Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(21)

A boy sat on a bench next to a woman in a long skirt and a hijab. At his feet was a soccer ball that he scooted forward and back with the flat of one foot. He had a book open in his lap and was reading aloud in a high, clear voice while the woman listened. A poem.

My eyes went to his left arm, searching for final proof. There it was—a long, puckered scar, a souvenir from the night his mother was murdered.

Malik.

I pressed my hand to my mouth and watched him.

He was six inches taller than the last time I’d seen him, still thin but even ganglier than before, all elbows and knees. His hair was shorter than I remembered, with a cowlick that stuck up stubbornly in the back. He wore navy shorts, a white E Street Band T-shirt, and sneakers without socks. On his left wrist was a braided leather band, on his right a neon-orange bracelet of the kind usually used to support a cause.

He fidgeted on the bench, his foot rolling the soccer ball as he read.

He was just a kid. A regular kid.

Of course, how many of us wear our traumas on our skin for the world to see?

His voice broke on a word, and he paused and shook his head, as if to say, Not my fault. The woman murmured something, and he returned to the reading.

And still I watched, my heart pressed tight against my ribs so that drawing a breath felt like lifting a car.

Would he blame me for leaving him? Blame me for whatever hardships he’d endured since his mother died?

What if he didn’t remember me at all? Maybe I was just part of a crazed past of grief and terror he’d rather not revisit.

I lifted my chin. None of that mattered. I did not matter. Only Malik did. And if my being here could help him in any way, even if it amounted only to letting him know that someone cared, then that was enough.

I cleared my throat and stepped into the sunlight.

Malik and the woman glanced up. The woman placed a hand over her eyes to shade them, but Malik stared straight at me, unbothered by the light, desert child that he was.

He stood, and the woman rose. The woman whispered something to him, squeezed his shoulder, then came toward me. She nodded and walked past, heading toward the house.

My pulse roared in my ears as I waited for Malik to say something, waited for a light of recognition to go on in his face.

I took a few steps toward him. Somewhere overhead, a bird punctured the quiet with a long, single trill, then hushed again.

“Malik,” I said softly, my voice tentative. “You are—” My voice broke. “I am . . . I am so very happy to see you.”

He remained motionless by the bench, the book of poems still in his hand, his finger holding his place. I approached him the way you would a wild animal, my hands raised, palms toward him, as if he might take flight.

The book slipped from his hand and hit the ground with a soft plop. “Miss Sydney.”

“Yes.”

“Is it really you?”

“It’s me.”

“Your hair is different. Dark.”

I laughed a little. “Yes.”

“You are not a jinn?”

“Oh, Malik, I am so sorry. I never meant to leave you. I never, I’ve always—” My throat filled, and I struggled to speak. My voice came out as a jagged whisper. “Yes. I am real.”

He nodded. But other than that quick, light gesture, he made no move.

“And you?” I asked. “You are real, too?”

“Yes.”

“Not a ghost?”

“No.”

“So here we are.”

I opened my arms, and he ran to me. We held each other as tightly as we could, and soon my shoulder and his hair were wet with our tears.





CHAPTER 6

Don’t apologize for what you do to survive. Anyone would do the same.

—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

We held each other for all too brief a time before Malik pulled free. He picked up the book of poems and placed it on the bench, then grabbed his soccer ball. We stared awkwardly at each other.

“You want to walk?” I asked.

He raised his shoulders, then dropped them. Classic preteen. “Sure.”

The path I’d come on continued on the far side of the glen. Malik led the way.

“In Iraq, I thought you would come back,” he said. “Every day for weeks, then for months. Even after the American spies came and took me away, I thought you would come for me.”

Go slowly, I reminded myself. One thing at a time.

“I tried to bring you with me,” I said. “Do you remember?”

“I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just get on a plane with you.”

I laid my hand on his shoulder. “I want you to know this. I tried harder to take you to America than I have ever tried to do anything.”

He shrugged me off. “But you didn’t.”

Give the boy a knife.

“You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t. I hope you will forgive me.”

“I thought you’d changed your mind.” His voice trembled between anger and anguish.

“Never.”

“I thought you didn’t want me.”

“Oh, Malik, it was my failing, not yours. It’s important you know that.”

He stopped and regarded me through eyes that were no longer too big for his face, but still huge, with fine brows and thick lashes. Even cut short, his hair tried to find its way into curls. The sketch artist hadn’t gotten him exactly right. He was already handsome.