A Thousand Splendid Suns

functioning.
"Right. And when they slide past each other, they catch and slip-see,
Mammy?-and it releases energy, which
travels to the earth's surface and makes it shake."
"You're getting so smart," Mariam said "So much smarter than your
dumb khala"
Aziza's face glowed, broadened. "You're not dumb, Khala Mariam. And
Kaka Zaman says that, sometimes, the shifting of rocks is deep, deep
below, and it's powerful and scary down there, but all we feel on the
surface is a slight tremor. Only a slight tremor."
The visit before this one, it was oxygen atoms in the atmosphere
scattering the blue light from the sun. If the earth had no atmosphere,
Aziza had said a little breathlessly, the sky wouldn 't be blue at all but a
pitch-black sea and the sun a big bright star in the dark
"Is Aziza coming home with us this time?" Zalmai said.
"Soon, my love," Laila said. "Soon."
Laila watched him wander away, walking like his father, stooping
forward, toes turned in. He walked to the swing set, pushed an empty
seat, ended up sitting on the concrete, ripping weeds from a crack.
Water evaporates from the leaves-Mammy, did you know?-the way it
does from laundry hanging from a line. And that drives the flow of water
up the tree. From the ground and through the roots, then all the way up
the tree trunk, through the branches and into the leaves. It's called