For two years after her divorce, Simran had avoided the door to her own future, convinced it was locked, that whatever version of her life she'd once imagined was gone for good. She moved through her days competently but numbly — work, home, sleep, repeat — telling herself this was simply what her life looked like now.

Her daughter, twelve years old and unusually perceptive, asked her one evening, "Mumma, when did you stop being excited about anything?"