuality.

  “Oh, even if I hadn’t been packed off to London at fourteen I would still have met your mum through Zahra Khala and fallen madly in love with her. Any road taken would lead me to you and her.” Zola made a face of disgust at the talk of falling madly in love, but there was no hiding her pleasure at the confirmation that there was no better life Maryam dreamed of that didn’t involve her. Layla’s foot reached out under the table to rub against Maryam’s ankle, and she focused on that instead of the skeptical look her father was sending her way.

  The Return had been an idea so long discussed it had felt inevitable it would never be anything other than chatter, but now there were one-way plane tickets and invitations to farewell dinners and shipping containers addressed to a flat in Karachi where her parents could live independently but close at hand to an untroublesome daughter and fair-skinned grandchildren. They would slip so easily back into Karachi life, her mother returning to her round of ladies’ teas and charity boards, and her father continuing on with the life of crosswords, outdoor activities (originally tennis, now golf), and socializing that had been his entire adult existence—in London, his wife’s canny investments in the property market with proceeds from the Khan Leather sale had allowed him to remain as idle as he’d ever been in Karachi. Home had always been a place waiting for them, burnishing its own appeal with its luxury developments and burgeoning restaurant scene and a dramatic reduction in crime due to “operations” by police and paramilitary forces—all this, when placed alongside the pound-to-rupee conversion rate and the salaries of domestic staff, made it the only possible destination for a comfortable old age.

  Zeno returned to her conversation with Zahra as if no interruption had occurred. “I thought maybe with your parents getting older, Zahra, and so much to be done in human rights there.” And without a family to keep you here, said her subtext. “Of course, I can see why you might prefer to stay.” It’s easier to be a single woman in London, the subtext continued.

  Zahra rested a hand on her chin, gave Maryam’s mother that slightly teasing look that had crept into their relationship through Zahra’s university years when the older Khans made it clear that their London flat was Zahra’s home. Unspoken reciprocity for those school holidays when Maryam flew back and lived with Zahra and her parents while the rest of her family summered in Europe, refusing to countenance Karachi heat.

  “Admit it, Aunty Zeno. The real reason you’re leaving is you’ve finally given up on setting me up with a nice boy from a good family.”

  “There’s time before I leave for that final one up my sleeve,” Zeno said. “Oxford, Wharton, does something with hotels. Not the most good-looking, but perfect manners, and none of the usual British Asian hang-ups.”

  “What are the usual British Asian hang-ups?” Zola asked.

  “When you don’t understand what your grandmother means, it’s safe to assume she’s talking about class,” Maryam said.

  “Oh,” said Zola, putting a hand to the side of her face so she could roll her eyes without her grandparents seeing it. “Anyway, Nani, there’s no point. Zahra Khala is asexual.”

  “Good god,” Maryam’s father said.

  “Your Zahra Khala is single by choice, Zola. That’s not the same thing,” Layla said in the conversational tone she used whenever Zola let slip a new concept that Maryam didn’t see any reason for someone of her age to know. “People can be responsible about having sexual partners without—”

  “Could we not have this conversation in front of my parents?” Maryam said at the same time Zahra made a prolonged sound of agony.

  “You think the problem is your parents rather than a ten-year-old?” Zeno said.

  “Yes,” said Maryam and Zahra together.

  “How many sexual partners do you have right now, Zahra Khala?” And now Zola was being wicked, not about to pass on the rare event of finding both her mother and her godmother so discomfited.

  What was it right then in Zahra’s face, the strange furtiveness of her expression?

  “Isn’t it lovely outside?” Layla said, looking toward the glass doors that led into the garden. The afternoon was sun-drenched, showing off the wisteria clambering up Layla’s studio at the bottom of the garden and the flower beds, sumptuous with color. “Why don’t you all leave me to do some cleaning up? No, really, it’s faster this way.” The other adults trooped onto the deck, Zola and Woolf following, and took up positions on the rattan sofa set: Maryam’s parents on the two-seater, Maryam and Zahra on the armchairs. Woolf settled at Maryam’s feet, Zola perched on the arm of Zahra’s chair.

  Very soon, everyone well fed and a little drowsy, talk stalled. It didn’t bother any of the adults, who were happy to look at the garden in bloom, feel the warmth of the afternoon, listen to the sleep-rumblings of Woolf. But Zola, barred from using her tablet when her grandparents were over, needed some form of entertainment and attempted to convince Zahra to play Would You Rather with her.

  “Later, sweetheart,” said Zahra.

  “Why are grown-ups so boring?” Zola demanded. There was something new in her voice these days when she was disappointed, an undertone of rebellion that foretold the adolescence for which Maryam wasn’t anywhere close to ready. At ten Zola still had a child’s body, but her underarms had a new etching of dark hair and she had become self-conscious about sleeveless shirts now that warmer days were here. Of late, she’d worn nothing but her black leggings and an oversized Billie Eilish sweatshirt, both of which Maryam would have to steal out of her room while she slept tonight so she could wash them.

  “I was going to invite you backstage with me for a BST concert in Hyde Park, but you won’t want to go with someone boring,” Zahra said.

  Zola let out a little scream and wrapped herself around Zahra.

  “Is Annie playing?” Zeno said, her first-name familiarity with Annie Lennox based on the principle that anyone known to Zahra was a Khan intimate by proxy.

  “No,” and Zahra threw out the name of one of the world’s biggest music acts, as if to say she didn’t want to brag about her starry fandom, and was only saying since Zeno had asked. Zola squealed; Zeno pretended to know who Zahra was talking about even while misspelling the name into her phone’s search bar. Toff looked disappointed and said he wished it were Barbra Streisand, whose upcoming summer concert was the only one that had crossed his radar.

  Maryam bent to pet Woolf and looked up at her father. He winked at her, and she couldn’t help the conspiratorial smile she returned, pleased by his refusal to be impressed by Zahra’s name-dropping, which was never more blatant than in the company of the Khans, as if they might hold some view of her that made it particularly important to stress how vast her footprint in the world was, how coveted her presence at North London dinner parties. The wink and smile ended the silent battle Toff and Maryam had been engaged in for most of the afternoon, which had grown out of Layla’s complaints about a local arts organization that had invited her onto their board in the name of “change” and then made it clear that her presence there was all the change they intended to bring about. Well, obviously, Maryam had said. No one gives up power, not even if they’re incompetents about handling it; they hoard it or they sell it. Her father had launched into a funny story about a king and his sons, the speed with which he moved to charm the table making it clear he knew exactly which incompetent was on Maryam’s mind.

  “Shouldn’t someone be helping Layla?” Toff said, looking pointedly at Zola, who was still squealing. The onset of his seventies suited him remarkably well; the indolence of his earlier years was recast as the earned repose of later life. Maryam hadn’t exactly forgiven him for either the sale of Khan Leather or her grandfather’s death, which she was certain was due to the strain of going through every day knowing his beloved company would pass into the hands of strangers, but, three decades on, those feelings tended to come out as withering asides rather than rage.

  Maryam glanced indoors. Layla was walking toward the sliding door with her characteristic upright posture that could sometimes be brought to slumping by the company of Toff and Zeno, but not today. She had emerged from the silent interlude in the kitchen wreathed in graciousness, bearing the silver coffee set that had been a gift from Maryam’s parents and which was never used except when they visited—a Layla courtesy; Maryam said it only encouraged the buying of gifts that showed the narcissism of the gift-givers in reflecting their tastes rather than those of the recipients. Maryam stood, opened the door, and, with an apologetic kiss on Layla’s cheek, used the opportunity to slip into the house and make straight for her phone, which was charging at the breakfast bar. Zola wasn’t the only one banned from devices when Zeno and Toff came for lunch. There was a string of messages with “Imij” in the subject line from investors and members of the Imij board, which Maryam chaired.

  Maryam clicked on the link in the first of the emails. “Imij Almost Killed My Child” ran the headline over a picture of a girl in a hospital room, bandages around her wrist. Maryam placed a hand over her stomach. A thirteen-year-old schoolgirl had attempted suicide because of bullying, much of which had taken place on Imij. The schoolgirl in question was Muslim and overweight. Several obviously coordinated accounts used the app’s photo-editing tools to bring the girl’s eyes closer together and flare her nostrils—a wealth of cruel comments made their way onto those posts from people who didn’t seem to know her but had much to say about a piggish girl in a hijab. A column accompanied the news stories. “Government must intervene to prevent the harm being done to our children by social media,” declared the columnist, who usually saved his vitriol for left-wing politicians and climate activists.