And so, when I’m summoned to see all that remains of my family, I walk steadily, I am ready, for I have already seen what I came to see.

Epilogue

There is a joke I read years ago in an online chat room for Afghans. King Zahir Shah, who was monarch before Daoud Khan overthrew him and declared himself president, settled into a new life in Italy. He had gone from a gilded palace to a small apartment, from an exalted life to one of exile. He was a nobody living in a foreign land. Dejected, he went to see a psychiatrist. In the waiting room, an Italian man peered over the top of a magazine, curious how his malady ranked against those of others in the room. He leaned over and asked King Zahir Shah what affliction of the mind had prompted him to seek help.

King Zahir Shah explained that he had been, until recently, king of a sovereign nation. The Italian man said nothing.

When the door opened and the doctor’s assistant asked who was next in line, the Italian man pointed to the bald man with a graying mustache seated beside him and said with great empathy: “Take him first.”

Clay laughs when I tell him this story, at how much like delusion the histories of dispersed Afghans must sound to new neighbors. We are sitting on Mom’s porch watching fireflies light up the nearby woods. Mom is inside, packing up the leftovers of tonight’s dinner. Clay had offered to wash the dishes, but she shooed him away.

You’re a guest in my home tonight, she’d said. And only tonight. Tomorrow I’ll expect all hands on deck for breakfast.

This is our first weekend away at Mom’s house. Clay spent our first hour here taking in all the pictures on the walls, the curio crowded with souvenirs from around the world, and the carefully arranged spines on the bookshelf. He looked hesitant about touching some pieces, leaning in with his hands behind his back.

My fingers float to my neck, a habit formed since I started wearing my mother’s necklace. Clay bought me a glass dome for my father’s pocket watch. It sits on my desk where I sometimes lose myself staring at it, watching time suspended. Dayo, my stoic friend, cried to see it. I showed her pictures of the three graves on a hilltop in Kabul. I told her about the burial I’d finally been able to arrange for my family. Though they hadn’t been sent off with a twenty-one-gun salute like Rostam’s grandfather, they had been laid to rest in dignity, with headstones to mark their existence.

“You’re thinking about them,” Clay observes.

I look down.