20.
The ailments that would hound Mammy for the rest of her days began.
Chest pains and headaches, joint aches and night sweats, paralyzing pains in her ears, lumps no one else could feel.
Babi took her to a doctor, who took blood and urine, shot X-rays of Mammy's body, but found no physical illness.
Mammy lay in bed most days. She wore black. She picked at her hair and gnawed on the mole below her lip.
When Mammy was awake, Laila found her staggering through the house.
She always ended up in Laila's room, as though she would run into the boys sooner or later
if she just kept walking into the room where they had once slept and farted and fought with pillows.
But all she ran into was their absence. And Laila. Which, Laila believed, had become one and the same to Mammy.
The only task Mammy never neglected was her five daily namaz prayers.
She ended each namaz with her head hung low, hands held before her face, palms up, muttering a prayer for God to bring victory to the Mujahideen.
Laila had to shoulder more and more of the chores. If she didn't tend to the house,
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