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.

I watched him sleep from the doorway, knowing I would never forgive myself. Jehad had stayed in Kuwait because I’d sided with Sitti Wasfiyeh and refused to leave. I will carry his broken dreams for the rest of my life.

I’d like to tell what happened to my brother. What they did to him. The ways they violated and broke him. How Kuwaiti police and military colluded with the Americans to empty him of himself. I’d like to tell because I want the world to know what they got away with, what the powerful always get away with. But it is not my story to tell, and Jehad has found solace in silence.

We were one of a few Palestinian families from our neighborhood still in Kuwait. Street after street of apartment buildings stood empty. The corner stores that once flashed with lights and colorful FOR SALE signs were now dim and shuttered. The kids who played ball in the street had disappeared. The young men who used to gather on corners to watch and harass us women were no more. The balcony clotheslines that once decorated every building with laundry were bare.

We had stayed because we could not leave Jehad behind. Now that he was back, we packed up what we could carry of our lives: clothes, a few kitchen items, the framed photo of Baba on the living room wall, and Mama’s Singer sewing machine. There were two more families left on our block, one in our building and another in the adjacent one. They came to welcome Jehad back, and we decided to all leave together in the early morning, believing there might be some safety in numbers to get through the checkpoints on the way to the airport.

We wanted to take our cars on the fourteen-hour journey to Amman, but they had Iraqi license plates—we had been forced to change them during the occupation, and now Kuwait would not allow Palestinians to get new car plates. Um Buraq promised to sell our cars for us and send the money. And to my surprise, she showed up at four o’clock on the morning of our planned departure to drive us to the airport.

“I want to make sure the paperwork for the cars is in order,” she said.