Nur.

Aminah wakes Nur at half past six. Always the same: a hand on his forehead, whispers, no turning on the light. Nur takes ten minutes to sit up. At half past six the world still isn't his, but Aminah is already in the kitchen.

At seven, the table has what it always has: kaya toast and teh tarik. Kaya toast is soft bread spread with coconut and pandan jam, cut into triangles that Aminah props against the edge of the plate so they don't go soggy underneath. Teh tarik is tea with condensed milk, very sweet, very hot at first. Nur doesn't touch it until he can wrap both hands around the mug without burning himself. That's his thermometer: if he can hold it, he can drink it.

He eats little. He eats slow. Really slow. Nur is a child who smells food before tasting it, tilts his head, and sometimes refuses it for no obvious reason. But the reason exists: nothing crunchy-hard, nothing spicy, nothing with a rough texture or that gets stuck in his teeth. Sweet and mild flavors. Kaya toast passes because it's soft, sweet, warm. Teh tarik passes because it's liquid and sugary. Tau huay, mee siam with little spice, ripe banana. Aminah has learned that it isn't pickiness: it's a filter Nur applies to everything that goes in his mouth. If he tries it and likes it, he repeats it every day without variation. If he doesn't like it the first time, there's no second chance.

Aminah's kuih lapis is another matter. Thin layers of sweet dough colored with pandan — green, white, pink, green, white, pink — that Aminah makes in a square tray that takes up the whole counter. Nur helps with one layer: the green one. He concentrates with the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips, spreads the dough with a wooden spoon that's too big for him, and when he's done he stays watching Aminah do the rest. They don't talk. The smell of pandan and coconut fills the kitchen of the eighth-floor HDB flat in Toa Payoh, and that smell is part of what makes the kitchen a place where Nur can just be without feeling like he has to talk or explain anything.

At twenty past seven they leave the flat. Five minutes walking to school. Aminah carries his backpack if Nur is too sleepy. Sometimes Nur stops in the middle of the pavement because he's spotted an ant or because a smell has reached him that he wants to identify. Aminah waits. She doesn't rush him. They'll get there.

Nur's breakfast lasts longer than any other child's in the neighborhood. Aminah knows it and accepts it. And sometimes the kaya toast is left half-eaten because Nur has been staring at something out the window — a myna on the drying rack, a shadow moving in the void deck, the reflection of the sun in the window of the block opposite. Aminah says "makan" (eat) once, quietly, and Nur goes back to his plate. Sometimes he doesn't go back. Sometimes breakfast sits there until it's time to leave and Aminah wraps the leftover toast in foil for him to eat at recess. She never gets angry. She never throws food away. There's an unspoken rule in that house: food doesn't get thrown away.