When she woke again, it was still not light, and she thought for a moment that the woman standing over her was Jihan again. But it was Aunt Najla.

“You’re awake, child? Oh, my child, a terrible thing has happened. Amira, your mother is dead.”

By dawn, women were everywhere in the house—aunts, cousins, in-laws, all in black. No one would tell Amira exactly what had happened, but once she heard a voice from the men’s section loudly cursing the doctor and his pills, and then she walked into the kitchen to hear Najla saying, “She was wrong to leave her daughter.”

“No!” Amira shouted. “She never did anything wrong! What did she do wrong? Tell me!”

The women in black shook their heads and clucked. “A terrible thing for the child,” someone muttered, but Amira could tell that they were shocked at the disrespect she had shown her aunt.

“Forgive me,” she said, and soothing hands comforted her.

O

The women prepared Jihan for burial, which would come that same day, according to custom. They washed the body, wrapped it in white linen. As the cloth was wound, Amira took a last look at her mother’s face. In death, the sadness and weariness had vanished, and Jihan looked even younger than the young woman she still had been—as beautiful, perhaps, as on that long-ago day at the riding club in Cairo, when a king had desired her.

Suddenly, Amira could not hold back the tears. “Wake up, Mama! You can’t leave me alone. Please don’t leave me alone!”

“Stop it! Stop it, shameless girl!” It was Najla again, pulling on Amira’s shoulder, dragging her away. “Don’t you know that your mother is in paradise? Do you want your tears to torment her there?”

Amira knew that it was wrong to cry for the dead, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

In the hallway, there was a hubbub, and Bahia scurried up. “Little miss, your brother …”

Behind her was Malik, shock written on his features. “I got your letter,” he said. “I took the first plane. I …”

He stopped. They both knew that there was nothing to say.

10. Good-Byes

Good-Byes

“I should have been here,” Malik said, his voice hoarse with sorrow, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I could have done something … surely there was something …”

Amira reached out, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘‘It was my fault, Brother, not yours. I was here, and you were not. I was the one who saw that she wasn’t well. I should have watched over her more carefully. I should have spoken to Father sooner. If she’d seen one of those specialists, one of those doctors who heal the mind … If we’d—”

“If, maybe, perhaps … what does it matter now? I failed her. It’s a son’s duty to protect his mother, and I failed.” Staring into the velvet darkness of the garden, he drifted into a misery too private to share.