The Bones of Grace. Tahmima Anam

She advised me to push Rashid to move out of his parents’ house. ‘It’s always better that way, you won’t argue about the cooking.’

      ‘I hate cooking anyway.’

      ‘But you would still argue about it,’ she laughed. Then she looked at the clock on the wall and said, ‘Will you wait here? I’ll come back in a few minutes.’

      It was six. She was going to turn on the television for her favourite soap, an Indian series about a villainous mother-in-law and her twelve obedient sons.

      ‘Go,’ I said, ‘I’ll be fine.’ I looked down at my phone and saw: I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes). I didn’t know that one, so I looked it up and played it on my phone.

      I get along without you very well

      Of course I do

      Except when soft rains fall

      I lay down on the sofa and gazed up at the ceiling. Nanu’s chandelier swam above me. I could hear the crude violin chords of her soap opera.

      I’ve forgotten you just like I said I would