# Running Parallel The courtyard stretched out empty and vast. Sheuli stood by the gate, her hand still gripping the iron bars as though they might snatch back what had just happened. The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly, turning the red brick walls into furnaces. She could hear her own breathing—sharp, irregular, like the gasping of something trapped. Inside, her mother was folding clothes. The rhythm never changed. Fold, stack. Fold, stack. As if nothing had shifted. As if the world hadn't tilted on its axis somewhere between the breakfast dishes and the afternoon mail. "You could have told me," Sheuli had said an hour ago, her voice cutting through the kitchen silence like a blade. Her mother's hands had stilled for only a moment. "Told you what?" "That he never loved you." The clothes basket had clattered. Her mother's face had remained composed, but Sheuli had seen the small tremor at the corner of her mouth—barely there, almost invisible. The way her hands moved afterward had changed. They moved like they belonged to someone else. Now, watching the empty courtyard, Sheuli wondered if that tremor meant everything, or nothing at all. Two parallel lives, she thought. That's what they were living. Her mother downstairs with her methodical folding, her certainty that some things required no explanation. And Sheuli, out here by the gate, trying to understand how two people could inhabit the same house, share the same meals, breathe the same air, and yet travel along routes that never once intersected. The gate creaked in the wind. She did not turn around to see if her mother was watching from a window. Some things, she was beginning to understand, were better left unseen.

- If you're going to work like this, don't bother coming from tomorrow, Amin's mother. After you leave, I have to redo all your work. The clothes aren't clean when you wash them, the plates are still dirty. Look what you did to your husband's white shirt the other day—soaked it in water so hot. Look with your own eyes.

Shefali felt as though she'd been struck by lightning. At a time like this, when work had dried up everywhere, when no one was calling her, if she lost this house, how on earth would she survive?

Just the other day she'd stood outside the Samihads' gate for nearly two hours. She'd said, 'Auntie, I'll wear a mask and work, I'll wash my hands every so often. I won't go near your daughter. Auntie, I'll do it for half the wage.'

They didn't even open the gate.

When Samihah's father came back from shopping, he saw Shefali and barked at her, 'Hey, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you not to come?' And as he threw some loose change at her, he said, 'Get out, get out right now!'

- Auntie, oh auntie, listen, don't do this to me. The worry about money and the worry about my children, it's driving me mad. That's why... I won't do this again after today, auntie.
- I don't want to hear any more. Don't come again from tomorrow.
- Auntie, my children will starve. I'm begging you! Auntie, oh auntie...
- No, no... don't grab my feet, stand back!

Nayan heard the commotion from the neighbouring house. She lives in a mess. Her two younger siblings go to school. Their father is ill, doesn't do much now, and he's got cataracts—needs surgery. He can't see properly. God knows how her mother is managing the household. Nayan doesn't even have the nerve to call home in these times. She's alone in the mess; her roommates have all gone home. Their landlord is a good man, so Nayan explained her family's situation and stayed.

Nayan did well enough to get into Notre Dame College—otherwise she'd never have dreamed of coming to Dhaka. Since she arrived, she's been tutoring to pay her own way, and she sends money home too. She works hard all day long. Her aunt doesn't come to the mess; she cooks for herself. And now her HSC exam is stuck—no one knows when it'll happen. Nadia is the only student she can still teach. Her mother takes her studies very seriously.

That evening, lying in her mess bed, Nayan kept thinking about what Nadia's mother had said yesterday. It's Ramadan, and after iftar her body feels terribly exhausted. During this time, Nayan survives on nothing but soaked rice at both sehri and iftar.

Lately she's been a bit late getting to Nadia's for lessons. After iftar, her body just won't move.

Nadia's mother had been saying, 'What's the point coming so late, child? When you arrive late and teach her, afterward Nadia doesn't want to study at all. And I know it's hard for you to come at this hour too. Child, listen, maybe instead...'

Before she could finish, the phone rang and Nadia's mother went into the other room. Nayan understood perfectly well what that stretched, sing-song way of speaking meant!

Three thousand taka a month. Plus two hundred for transport, though she walks anyway. Fifteen hundred to send home. What if the tutoring falls through? Will she end up like Amin’s mother, throwing herself at Nadia’s mother’s feet? Will she be able to say, ‘From tomorrow, no more delays. Please don’t cast me out. My father, my mother, my little brothers and sisters going without food…’?