The American Granddaughter

Начало книги

If sorrow were a man I would not kill him. I would pray for his long life.

For it has honed me and smoothed over the edges of my reckless nature.

It has turned the world and everything in it a strange colour with unfamiliar hues that my words stutter to describe and my eyes fail to register.

Maybe I was colour-blind before. Or was my eyesight perfect then, and is the colour that I now see the wrong one?

Even my laughter has changed. I no longer laugh from the depths of my heart like I used to, unashamedly showing the crooked line of my lower teeth that Calvin once likened to a popular café in the wake of a brawl. Calvin meant to be flirty that day. But flirting no longer suits me now. Who would flirt with a woman who bears a cemetery inside her chest?

Miserable, that’s what I’ve become. A dressing table turned upside down, its mirror cracked. I laugh joylessly from the outer shell of my heart. A fat-free laugh, low-cal, like a tasteless fizzy drink. I don’t even really laugh, but just struggle for the briefest smile. It’s as if I have to repress any possible joys or fleeting delights. I have to keep my inner feelings well covered for fear they’ll boil over and reveal the state I’ve been in since Baghdad. I came back feeling like a squeezed rag, one that we use to mop the floor.

Читать дальше →