Three hour naps in the late evening and one day is effectively used as two instead.
Ammi comes back and the lights shine brighter. There is dinner on the dining table for the first time in many, many nights. We go up and down the house in every room as she inspects the paint job and all the furniture that's come during this time she's been away and Papa fumbles in his attempts to impress her, like he always does.
At work three Chinooks fly low over our heads, so low that I can see the pilots and their American-goray arms. Ali P. walks around the chatt with arms in his pockets muttering obscenities. I laugh at him, the way he always has a camera slung around his neck to take pictures of a random assortment of people out on the chatt during lunch everyday but not when the crows decide to put on a show of numbers all rising from treetops at the same time in thousands, or when the Chinooks decide to appear out of nowhere to fly over our heads and drop off Mr. Clinton at the American Embassy around the corner. I tell him that the machines were so close the pilots could have seen us waving extended fingers at them. He says that they weren't. I insist. He tells me to fuck off and I laugh.
Faiqa sets up a 'seat of learning' in my room. One floor cushion, two pillows and one smaller cushion make it impossible to access the bathroom without having to jump over her Tort books. I think it's a small price to pay for the Caesar salad she makes for us later, or for the beautiful things that she tells my friends behind my back.