Page 103 of Kiss Her Goodbye

Farshid, my brother, I am coming for you.

Miraculously, Dr.Richard manages to arrange for our transfer a few months later—a refugee center in Abu Dhabi, with better conditions and more resources.Upon hearing the news, Malalai weeps tears of joy and sorrow, while Rafiq does his best to appear happy, then twists away to gnash his teeth.They have yet to be granted refugee status, and as month turns into month…

Did they ever make it out?Or one day, were they unceremoniously sent back to Afghanistan, where they and their three children would be ground to dust beneath the Taliban’s relentless heels?

Is it possible poor Omid was the lucky one, after all?

Abu Dhabi offers access to real medical services, versus a two-room shack staffed by mostly volunteers.The doctors and nurses cluck at my rudimentary diagnosis and one-note pharmaceuticalregimen.They have questions about my ghosts, which they refer to as visual and auditory hallucinations.I don’t bother to correct them.Postpartum depression with psychosis, they murmur, as they start adding meds here, taking away there.

With access to adequate sustenance, you start to sprout up, Zahra.Still a silent, serious-eyed toddler, but now one who motors about on increasingly steady legs.Your face fills out.Your gaze begins to brighten.

Isaad learns to sleep at night, while returning to math tutoring during the day.

And I… I stop talking to shadows and weeping over minor incidents I can’t explain.

Next up, we’re on a plane heading to the United States.Some place called Texas, where we spend months answering questions, getting shots, learning “the ropes” of American life.

Once a week I speak to an eagle-eyed psych doctor who asks me even more questions, and seems to know every time I dissemble.She drills me on my ghosts, sleep patterns, lack of concentration, and constant irritability.She updates my diagnosis to major depressive disorder, recurrent, with psychotic features, and attempts to teach me things like reality testing.The problem, she informs me, is that I’m too smart.My genius doesn’t make me crazy, but it drives much more complex illusions—Habib, Jamil, my conviction my brother, Farshid, is still alive—while enabling me to rationalize the visions.

I nod, and she smiles indulgently.We both know I don’t believe in her truths any more than she believes in mine.

After those appointments come endless interviews with many military types, plus a linguistics professor.This agitates Isaad, but the testing isn’t anything I haven’t handled before.

Number of languages I speak?Where did I learn, how did I learn?

I fall back upon my mother’s instructions.I offer vague details that sound like I’m cooperating while sharing nothing.The psych doc, who observes from the sidelines, makes notes on a clipboard, while suppressing more smiles.

She knows that I’m holding back, but she never says a word.We are two brilliant female minds, carefully navigating the limited thinking of the male powers-that-be chirping around us.

More adjustments to my care.Better night’s sleep as they exchange the Prozac for Lexapro, fewer nightmares with the addition of the Haldol.

We all three begin to relax: Isaad, you, me.As my entourage of dearly departed souls slowly fades away.

Isaad declares me “fully recovered.”

I don’t bother to correct him.Personally, I believe the spirits of the dead simply aren’t as strong in America, where I suspect sensitive Jamil is too overwhelmed and arrogant Habib too intimidated.

But trust me when I say this, my beautiful Zahra.My mother had it right in the beginning:

Ghosts do exist.

They’re just not always who we expect them to be.

CHAPTER 38

WHO ARE YOU?”THE BRUNETTEdemands to know.A striking older woman, she’s dressed in head-to-toe black and speaks with a crisp British accent.I blink at her in open confusion.What just happened to her pistol?Because I swear she entered at gunpoint, except now… now…

I glance at Daryl, whose jaw has dropped.He appears stunned, if not completely mesmerized.What is it about gorgeous women that make men so stupid?

“You’re not Aliah Gulbaz,” the woman states.

“Neither are you, which is interesting, given you just walked into her apartment.”

She gives me a charming smile that lets me know I haven’t fooled her for a second.“I’m a friend.”

“Really?What kind of friend enters another friend’s apartment heavily armed?”

“One who notices two strangers being where two strangers shouldn’t be.And this?By American standards, I hardly think this even counts as a weapon.”A flick of her wrist and the snub-nosed firearm reappears in the palm of her hand.Second flick and it vanishes.Up her silk sleeve?She treats us to a playful look, then stomps her right black stiletto, which causes a slender silverdagger to materialize.Second stomp, it retracts again.I’ll admit I’m impressed, if not a little terrified.