my girls and i talk about most things & yes my girls and i don’t talk about
some things on sleepovers when we get dressed for parties when we do
each other’s eyeliner carefully, gently, someone sitting on a bed and
someone above & yes we do not discriminate against our own & when they
hit her sister we worked them out of the wound & no we don’t talk our
parents’ incomes but yes we know what goes on & we know about the
chinthrel state of her mind & yes we went to a convent school & yes all-girls
schools are unique & yes at some points we fell in love & no it was not
awkward because we knew each other outside & yes this is an open secret
& yes Sister Mercedes imposed a strict uniform & yes for a long time i was
awkward around boys & yes our school was stratified & yes we know
twenty minutes away they butchered a pregnant woman & no we were
quiet & yes we are alert & yes our parents call us if we aren’t home by
eleven & yes we went to Law Garden & yes i wove the frangipani into
rings when i was five & no i always dropped the ball when my brothers
asked me to field & yes my ball did slam into the wicket (once) & yes we
gossiped with our grandmothers at a long enamel dining table & yes i went
to a function on my period & no i sat at the back so people wouldn’t ask &
yes i know that stray dogs enter the compound in the dark and sit on the
swing & yes i have seen their oblong eyes juiced in meditative silence & yes
sometimes i join them