A text pings through on her phone. It’s from her dad. There’s no change in Abdi, it says. It asks her what time she’s getting home and if she can collect some milk on the way.
In the shop, Mrs. Khan’s busy monitoring three schoolboys who are cruising the aisles, looking shifty. Sofia recognizes one of them as a friend of Abdi’s from primary school. She grabs some milk and heads out, grateful on this night to avoid small talk with Mrs. Khan.
She has no such luck as she rounds the corner on the way home. Filling the pavement is Amina.
“Sofia!” Being enveloped in Amina’s arms provides a sensation of total immersion in fabric and fragrance. Sofia loves Amina and thinks of her as a loosened-up version of her own mother. She wishes that Maryam would dress like Amina does: in beautiful colors and silky turbans instead of the dowdy robes and heavy headscarves that Maryam refuses to shed. She would love to see her mother in a bright lipstick, with a dab of color on her fine cheekbones. She would like her mother to smile more.
The only thing Sofia doesn’t enjoy about Amina is the mandatory visual and physical examination that she’s never worked out how to avoid. Amina looks her over and squeezes her upper arm, as if testing it for ripeness, then delivers her verdict.
“Your color’s bad.”
“I’m tired.”
“You need vitamins. Did I tell you I got a NutriBullet?”
“You did.” About ten times already, Sofia thinks, but she doesn’t say it because she believes that Amina is about as warmhearted a person as you could hope to meet.
“First your mama is unwell, and now you!”
Sofia freezes, wondering what Amina knows, why she says that. Even though Amina’s a family friend, Sofia knows her parents wouldn’t want other people to know about what’s happened to Abdi, not unless they had to. The shame of it would be an extra blow to the family.
“Mum hasn’t been unwell,” she says.
“Didn’t she tell you what happened? She fainted on Friday evening, at the Welcome Center. Completely collapsed when we were serving the food. One minute, ladling pasta, the next minute, down. She would have hurt herself but chef caught her.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“I expect she didn’t want to worry you. Naughty! I told her she needs to look after herself. I would have brought her home myself, but Abdi said he would make sure she was okay.”
“Abdi was with her?”
“Yes, darling. It was last Friday. Don’t tell me they didn’t tell you about it.”
Amina’s frown is fearsome. Sofia thinks back. She’s been so hard at work on her coursework that she hasn’t paid much attention to the comings and goings of the rest of her family recently. Her brain feels addled, so she lies.
“No, they did tell me. Sorry. But Mum’s fine now.” It also occurs to Sofia that Amina might want to come and visit if she thinks Maryam’s unwell, so she wants to reassure her.
“All right, darling.” Amina regards Sofia with skepticism. She can smell a rat from a hundred yards away. “You don’t look so well yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what your mother said! Okay, darling, I have to go. Take care of yourself. Tell Maryam I’ll call her.”
Another warm hug and Sofia’s released. She thinks back to Friday as she walks on. Did her mother appear unwell that night? She doesn’t think she can remember anything unusual, but Maryam is difficult to read. Loving and affectionate one moment, shut away the next, her family have learned to live with extremes, not to question them. Maryam has been that way for as long as Sofia can remember. She’s long suspected that her mother suffers from some kind of depression, but knows that can never be voiced.
A sense of urgency takes over as she nears home. She wants to see Abdi, to know how he is, but she braces herself in case there’s no improvement.
In the flat, Maryam watches her daughter put the milk in the fridge. She’s trying to think of what she might be able to cook to tempt Abdi to eat, because nothing has passed his lips yet today, and she’s caught off guard when Sofia asks, “What’s the name of the camp we lived in?”
“Hartisheik,” she says, hoping Sofia doesn’t catch her swallowing as hard as if bile had risen in her throat. “Why?”
“I was thinking about it today, but I forgot the name.”
Maryam can tell that her daughter’s not being truthful. She can read Sofia like a book. But the very fact that her normally earnest and honest girl is lying drains Maryam of her courage to ask why. She resists a powerful impulse to shudder, because mention of the camp, on this day, can only be a bad portent. She wishes Nur hadn’t just left the room. She needs to tell him. She wants it to be face-to-face.
As her mind works, she continues to putter in the kitchen as if on autopilot. She makes batter for pancakes. They’re Abdi’s favorite. She’s not sure what else to do.
As Maryam makes the mixture she endeavors to hold back memories of the camp, turning the radio on, distracting herself with music, beating the batter for far longer than she needs to. Sometimes she’s successful when she uses tactics like these; sometimes she raises blisters on her hands rather than stop and think; and sometimes nothing can hold the memories at bay.
Sofia has noted her mum’s reaction and the way she tried to hide it, but she’s not too surprised by this, because Maryam hates to speak about their past. Sofia’s too nervous to ask about the fainting incident at the Welcome Center in case it upsets Maryam further. Perhaps she’ll mention it to her father.
She finds Nur in Abdi’s room, sitting by the boy’s bed, gently cleaning his glasses. He puts the glasses back on and joins her in the sitting room.
“I’ve tried to get him to talk, but no luck,” he says. “I have to go to work.”
“I’ll try tonight,” she says.
He kisses her on the forehead and leaves the flat before she has a chance to talk to him about the Welcome Center.
So far as she can see there’s no change in Abdi at all. His bedroom’s gloomy and he doesn’t seem to have moved. Rather than dump his bag in there, she takes it into her own room, thinking she might get the laundry out of it and wash it for him. She doesn’t burden her mother with it. She’ll do it herself. She also takes the iPad and charger out of the bag and plugs them in in her bedroom.
“Hartisheik,” she whispers as she does so. The word rolls itself around her mouth. She was right, then: The paperwork she saw in Ed Sadler’s office related to the camp they lived in. She wanted to hear confirmation of the name of the camp from her mother, but she didn’t want to burden Maryam with what she saw, not until she’s thought about it some more, about what it might mean.