A Thousand Splendid Suns

bless you, brother."
***
But "when the time for good-byes came, the scene erupted precisely as
Laila had dreaded.
Aziza panicked.
All the way home, leaning on Mariam, Laila heard Aziza's shrill cries. In
her head, she saw Zaman's thick, calloused hands close around Aziza's
arms; she saw them pull, gently at first, then harder, then with force to
pry Aziza loose from her. She saw Aziza kicking in Zaman's arms as he
hurriedly turned the corner, heard Aziza screaming as though she were
about to vanish from the face of the earth. And Laila saw herself running
down the hallway, head down, a howl rising up her throat.
"I smell her," she told Mariam at home. Her eyes swam unseeingly past
Mariam's shoulder, past the yard, the walls, to the mountains, brown as
smoker's spit. "I smell her sleep smell. Do you? Do you smell it?"
"Oh, Laila jo," said Mariam. "Don't. What good is this? What good?"
* * *
At first, Rasheed humored Laila, and accompanied them-her, Mariam,
and Zalmai-to the orphanage, though he made sure, as they walked, that
she had an eyeful of his grievous looks, an earful of his rants over what
a hardship she was putting him through, how badly his legs and back and
feet ached walking to and from the orphanage. He made sure she knew
how awfully put out he was.