A Thousand Splendid Suns

duties.
"It's under control. You go on now, girl, and do something else. Leave
your mother be."
Shooed away, Laila felt useless. She bounced from one room to the
next. She puttered around the kitchen for a while. An uncharacteristically
subdued Hasina and her mother came. So did Giti and her mother. When
Giti saw Laila, she hurried over, threw her bony arms around her, and
gave Laila a very long, and surprisingly strong, embrace. When she
pulled back, tears had pooled in her eyes. "I am so sorry, Laila," she
said. Laila thanked her. The three girls sat outside in the yard until one
of the women assigned them the task of washing glasses and stacking
plates on the table.
Babi too kept walking in and out of the house aimlessly, looking, it
seemed, for something to do.
"Keep him away from me." That was the only time Mammy said
anything all morning.
Babi ended up sitting alone on a folding chair in the hallway, looking
desolate and small Then one of the women told him he was in the way
there. He apologized and disappeared into his study.
* * *
That apternoon, the men went to a hall in Karteh-Seh that Babi had
rented for the fatiha. The women came to the house. Laila took her spot