cigarette. Smoke mingles with the coffee steam rising from
Grandfather Hasan's chipped but favorite cup. Short Khadra muses
on her wedding party in Yaffa in 1946: They placed two cinder blocks
under my feet on the stage. My mother brought dinner for us at night:
chicken soup, rice and some bread she baked in her clay oven.
Khadra turns to Hasan: You lit the candle before the wind blew it out.
Through our bedroom's wooden casement window, a breeze froze my
makeup but your kisses melted me down.
wedding, Khadra fingers her beads while Hasan observes her from his
wheelchair. Dust covers their photo frame, which Hasan hung on a
wall when he could stand. Hasan and Khadra's stories fill their small
house. At night, it starts to drizzle, and beads of rain seep through
some holes in their corrugated asbestos roof. Rain wakes my Khadra
and her children. My father is still nine. Rain waters the stories that
sleep on the old, tiled floor.
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