Her house is filled with sighs. The air is stiff with disappointment. Linen covers and long curtains prevent the furniture from fading. A staircase climbs into the shadows, up to rooms we've never seen. Our tentative movements waver in the walnut surfaces.

The formal lounge is for guests only. We are shunned into the family room. Shoes off at the door. Tiptoe through. No yelling. No 'dirty' words.

Hugo, the basset hound, gets precedence on the armchair. We ease back onto cushions that hold their breath.

She is full of hard edges—quartz, diamond, marble—and serves us tepid tea, pale as her hands. The sugar cubes beg to be toppled. She negotiates the journey from saucer to lips with a slight tremor; a tremor she ensures we can all see.

Scotch fingers are arranged on an 'everyday' plate. Dry and bland, each bite creates a desert in our mouths. Crumbs million the floor. Karan spills his juice. Its archipelago stain eats into the fabric. Her eyes widen: Just as well I put the old slipcovers on. She smiles the concrete smile reserved especially for us—the one without any joy.

The children reach for more biscuits with caramel hands. She tracks their every movement. Her cheeks collapse into her mouth.

Her son shares the familial golden hair and blue eyes'”an anagram of her looks, stamped with his own copyright. But where are his rearranged features? She looks for them in her grandchildren. One after the other, they emerged from the womb, as dark as the space they'd inhabited; eyes like polished chestnuts, hair as thick as the night.

I wear my long coat, outside and in. I refuse to remove it. She refuses to offer. From above my feet peeps a shimmer of sari. I tuck my legs beneath me.

My tongue manhandles the English language. I am now well-versed in discussing the weather.

#

My children's voices bend and snap with fluent Glaswegian. They know all the bad words—damn, shit, fuck; chutiya, gandu, madarchod.

We live in a building with many stairs and many people. My kitchen sizzles with masala and turmeric. The walls sweat with steam. Hindi tumbles from the radio. In the corridor, the neighbours bang and shout as loud as the kids.

My home is far removed from her Edinburgh townhouse. She refuses to visit. I refuse to offer. Instead, she relays her grief through her first-and-only-born. He hangs up the phone, his eyes telling the many ways he's let his parents down.

On our wedding day, dark henna cobwebbed my skin, inking his love into me. Only its visibility has washed off.

Her house is filled with sighs—I used to be my own worst enemy. Even that, you've taken from me.