like a captain informed of imminent mutiny taking his time to ponder his next move.
He looked up. Mariam began to say something, but he raised a hand, and, without looking at her, said, “It's too late, Mariam.”
To Zalmai he said coldly, “You're going upstairs, boy.”
On Zalmai's face, Mariam saw alarm. Nervously, he looked around at the three of them.
He sensed now that his tattletale game had let something serious adult serious into the room.
He cast a despondent, contrite glance toward Mariam, then his mother.
In a challenging voice, Rasheed said, “Now!” He took Zalmai by the elbow. Zalmai meekly let himself be led upstairs.
They stood frozen, Mariam and Laila, eyes to the ground, as though looking at each other would give credence to the way Rasheed saw things,
that while he was opening doors and lugging baggage for people who wouldn't spare him a glance
a lewd conspiracy was shaping behind his back, in his home, in his beloved son's presence.
Neither one of them said a word. They listened to the footsteps in the hallway above,
one heavy and foreboding, the other the pattering of a skittish little animal.
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