When I was discharged, Amina took me not home but to a small rented apartment in a quiet neighborhood, and brought Dev back from her mother’s so he would not have to hear any of it.

I walked slowly, one hand over the wound, and looked at the life she had built alone: a secondhand dining table, three chairs that did not match, an old refrigerator, and Dev’s wooden bed repaired with metal screws.

“You paid for all of this yourself?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“On my assistant’s salary, and the accounting I do at night.” “And what did my mother give you, from my paycheck?” “It went to the utilities and the bus fares and the cheapest groceries.

Some nights I drank warm water for dinner, so you and Dev could eat enough.”