So close. I was so close.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and see meteors burning out in space, violent flashes of light. Since the night of the coup, Shair has made me feel like the worst version of myself, and I have resented him for that too.

I put on my running clothes and lace up my sneakers. I slip out of the room without Mom noticing. The day must have exhausted her. When we get back home, I’ll find ways to spend more time with her. No matter what happens during this trip, I don’t want her to worry about me.

The exercise room is locked at this late hour. I should try to go back to sleep or read or look for snacks in our room, but instead I venture to the lobby and beg one of the front desk staff to open the gym door for me.

Whether out of pity or fear, a bleary-eyed man obliges. I thank him, the word coming out in Dari. He pauses just before he leaves, one foot in the hallway.

“Are you Afghan?” he asks in Dari as well. I nod. He presses his lips into a thin line. “Are you . . . are you all right, sister?”

I smile weakly.

“I’m as all right as any of us,” I reply, and he lets out a long sigh.

“Then I’ll pray for you too,” he vows. I listen to the soft pad of his fading footsteps before I move to the treadmill.

And I run.

Within minutes, the leaden feeling around my head begins to lift. I drink in all the oxygen in the room and expunge the dust from my lungs. I feel the burn in my calves, my thighs. I run harder and the burn gives way.

It has taken them thirty years to find this site. And now that they’ve found the bodies of the president and his family, there will be no reason to search for a handful of his advisers whose names never made it into any of the history books.

Beads of sweat slide down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

I must let go. I cannot bring them back, nor can I have another conversation with Shair.

It is intolerable.

I will lose my sanity if I think of what I could have done differently, if I find all the permutations that could have led to a different outcome. I won’t do it.

I will turn the ring over to the museum tomorrow and book an earlier flight home. Clay can stay and chase his stories. He is more at home here than I am anyway. I need to get back to my apartment, my patients, my life.

Six miles later, I slow the treadmill.