Abbas fell asleep easily with Layla and went to her when he was tired, or if he had hurt himself and begun to cry, but during his unhurt waking hours it was me he wanted, my arms he was always in. It was a mark of that age. I had slept through my children’s childhood. I would not allow that to happen with him. I would hold him anytime he asked, even during the months that Hadia and Tariq were trying to break his bad habit of being held. Everything he did, I told myself to cherish the act, knowing that the age would pass, and he would stop asking me to carry him everywhere, would stop ranking
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