A Thousand Splendid Suns

come to deliver the news of Ahmad's and Noor's deaths. She remembered Babi, white faced,
slumping on the couch, and Mammy, her hand flying to her mouth when she heard. Laila
had watched Mammy come undone that day and it had scared her, but she hadn't felt any
true sorrow. She hadn't understood the awfulness of her mother's loss. Now another
stranger bringing news of another death. Now she was the one sitting on the chair. Was this
her penalty, then, her punishment for being aloof to her own mother's suffering?
Laila remembered how Mammy had dropped to the ground, how she'd screamed, torn at
her hair. But Laila couldn't even manage that. She could hardly move. She could hardly
move a muscle.
She sat on the chair instead, hands limp in her lap, eyes staring at nothing, and let her
mind fly on. She let it fly on until it found the place, the good and safe place, where the
barley fields were green, where the water ran clear and the cottonwood seeds danced by the
thousands in the air; where Babi was reading a book beneath an acacia and Tariq was
napping with his hands laced across his chest, and where she could dip her feet in the
stream and dream good dreams beneath the watchful gaze of gods of ancient, sun bleached
rock.