We watched him leave the store and practically run down the ugly, all-year-round-stinking sidewalks filled with children and broken bottles. He was walking like he had a giant secret inside him and would explode if he did not give it to his wife immediately.

That look on his face as he was running off was so happy and excited, like a little kid. Who could have known what would happen?

We figured out the rest of the story later. What they told us was that as he got to his house, Suad was sitting on the front stoop and as he started to go up the path toward her, a man grabbed him from behind and asked for his money. Suad said that Sameer refused to give him his wallet, that he hesitated, which made the mugger angry. He made horrible threats and waved a knife in front of his face.

Suad says Sameer still refused and told him to get out of there. The man asked again, and again Sameer refused. Then the man stabbed him, fourteen times, on his face, his stomach, and his hands, which the police told us meant he put up quite a fight.

Suad was screaming and screaming and eventually the police came, but Sameer was dead by then. Suad went crazy, screaming at everyone and no one could understand her. We didn’t see her until we went to the hospital later on.

Suad told the police that the man who did it was a short, very muscular Latin man who wore a sweatshirt with a hood so she did not see his face.

For days Ma couldn’t eat. I was just angry. Ma didn’t want to go back to work, because she said the killer probably had come and bought something from us, and she would always wonder if the person she was selling to was the person who killed Sameer. She changed her attitude when she finally went back and so many people from the neighborhood brought flowers, and candles, and ladies were crying with her.

It’s different for me too. I don’t believe Suad’s story. I think she had something to do with it.