Mariam knew that Nana was watching her, gauging her reaction,
and it always took effort to stay in the doorway, to wait, to watch him slowly make his way to her, to not run to him.
She restrained herself, patiently watched him walk through the tall grass,
his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, the breeze lifting his red necktie.
When Jalil entered the clearing, he would throw his jacket on the tandoor and open his arms.
Mariam would walk, then finally run, to him, and he would catch her under the arms and toss her up high.
Mariam would squeal. Suspended in the air, Mariam would see Jalil's upturned face below her, his wide, crooked smile, his widow's peak,
his cleft chin a perfect pocket for the tip of her pinkie—his teeth, the whitest in a town of rotting molars.
She liked his trimmed mustache, and she liked that no matter the weather he always wore a suit on his visits—dark brown, his favorite color,
with the white triangle of a handkerchief in the breast pocket and cuff links too, and a tie, usually red, which he left loosened.
Mariam could see herself too, reflected in the brown of Jalil's eyes: her hair billowing, her face blazing with excitement, the sky behind her.
Nana said that one of these days he would miss, that she, Mariam, would slip through his fingers, hit the ground, and break a bone.
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