A Thousand Splendid Suns

"You're despicable," Laila said.
"That's a big word," Rasheed said. "I've always disliked that about you.
Even when you were little, when you were running around with that
cripple, you thought you were so clever, with your books and poems.
What good are all your smarts to you now? What's keeping you off the
streets, your smarts or me? I'm despicable? Half the women in this city
would kill to have a husband like me. They would kill for it."
He rolled back and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
"You like big words? I'll give you one: perspective. That's what I'm
doing here, Laila. Making sure you don't lose perspective."
What turned Laila's stomach the rest of the night was that every word
Rasheed had uttered, every last one, was true.
But, in the morning, and for several mornings after that, the queasiness
in her gut persisted, then worsened, became something dismayingly
familiar.
* * *
One cold, overcast afternoon soon after, Laila lay on her back on the
bedroom floor. Mariam was napping with Aziza in her room.
In Laila's hands was a metal spoke she had snapped with a pair of
pliers from an abandoned bicycle wheel She'd found it in the same alley
where she had kissed Tariq years back. For a long time, Laila lay on the
floor, sucking air through her teeth, legs parted
She'd adored Aziza from the moment when she'd first suspected her
existence. There had been none of this self-doubt, this uncertainty. What
a terrible thing it was, Laila thought now, for a mother to fear that she
could not summon love for her own child. What an unnatural thing. And
yet she had to wonder, as she lay on the floor, her sweaty hands poised