I return to the balcony and await the melodic beckoning of the azaan. The dawn sky is a palette of pastels. I watch the apricot sun take her place against the whispers of clouds. When I have taken it all in, I slip back into the room and find Mom dressed but looking pale without her rouge and lipstick.

“Oh, thank God,” she says, dropping her toothbrush on the dresser. “I thought you’d run off with some wild plan. . . .”

I sink into the bed and tell Mom that I do, in fact, have a plan. I lay out the agenda in my most matter-of-fact voice, as if I’m reviewing the results of a scan with a patient.

“Are you sure you want to leave?” she asks.

“I think I have to,” I reply, then pause before continuing. “Shair is dead.”

“Oh, Ary.” Mom sinks into the bed next to me. I blink back tears. I’m willing to bet Mom is thinking of the very same moment I am recalling, when Shair pushed me into the safety of her arms. We are family because of him.

“Okay. All right,” Mom says, righting herself and turning to the logistics of the task at hand, as she has done time and again over the last thirty years. She walks to the phone and calls Clay to break the news to him while I head for the shower.

We eat breakfast, our table draped in silence. I look from Clay to Mom.

“I’m all right,” I tell them. “Truly I am.”

They hardly look reassured.

“I’m going to get back to the hospital. Mom’s going to get back to her work, and Clay is going to get back to Selena and his book talks,” I insist.

“I don’t need to rush back to my publicist,” Clay says, his voice soft as velvet. “I’ll go with you to the museum. And anywhere else you want to go, if you want company. I’m sticking around Kabul for a while. I’ve got a couple of weeks before my next string of book events.”

Selena is his publicist. I blush, feeling dumb to have assumed she was so much more. I’m also a little surprised that this revelation stirs something in me.

Mom’s eyebrow lifts in surprise. Ever my savior, she claps her hands and reiterates the day’s plan.