13 #2
of course, until they reclaimed some of that money to pay for the living expenses of the halfway house. She didn’t mind, though.
She liked feeling capable of paying her way, something she had only ever seen men do.
She and Aneesa made the trip to the shops themselves.
Marjan was terrified of being in public and was constantly looking around for familiar faces or to see if anyone was noticing her.
She wore her headscarf so low that it hooded her face from view.
Aneesa came from the outskirts of Kabul.
Her ex-husband’s family stayed close to home, so she was less concerned with running into anyone connected to her married life.
In a small shop tucked between a bank and a shoe store, they found pale blue satin dresses with skirts of blue tulle. Silver
threads around the waist and neckline added enough sparkle to make the small gowns look regal. The dresses were utterly impractical.
Both mothers knew it. Still, they looked at their daughters and decided they would be frivolous on this holy occasion, the
holiday of Eid coinciding with this first taste of independence. They walked back to the halfway house, giddy from the indulgence.
“This is all your fault,” Aneesa proclaimed. “I swear I was planning on buying her a winter coat.”
“Oh, really?” Marjan laughed. “I wasn’t the one who pulled the dress off the rack. I walked right past it and was looking
at those cute little sweaters with the green buttons.”
“Is that so? As I recall, I’m the one who talked you out of buying them those tiny matching purses,” she chastised playfully.
They put the girls into the dresses as soon as they got back to the house. Three of the other women who lived at the halfway
house watched with disapproving frowns. One mother took her two children and left the room. She had neither the stomach nor
the wallet for such antics.
Aneesa and Marjan sat the girls side by side on the carpet, posing them for portraits they had no way of taking. Marjan just
stared at her daughter as her small fingers felt the stiff tulle, as she looked up at the older girl beside her.
“They look like little dolls! God protect them. If only they had a grand party to attend. Oh, I have an idea!” Aneesa exclaimed,
rising from the floor.
“Just remember, this was all your idea!” Marjan called after her, giggling.
She still wore the smile when the feeling hit her. Grief was a rogue wave, and Marjan had turned her back to the ocean.
Jahangir, a child more beautiful and precious than she could ever have hoped for.
It was unimaginable that she would never hold him again, that he was not here for this Eid.
That he had hardly been old enough to know what Eid was when she lost him.
That he would never see another Eid or any other day.
Marjan could almost hear the music of his laughter.
She could almost feel the silk of his curly hair.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Aneesa asked, startled to find a pink-eyed Marjan holding a hand over her mouth to stifle her
sobs. Aneesa put an arm around her, pulled her close. The girls had wandered off, lured by a stray balloon left behind by
another child.
Marjan shook her head. Aneesa pressed her.
“You can’t keep everything inside. Believe me, it feels so much better to let it out,” she said.
Marjan felt something swell in her chest then, uncontainable. Afraid it might crack her open, she told Aneesa about Jahangir,
her firstborn and the brother Hawa would never meet.
“This world is too cruel. How you must have suffered! Will you tell Hawa about him?” Aneesa asked.
“I don’t think I can,” Marjan said. “And I don’t see what good it would do for her to know.”
“I suppose.” Aneesa sighed. “God is good, no? To give you Hawa after what you suffered.”
Marjan nodded. Losing her son had weathered her. There were shadows under her eyes that weren’t there before, even with the
abuse she had suffered. She looked older than her years and struggled to feel joy without guilt. Her son was never too far
from her thoughts. Everything Hawa did for the first time sent her back to Jahangir’s first year.
Aneesa treated her a bit more delicately after that. Marjan hadn’t been looking for pity but appreciated the kindness of a
friend. She had been so busy fumbling through the logistics of this new life that she hadn’t realized how lonely she felt.
Marjan and Aneesa ate together. They groused about the conditions of the common bathroom and took their daughters outside
to play together.
“If we get real jobs, we can afford a real place to live,” Aneesa said as they fed the girls bowls of rice with lentils.
“I’ll watch the girls while you go to work and then you can look after them when I go to work.
We’ll be able to afford a decent place, too, with both of us working.
I’m a much better cook than you, so maybe you do more of the cleaning. ”
“You really think two women can afford a place in this city? People say rents have doubled in the past few years,” Marjan
huffed.
“It’s true but we’ll lean on each other and we’ll find something,” Aneesa insisted.
“No one will want to rent to two women coming out of a shelter. People will think our shame is contagious,” Marjan whispered.
“We’ll tell them we’re both widowed,” Aneesa replied defiantly. “It’s very believable. This country is full of them. And we
might as well be widows. Our husbands are dead to us.”
Marjan pinched a small morsel between her thumb and two fingers and pressed it into Hawa’s open mouth. It occurred to her
that her mother had hand-fed her in the same way, then stood by while she was given away to a warlord only twelve years later.
She dabbed at her daughter’s mouth with a wipe. Hawa batted the cloth away and smacked her lips, hungry for more and trusting
that her mother would give her what she needed.