lived in a townhouse an hour away with my grandparents, Naani and
Naana, in Pennsylvania. Zoya khaala had translucent skin and a bloated
face. I only ever saw her wearing a headscarf; underneath it, she was
bald. The only resemblance Mariya bore to her at that time were her
eyes, large and slightly slanted. But her mother’s thick lids drooped over
the yellowed whites and rested over dark half-moons above her cheeks.
She stayed in bed, two comforters pulled to her armpits, tethered to
fat machines from which narrow, needled tubes pierced he