“I’m not sleeping with you cows,” she said, waving me off. “Arrange me a bed on the floor next to my grandson.”

Mama and I looked at each other. “No. That will not work. Your snoring will keep him up,” I said.

She hesitated, moving her dentures around in her mouth with her tongue. “Okay. I didn’t think about that. I’ll sleep in your bed,” she said, and went back to shining a spoon.

Exhausted that evening, we went to bed early. Sitti Wasfiyeh wanted to keep the clean sheets on her bed fresh for Jehad, so she had gotten a head start on her new sleeping arrangement in Mama’s and my bed. Still, she complained we hadn’t washed the sheets properly, had not fixed the bed comfortably enough, that the dinner we ate had been too greasy and, therefore, she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep, would get sick and not be able to go get her grandson from the hospital, all because of me. Or because of Mama. Or both of us. It was a conspiracy against her. She was sure of it, until she fell asleep.

We were all up before the sun, waiting in the lobby of the hospital for permission to see Jehad and, we hoped, bring him home. Sitti Wasfiyeh looked small and frail as she sat there patiently, counting her rosary beads for hours.

Finally the lawyer walked in, a small stack of papers in hand, and motioned for us to follow him. Jehad’s release had been secured. “Alhamdulillah,” we all sighed. Thank you, Lord!

I helped Sitti Wasfiyeh to her feet and we followed the lawyer to a hospital room, where Jehad sat in a wheelchair. We rushed to him as the lawyer negotiated with the guards, going through the stack of papers he had brought. Heavy bandages covered half of Jehad’s face. Doctors had been unable to save his eye. His arm was in a cast, with fourteen screws in the bones of his right hand and forearm. The official record stated that he fell, hitting stationary objects in such a way that caused severe trauma to his optic nerve, secondary to deep ocular lacerations and fragmentation of the orbital bone and optic canal. There was more medical jargon I didn’t understand—multiple metacarpal and phalangeal bones comminuted at the level of the metacarpophalangeal joint. But Jehad got up when he saw us and kissed Sitti Wasfiyeh’s hands, our mother’s, then me. I understood a new kind of joy that day. It was the sort of happiness that comes only when life takes everything and leaves you only the people who matter most. Being with my family in the relief of Jehad’s safety that day brought us back to life.

Jehad wanted rest when we got back to the apartment. We had a small meal together. He ate very little and said even less. Seeing Jehad so defeated was hard to bear. He had been spared, but we could not be sure any of us would survive in Kuwait much longer. The emotional toll of the day had exhausted us, and we went to bed early. Mama tucked Jehad into bed, taking all of our pillows to make sure he was propped up as the doctors had ordered, to reduce the pressure on his remaining eye.