A Thousand Splendid Suns

"They're fractures along the earth's crust," said Aziza. 'They're called
faults."
It was a warm afternoon, a Friday, in June of 2001. They were sitting in
the orphanage's back lot, the four of them, Laila, Zalmai, Mariam, and
Aziza. Rasheed had relented this time-as he infrequently did-and
accompanied the four of them. He was waiting down the street, by the
bus stop.
Barefoot kids scampered about around them. A flat soccer ball was
kicked around, chased after listlessly.
"And, on either side of the faults, there are these sheets of rock that
make up the earth's crust," Aziza was saying.
Someone had pulled the hair back from Aziza's face, braided it, and
pinned it neatly on top of her head. Laila begrudged whoever had gotten
to sit behind her daughter, to flip sections of her hair one over the other,
had asked her to sit still.
Aziza was demonstrating by opening her hands, palms up, and rubbing
them against each other. Zalmai watched this with intense interest.
"Kectonic plates, they're called?"
"Tectonic, "Laila said. It hurt to talk. Her jaw was still sore, her back
and neck ached. Her lip was swollen, and her tongue kept poking the
empty pocket of the lower incisor Rasheed had knocked loose two days
before. Before Mammy and Babi had died and her life turned upside
down, Laila never would have believed that a human body could
withstand this much beating, this viciously, this regularly, and keep