I change into sneakers and my running pants. I find the hotel exercise room and feel like I am finally breathing when my feet pound against the treadmill belt. I turn the speed up, ignoring the throbbing in my foot and the stiffness in my legs. I wait for the release to come, the lift of hitting my rhythm. When it doesn’t, I jab at the machine to turn up the speed.

But the belt catches, as if someone has thrown rocks into its gears, and in one hopeful stride I am tossed from the runway. I land in a crumpled heap with my back to the wall, wondering if I have what it takes to get through the miles ahead.

Chapter 53

We step into the taxi that will take us to the American embassy. It’s less than six miles away, but it is a weekday and the streets are as congested as Midtown Manhattan. Clay asks the driver if he is hopeful about any candidates in the upcoming presidential elections.

The driver’s English is good enough to understand Clay, but he can’t string together a reply.

“Who knows what we’ll end up with? Donkeys look like stallions from a distance,” he mutters in Dari as he adjusts the rearview mirror.

“How many television stations are there now?” Clay asks. The driver lets out a long whistle. There are more than he can count.

“Taliban here—one radio, one television, one mouth. Now, one thousand mouth,” he laughs, pointing to his head. “One thousand headache. But I happy. You come my house, see my television.”

“Ah, that would be great,” Clay says earnestly. He looks perfectly at ease here, almost more than he did in the bookstore where I first met him. I find myself watching people we meet carve out space for him, as if this were his homecoming, not mine. Clay looks over the seat at me and grins. I look away, feeling revealed.

The cab hits a pothole deep enough to bounce us in our seats and send my stomach fluttering.

Mom is listening, though she’s got her eyes on the world outside. She adjusts her headscarf and cranes her neck to see a sleek-lined building sitting next to a clay mosque. We pass a woman in a sun-faded chadori standing on the side of the road. She has a bundled child in her lap and one hand extended to passersby.

“Ariana TV. Very good,” the driver says.

Aryana.

My name is everywhere. Emblazoned on airplanes, the movie theater, a television station, a soaring wedding hall, a congested intersection, and a host of restaurants. The country cannot let go of her historic name, my eponym.

Did the echo of my sister’s name haunt or comfort my parents?