I was widowed at twenty-nine. I got to say so in my own words.

My husband died four years ago and after that every introduction began with somebody else explaining me to a stranger, in a lowered voice, as though it were a fault to be got past. Here I wrote it in the second line of my own profile, in my own words, and the men who could not read it past that line simply did not write. Kamrul's first message did not mention it at all until I did. We are two years married and my daughter calls him by his name, which he says he prefers.