JAWAD

I’m scared, too. I didn’t want to scare her. I’m sorry she was scared.

You’re here, I whisper to her.

She seems to hear me because she moves a step closer, her hand over her mouth.

She doesn’t want to look. But she does. She has to.

She has courage.

This is the second kindness she’s shown me. I carried the first one with me, like a secret, all the time. Like a souvenir. Like a promise. We were both little. I think it’s a moment maybe only I remember.

Will I be warm now? Surrounded by that soft light growing in the distance? Can my parents say the funeral prayers now? Will there be peace?

Can I rest?