After the men left for offices and the children for school, the house exhaled. The servants came and went. The pressure cooker on the gas stove hissed like a content snake. Neha finally sat down with her second cup of ginger tea. This was her quiet hour. She scrolled through her phone, looking at European vacations she knew they’d never take, while listening to her mother-in-law’s serialized drama.

And as the last light in the pink house went out, the stray cow by the back gate lowed once, softly, as if saying goodnight.

No one asked how she knew which boy had no mother. In an Indian family, Grandmothers just knew .

She closed her eyes. In America or Europe, she thought, this would be a problem. A repair man would come, fix it, leave a bill. Here, it was just another sound in the symphony of House Number 43.

She knew that meant he’d eaten a greasy samosa and was now suffering. She sighed. This was the rhythm. She spent her afternoons coordinating—ordering gas cylinders, negotiating with the electricity department over a faulty meter, and mediating a petty fight between the two house help over whose turn it was to sweep the terrace.