“You must understand your actions have repercussions. For you. For me. For your father.”

“What’s going to happen?” Khalid’s lip trembled. “Am I to be punished? Are we all going to be punished?” His words spiraled into the sky, squeaky with fear.

“I did my best to convince Principal al-Quds to overlook your absence. We have to hope my efforts were enough.” Huda knitted her fingers in her lap. “Where did you go on the day of the march?”

“Nowhere, really,” Khalid mumbled. “I was hanging around the soccer field, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Huda glared.

“Dad gave me some money for helping to weed the garden, so I bought a kebab and had a cola on Sadoun Street.”

“That parade was for the president. Participation is nonnegotiable.”

“But why, Mom?” Khalid clenched his fists. “Why must we parade through the streets, acting all overjoyed, when really we have no choice? Everyone must vote yes or else they disappear, like Professor Hafez.”

Huda’s heart pounded. Defying her was one thing, the regime another.

“The authorities take note when people fail to show their loyalty.” She clutched his arm. “Keep your head down and follow the rules.”

“Like you and Dad?”

“Yes.” Huda sighed. “Like me and Dad.”

“So I should take money from the mukhabarat too?”

Huda flinched as if Khalid had cursed the prophet. She wanted to take him home and scrub his mouth out with soap. The boy snatched a piece of gravel from the ground and hurled it at the lake.

“Do you think I haven’t noticed all the suspicious chats in the sitting room with Abu Issa and his friend?”

“Abu Issa? Who told you his name?”

“He came over one time when you were at work. He asked me if I’d thought about joining the Lion Cubs. He said loyal young men get rewarded by the government.”

Huda paled.

“Don’t worry.” Khalid kicked his foot against the ground. “I didn’t tell him that I would sooner die than fight for this government. I didn’t tell him the regime murdered my two uncles and ten thousand other good Shi‘a.”

“Shut your mouth, Khalid.” Huda’s voice leaped from her throat, wild as a dog. “Have you gone mad?”

“Me, mad? What about you? You drink tea with the mukhabarat in the morning, then in the afternoon you sneak off to cry over that photo of Uncle Mustafa and Uncle Ali. You know the one—you hide it in your bedside drawer instead of keeping it by the front door where it should be.” He scooped another pebble from the dirt and threw it at the gushing fountains. “What would your brothers think of you and the mukhabarat? May God keep their martyred souls close.”

His words hit Huda like a punch to the jaw.

“Khalid, you can’t talk like this. Especially not now.”

“Not now? Then when?”