He starts in the living room, while I take the hallway.Givenwe’re looking for personal images/correspondence, we bypass the kitchen.Not that cooking isn’t important to Aliah, but I want knowledge of her family tree.More specifically, the members who still reside in Afghanistan.Doubt the kitchen can tell us that.
We identify five photos in the end, including one that shows Aliah standing in front of her business, probably the day it opened.Her beaming smile gives me a pang.I can tell from Daryl’s expression, it hurts him, too.
First, we inspect a framed photo of her and two other women, one older, one younger.I’m guessing her mother and sister based on the resemblance.The photo appears fairly recent, so not what I need.In her office, we discover a larger group photo.Old and faded, the background nearly unrecognizable.Maybe taken in Afghanistan?Impossible to be sure.We liberate it from its frame to read the back, which is completely blank.Seriously, who takes a group photo, then doesn’t scratch at least a few names, dates, location?I’m annoyed, but maybe because my head is still throbbing and everything about this is triggering.
Standing in the middle of Aliah’s beautifully decorated living room with its rich colors and bright tapestries.Walking through her bedroom, which still carries a whiff of her perfume.Hell, passing the kitchen, which still exudes mint tea.
We know Aliah.And in the past few days, she has come to feel like not just an ally, but a friend.
And now… I keep remembering the reports of Isaad’s charred hands and a shudder goes through me.
Are they torturing her right now?Does she even have whatever information they’re looking for?Or is she enduring all that pain and misery with no end in sight?
It’s been nearly twenty-four hours, and I’ve been unconscious for most of them.
I can’t do that again.
Daryl finds three more older-looking photos; the backgrounds of the shots appear more spartan, the subjects younger and in dated outfits.My vision isn’t the best, so I teach him the tricks I know.Instead of looking for a subjective family resemblance, study physical details that can’t easily be altered—the space between a person’s eyes, the shape of their mouth, the contour of their cheekbones.
“How do you know all this?”Daryl asks, scrutinizing each picture.
“Work mostly cold cases, remember?Often involves age-progressed images, especially when the missing was originally a child.Can’t look for a seven-year-old face ten years later.Must fast-forward physical appearance accordingly.”
Daryl shakes his head.“Sad work.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
“You find dead people,” he states bluntly.
“Their story still matters.Do you want to be the little kid who grows up hearing her mother ran away, or do you want to be the little kid who learns her mother never came home due to an accident that sent her vehicle to the bottom of a lake?Either way, I can’t bring Mommy home.But the difference of that narrative for her daughter…”
Daryl nods.“All right, using your expertise… This older group photo.The women are all wearing head coverings, which makes it harder, but I think that’s Aliah as a little girl, next to her mother and sister.Meaning the older couple in the middle—”
“Aliah’s grandparents?”I ask.
“Yeah.With a layer of aunts and uncles, then cousins.”
“Her cousin’s son,” I murmur.“She mentioned that he died when Kabul fell.How many cousins are we talking about?”
A pause as Daryl counts.“At least fourteen.And most are young, like Aliah.Meaning their parents could’ve still had more.”
Big families.Nageenah had commented that Afghans lived in large families and all were welcome…
“Only Aliah’s mother emigrated with her two daughters.”I think about it, at least as much as I can through the pounding in my skull.“The family units on either side of Aliah’s… can you take a close-up shot with your phone?Even among relatives, we gravitate toward the people we like best.”
“You think these are the siblings closest to Aliah’s mother; meaning also the cousins closest to Aliah and her sister?”
“Gotta start somewhere…”
Daryl snaps away with his phone.Sets down that picture, finishes scanning the room.“Hang on, another group shot.”
He pulls it down from the top shelf.This one contains noticeably fewer people while definitely having been shot more recently.I glance at it, nod slowly.Family reunion at least one, if not two, decades later.Daryl sighs, practices his new facial identity skills.
“Okay, got the two siblings that were on either side of Aliah’s mother in photo one, plus their now grown-up kids, many with older children of their own.”
I’m trying to picture a family tree in my head.If Aliah is now in her fifties, her first cousins would also be around her age.Meaning their offspring would be the official next generation of older teens, young adults.University aged, such as Sabera.
Daryl rattles off the age-appropriate options.Of the ten second cousins, four are male.One probably too young, leaving us with three candidates.
