In the moonlight I could see that she was awake and I could hear Father’s voice. His voice was coming from the basement. It wasn’t a cry for help, but it was the voice of someone who was begging for something and could be heard very well in the silence of the night. How long I stayed like that, I don’t know. I was wishing for the moaning to stop. I covered my head with the blanket but could still hear him moan. I waited for Maman to get up, but she kept lying there listening.

It was the sound of crying. It was the sound of pleading and weeping. The sound of pain. I half rose and got closer to Maman. Her eyes were closed. But I knew she was awake. I had seen her eyes gleam. I called her. She didn’t answer. I wanted to go downstairs, but I didn’t dare. I thought it was a dream that would end, like a nightmare that would be forgotten. Everything would come to an end. It would end right then. But it didn’t.

I shook Maman’s shoulders. She turned her back to me and sobbed. I was afraid of waking up Shahla. She’d be cranky for a few days if she didn’t get her sleep. I sat in my bed.

You know Mahin, to make up for that night I throw the pillow off of my face every night in my dream and go to the basement by myself. I turn the lights on and sit by Father.

I still haven’t been able to forgive myself for lying down in bed hiding my head under the pillow. This is one of tens of images in which I don’t like myself, and one can’t get over something like that without love. I am stuck behind these images, on the side of the shadows, and I own all of them. How can a person get anywhere bearing all this weight?

Father died that same night, lonely, like a defenseless child.

I can’t write any more. I fold the letter, and put it under my mattress.

Chapter 46

46

I have found my favorite place in the house. I am sitting there and flipping through a book. I go back to the beginning of the line and read the same sentence over and again. My eyes, like magnets that have lost their power, only move on the paper without absorbing the words. I rest my head on the book, and when I look up Amir is there. Unexpectedly. It’s difficult to recognize him at first. He looks a little darker, slimmer, and a bit unfamiliar.

After kissing the kids, he tells them to go and play in the yard. I say, “No, stay here.” They will make noise in the yard.