ASIL dreamed of a familiar house: small and well made, a house built for a warm climate with carefully tended orange trees by the door. He paused beside the bench positioned where it would catch the shade of the biggest orange tree when the sun was high in the sky. Running a finger over the clumsy jointing between two of the pieces that formed the back, he wished vainly that he’d had time to fix it.

Even knowing what was going to happen, he couldn’t make himself stay by the bench, not when Sarai was in the house. He had no photographs of her, nor had any of the paintings...