A Thousand Splendid Suns

The only task Mammy never neglected was her five daily namaz
prayers. She ended each namaz with her head hung low, hands held
before her face, palms up, muttering a prayer for God to bring victory to
the Mujahideen. Laila had to shoulder more and more of the chores. If
she didn't tend to the house, she was apt to find clothes, shoes, open rice
bags, cans of beans, and dirty dishes strewn about everywhere. Laila
washed Mammy's dresses and changed her sheets. She coaxed her out of
bed for baths and meals. She was the one who ironed Babi's shirts and
folded his pants. Increasingly, she was the cook.
Sometimes, after she was done with her chores, Laila crawled into bed
next to Mammy. She wrapped her arms around her, laced her fingers
with her mother's, buried her face in her hair. Mammy would stir,
murmur something. Inevitably, she would start in on a story about the
boys.
One day, as they were lying this way, Mammy said, "Ahmad was going
to be a leader. He had the charisma for it-People three times his age
listened to him with respect, Laila. It was something to see. And Noon
Oh, my Noor. He was always making sketches of buildings and bridges.
He was going to be an architect, you know. He was going to transform
Kabul with his designs. And now they're both shaheed, my boys, both
martyrs."
Laila lay there and listened, wishing Mammy would notice that she,
Laila, hadn't become shaheed, that she was alive, here, in bed with her,
that she had hopes and a future. But Laila knew that her future was no
match for her brothers' past. They had overshadowed her in life. They