My saliva-smeared hand is still clutching his chin.“They’re dead.The Taliban are in charge.It’s over now.”
“Is that what you think?”A look of feral cunning crosses Habib’s face.“Countries fall.Governments change.But greed never ends.Where did you hide it?”
“In the end, you will be allowed nothing.”I shrug.“Were you able to get out with anything more than the clothes on your back?I thought not.”
“I don’t believe you!You were always smarter than anyone gave you credit for.”Habib’s gaze focuses on my bulging stomach.He smirks.“Though maybe not smart enough.You’ll never be safe here.If I found you, so will the others.And they’ll be much less patient with their demands.You want to live?You want to save your bastard child—”
I clamp my hand over his mouth again.My cousin squirms to escape.And suddenly… I just know.Habib does, too.I can see on his face the exact instant he realizes it’s no longer his place to threaten me.That now, in these wretched circumstances, he’s the one broken and vulnerable, and I’m the one who’s powerful.
He stares at me defiantly as he begins to thrash more forcefully.I keep my palm slapped tight over his lips, using my index finger and thumb to pinch shut his already mangled nose.He screams, but the sound is trapped in his throat.
He’s right.If my uncles have discovered what I did and if even one of them or my cousins is still alive…
I use my growing bulk to my advantage, pressing down hard against my cousin’s struggling form.My hand is slimy, his will to live strong.But no matter how hard he tries to raise his hands to push me off, his injuries are too grievous, his body too weakened.
Habib’s legs kick.His neck bulges with his effort to escape.But I don’t let up.I push, I pinch.Push.Pinch.Push.Pinch.
When I was a girl, I dreamed…
Now I squeeze the final breath from my own cousin, my father’s brother’s son.Habib’s body has just gone slack, his legs fallen silent, when I hear a noise directly behind me.I quickly release his chin, then whirl around to find Dr.Richard watching me.
I wait for him to speak first.To say he witnessed it all, to ask me what kind of monster I’ve become.But his expression is grimmer than that.And then, I know.
Little Omid is dead.
Later, I stumble out of the clinic.It’s an hour before my official end of shift.My cousin’s body had disappeared by the time I returned to the exam room.Then the white-clad men had appeared for Omid’s tiny form… And I just couldn’t take it one second more.Dr.Richard said I could leave and so I did.
Now I walk.Not feeling my legs or arms.Not smelling the fetid odors of human sweat and raw sewage.Not noticing the slinking dogs or leering men.A dark-clad male halts in front of me.
I stare at him.
“My good sister, you should not be walking alone.”
I stare and stare and stare.Does he not know every woman in the world is alone, has always been alone, will always be alone?Does he not know, we expect it to be no other way?
Something in my expression spooks him.Maybe he can sense the rawness of my emotions, or the darkness of my deeds.He eases back into the periphery.I continue on, my bite-ravaged hand, scored by my cousin’s desperate teeth, tucked behind me.
I walk all the way to the little cabin where Isaad sits on our mat, his expression nearly childlike in its pained bewilderment.I sit down next to my husband.I pull his head onto my lap.I let his tears soak into my robes as he starts to sob, then wail, then rage at the heavens.Why, God, why?He was just a little boy!When will life have meaning again?Why, God, why?
I stroke Isaad’s hair, let him rail.My own eyes are dry, my grief contained, which is not how an Afghan mourns.Another sign I’m no longer the daughter, sister, countrywoman I used to be?Another sign I’ve become something so other, so alien, I’m no longer recognizable even to myself?
I think there are moments that cost you nothing and yetdemand everything.I think there are choices that allow you to survive and yet eventually cause you to perish.I think I never want to feel this way again, and yet I will never feel any other way.
I am lost I am broken I am numb.
And then…
My water breaks.
Zahra, on that dark night you arrived into the world.
And I knew, from the first moment that I held you, that I would do the same all over again.
CHAPTER 27
FOR THE SECOND TIME INone day, I’m standing at a crime scene.Detective Marc has forbidden us from entering it.Based on the whispered details I’ve heard from the various law enforcement officers milling about, I’m grateful this time to stay on the outside of the perimeter tape.
The police were able to track Isaad’s cell phone to an abandoned building near the double homicide from a few days ago.The entire area is a run-down collection of decrepit warehouses and vacant businesses—peeling signs hang haphazardly over broken windowpanes offering everything from auto body work to industrial cleaning.I’m not sure if this is where dreams go to die, or just never take off, but I understand better why Daryl refused to drive me here the first time I asked.Having finally made it to the infamous death-by-hammer location, I’d mostly like to go home now.Even if home involves runaway snakes.
