You tell your sister you are thinking of living alone. She looks around the flat you share with your partner and asks, gently, whether you have considered the rent.

Leila has a folder named “the café.” Inside are a budget, pictures of chairs, three versions of a menu and a list of possible addresses. Her friends call her brave.

A child at the kitchen table draws a horse with six legs. She explains that the extra pair helps it run faster, then gives it a sun almost as large as its body.

There is a drawer you open when you are looking for tape. Inside it lies a single knitted sleeve, a notebook with three pages of a story, and the small packet of seeds you meant to plant in spring.

The message on Niko’s phone is courteous, clear, and almost impossible to argue with. It thanks a friend for the years they have known each other, explains that he needs some distance, and wishes her well.

At the end of dinner, everyone moves to the living room except Salma. She is still helping clear plates when the conversation begins.

At the birthday dinner, someone asks what you have been doing lately. You give the edited answer.

Every summer you pass the outdoor pool and think, I could learn to swim properly. You have been able to stay afloat since childhood.

Mina is the person who can tell when her mother is about to say she is fine and mean the opposite. She learned that expression young.

At eleven on Tuesday night, the kitchen has been put back together and tomorrow has begun making demands. On the back of an envelope there is a drawing of a garden.