A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

And now the shame set in, and the guilt, and, upstairs, the clock ticked on, impossibly loud to Laila’s ears. Like a judge’s gavel pounding again and again, condemning her.

She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion—like the phantom pain of an amputee.