The lines at his eyes and mouth that Tariq had always associated with humor had deepened to reflect something decidedly incongruous— The smile of a soul haunted by specters. All a part of the masquerade put on by a grief-stricken man whose cherished seventeen-year-old daughter had died one morning . . . only to be followed by his wife, three days later. A wife who couldn’t bear to live in a world without her only child.
