The faces of the women from the pictures flashed through Jessica’s mind, and she wondered which had been saved. “Were there others?”
“Najlaa was not the first; she was not the last. It became more difficult, and we knew we would not be able to continue forever. But we always would say, ‘Just one more.’”
Jessica wrapped her hands around her coffee, absorbing the heat.
Amina closed her eyes and whispered, “I shouldn’t have left.”
“Syria? Of course you should have left. Your father had been imprisoned, your brother murdered, your husband taken away, your city bombed. Who wouldn’t want to leave?”
“A stronger person. A less selfish person.” Amina’s dead stare filled with tears that wouldn’t fall. “I knew. I could have done something.”
“You knew what?”
“When my father handed me my bag, he told me. He knew, my father did. He knew about our group, what we did. He’d learned that others knew, others who would... who would end it, who would end me and end them. But Mohammed was gone, and I was—” Her sharp inhalation shuddered her chest. “No. I should have stayed. Women suffered and died. If I had stayed...”
“If you had stayed, you would have suffered the same fate. But your father arranged for you to leave so you didn’t have to stay. You are very fortunate you got out. Do you know how they found out? Was it the store owner?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Jessica agreed it didn’t matter, at least not for the asylum claim. But the rest of the story, the possibility of Amina facing violence due to her involvement in a women’s support group, did matter.
“Amina, I’d like to add this information to your paperwork. We’ll need to get some dates and whatever information you can provide. I’ll add it to the file for the amendment we’re making to your application.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
AMINA
Since Amina’s last meeting with Jessica, the cold had truly arrived. Amina cleared away the condensation on the bus window, exposing the passing buildings. A woman wearing a red coat and furry black boots walked down the sidewalk. Her long strides and apparent lack of regard for the slushy sidewalks complemented her deliberate posture. Other pedestrians hurried past, their shoulders hunched up to their ears to keep out the cold. This sort of weather must have existed solely to allow the woman in red to wear those boots, and the others would not have been happy to learn this.
Amina exhaled, and the window clouded over again.
While pulling together the information Jessica had recommended to back up her story about the study group, Amina had redirected her search efforts from her family, which had been unsuccessful, to the women from her group. Yesterday, the day she also had received her long-awaited interview notice, a face on the library’s computer screen had matched one from the group. Amina’s nervous anxiety over the upcoming interview in just a few weeks had been replaced with tear-filled relief that someone had survived.
Najlaa, the doctor, was working in a mobile medical unit with an international relief group in Lebanon. Amina had discovered her name listed among the international collection of physicians assisting refugees. The images from Lebanon haunted Amina almost as much as images from Syria. Over a million refugees from Syria had gone to Lebanon, a staggering number that was hard to wrap her head around.
She wondered if ghosts of the other women from the group circled Najlaa’s head as they did hers or if the distractions of the still living, the barely living, around Najlaa kept the ghosts at bay. A nervous hollow in Amina’s gut warned her not to be optimistic that the relief group would respond to her inquiry about how to reach Najlaa.
The bus stopped, and two of the shoulder hunchers from the sidewalk boarded. The seat next to Amina was the only seat open, but they walked past without making eye contact. Allowing a woman her privacy back home might have been seen as a sign of respect. Here, it was a distancing, a stigma.
She closed her eyes.
If only she had stayed. But she had been thinking only of herself.
If only she had stayed. She would have talked to her friend Rasha, who had been part of the group from the beginning. Rasha would have told her husband she had made up what she’d said about the group, that it really was just a study group and nothing more.
Amina’s father hadn’t known which of the women had been at the bookstore when the men came. But Amina could have warned them. Somehow, there would have been a way. Instead, those women were forever silenced.
And she was in America.
She’d seen the images on TV of the refugees—thousands, millions, numbers that seemed unreal. She’d seen the images of men, women, and children crowded on plastic boats, some souls never making it to shore. She’d seen images of thousands of families suffering in refugee camps.
And she was in America.
She folded the interview notification letter and hesitated before putting it back in her bag. Jessica had told her she must tell the interviewer about the study group and what had happened when they were discovered because it could be the most important part of her history. But it was the most shameful to Amina because she was safe and would be using their suffering to support her claim.
She reflected on Rasha, her friend. Rasha had been quiet but always there to laugh and cry with the women. Rasha had packed a child’s dress and a pair of her own shoes in the suitcase for Najlaa. The empathy and fear on Rasha’s face at the moment the doctor had escaped—and at that moment only—had revealed the horror that Rasha and Najlaa shared, the horror Najlaa was escaping and Rasha would continue to endure. And in the end, Rasha had betrayed them all.
But it was forgivable.
It was forgiven.
Amina missed having sisters.
CHAPTER FORTY
“Hey, Mom. I’ve updated the research files.” Conor plopped into the chair on Jessica’s right and plucked a red apple from the bowl. A green apple tumbled onto the table. “Sorry.” He put the fallen apple back into the bowl.
Jessica pushed the laptop away. “Did you find anything?” There hadn’t been a lot Conor could help with due to confidentiality restrictions, but his research since Christmas on country conditions and news stories that tied to Amina’s timeline could bolster her credibility. With no official documentation to support her story, Amina’s credibility was critical to her case.
Conor pinched the apple stem with two fingers and spun the apple with the other hand, staring intently at the process. When the stem finally broke away due to the strain, he looked at what he held in his two hands.
“Well?” Jessica asked.
“It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?”
“Amina’s house. Her parents’ house. The whole neighborhood.” He set the apple on the top of the pile, keeping the stem and rolling it between his fingers.
Jessica groaned, placing her face in her hands. “When? Are you sure?”
Conor pulled the laptop closer and started typing. “I accessed satellite photos of the area. See here?” He pointed at a bird’s-eye view of buildings and streets.
“These photos are publicly available?”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t hack into military servers, Mom. The United Nations released these.”
The image on the screen was pretty clinical. There were no visual enhancements, just a freeze-frame from a satellite or drone passing overhead while time- and date-stamping each shot. “This is where they lived.” He pointed at two red circles he had added to the image. The circles highlighted two gray squares among rows of other squares lined up along crisscrossed streets. “Here’s another shot. And another. ” He scrolled through images that showed the same area, red circles highlighting Amina’s and her parents’ homes. “Then, here.” He stopped scrolling.
Entire streets were gone, replaced by unrecognizable rubble. No gray squares remained. Jessica touched the screen. “This is the same place? Are you sure? Where are the red circles?” She struggled to find a p
urple door.
“Nothing left to circle. But here”—he moved the cursor to a spot left of center on the screen—“here is where their house was. You can tell by the coordinates and these landmarks here. But look at the dates in the corners.” He clicked through the photos again, slowing to point out the date of the most recent predestruction image and the date of the first postdestruction image. “Now...” He clicked open a different tab and pulled up a news article.
“What’s this?” Jessica leaned in to scan the words on the screen.
“English-language newspaper in Turkey. I cross-matched dates on the images with news articles. See here?” He scrolled down and highlighted a portion of the article then pointed out the matching dates on the newspaper article and the satellite images. “Amina’s entire neighborhood in Aleppo was destroyed in a massive attack. At least three hundred fifty people were killed. There is a mass grave over”—he clicked back to the satellite images, scrolled through a few, then pointed—“over here.” He zoomed in. The dark misshapen rectangles lay on the gray ground like columns crafted by an inept builder.
“By whom?”
“The regime blames the rebels. The rebels blame the regime. Does it matter? I can do some more research.”
“No,” Jessica said softly. “It doesn’t matter.” She clicked through the images, back and forth, from life to destruction. She closed her eyes. Amina’s timeline was seared in her memory. Amina had last spoken to her father the day before the attack.
“Looks like you still have a lot to open, Rosalie.” Jessica motioned toward a small Christmas tree sitting atop one of the stacks of banker’s boxes in Rosalie’s office. “I don’t think we had that many packages under our tree last week.”
“Funny, Jessica. If you want to be cute, our ‘packages’ are the refugees arriving this week. And thank you so much for your help with preparations for that. I can’t even tell you how busy it’s been for staff here. It’s been a relief to have an extra body to help coordinate communications and resources ahead of their arrival.”
“No problem. I’m impressed with everything that’s available. Considering the angry talk on TV, you wouldn’t know there are so many people ready to help the refugees integrate. By the way, Amina will be able to come with me on the thirty-first when they get here.”
“I was hoping to hear that. Having another Syrian there will help make the arrivals more comfortable. And we can use all the interpreters we can get.”
“Actually, I’m thinking of it as being something to help Amina ahead of her interview in a few weeks. She feels guilty, ashamed even, for leaving her family and friends behind. It’ll be good for her to be with people who shared her experiences, to remind her that no one would question her decision to leave.”
“Agreed. And regarding the interview, the timing isn’t great, of course, but I wouldn’t recommend requesting an extension. The whole moratorium thing is still floating around. The political pressure is so high right now in opposition to refugees and asylum, especially Muslims. By the way, how are things working out with your new paralegal?”
“Ha ha. Thanks for not totally browbeating me on that. I know it’s discouraged, but Amina was so supportive of having him help, and really, what teenager volunteers to spend Christmas break doing research? He’s cross-referencing dates and GPS coordinates with news reports and images online. It’s all matching up with Amina’s story, so it should really help with credibility. I’m pretty sure Conor will end up being an expert on the Syrian crisis before this is all over.” She could hear the pride in her own voice.
“Her credibility will be key, yes.” Rosalie removed her red-rimmed glasses from atop her head and held them like a dagger. “Bronwyn called me.”
Bronwyn hadn’t called Jessica, and based on Rosalie’s follow-up, that must have shown on Jessica’s face.
“She said she would have contacted just you, but this was something she wanted to get to IAP right away. She has some back-channel information—not official and not for certain—that while existing claims won’t be affected by any moratorium or ban if those do happen, they will be treated with unofficial and unadvertised heightened review, effective immediately. Any credibility you can establish is great, but you really need to have documentation to back up her claims—affidavits, letters, official reports. A lot of claims use letters from family, which aren’t incredibly strong because of the family connection—”
“That’s not going to happen anyway, Rose. Amina hasn’t been able to find any of her family, and Conor just found evidence that her parents, who are the ones who know everything, are probably dead. Amina didn’t say anything when I told her, but I’m sure she’s devastated.”
Rosalie set her glasses on a pile of papers and frowned. “It would be even better if you had official documents or affidavits and letters from someone in a position of authority. I didn’t see any of that in your report.”
Jessica threw her hands up, her voice rising with them. “We’ve got nothing like that. That’s crazy they would require that from these people.”
Rosalie glanced at the open doorway.
Jessica lowered her voice. “Anything else?”
“Have you scheduled Amina’s interview prep session yet? It’s intimidating to sit in front of an interviewer and talk about your intimate and personal history.”
Jessica remembered feeling intimidated sitting in front of Amina, waiting to talk about Amina’s intimate and personal history. “I haven’t coordinated a time yet, but we’ll get on the schedule for a prep session. This was supposed to be an easy case. I can’t imagine what the hard ones are like. You know, I’m not sure how people with real jobs take on these pro bono cases.”
Rosalie perked up and put her glasses back on. “Speaking of which, by the way”—her hands flittered over to a short pile on her right—“I received a request from Highland & Cross for a referral letter, and of course Bronwyn mentioned it on our call. I do hope that if you end up back in the big leagues, you won’t leave us behind. H&C has a strong pro bono presence, so I know they’ll support you. And I’ll want you to keep taking on cases. This case will end, one way or another.”
“Let’s see how it ends, then I’ll get back to you.”
“So, enough of the law stuff and back to the packages. How was your Christmas?”
“Kind of quiet this year. The kids are getting older, you know. It’s not the same as it used to be.” Jessica forced a smile. “Cricket’s been out with her boyfriend, whom I’ve only met once. Danny’s busy with work. Mikey has been tied up on social media since the social butterfly can’t see his friends in school. Having Conor help has been the Christmas miracle, I guess.” It had, in fact, been the bright spot that had distracted her from the silent chasm between her and Danny.
In a way, though, the quiet seemed as if it had allowed the chasm to start to close. At least that was what Jessica hoped the lack of direct confrontations between her and Danny meant. New Year’s Eve, just two days away, was always a special night for them, and it could be the chance to reconnect and make things the way they used to be.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The brake lights in front of Jessica flashed on, then off, then on again.
She seethed. A little early to be drunk, even for New Year’s. She checked the clock on the dashboard. Well, it wasn’t that early. The ball would be dropping soon enough. She had fully intended on being home earlier, but the refugee planes had been delayed, and she hadn’t wanted to leave until each of the families safely connected with their support worker.
Danny hadn’t said goodbye when she told him she was heading up to Baltimore to take care of some IAP business. The arrival of refugees had been big news and not universally popular. She hadn’t told him her full involvement, but he was no dummy.
Before leaving, she’d told Danny she would be back in time for their annual New Year’s Eve date. Even the kids had New Year’s parties this year. But Jessica and Danny had stayed in together ever since t
he year they’d first met.
It had been another year in a string of holidays after law school, and she hadn’t gone home from DC, though that hadn’t fully achieved its sense of normalcy yet. There were always deals that had to close before the end of the year, and that year had been no different. The moment the bank had confirmed the wire transfer on the very last deal, the pressure that had built up through the month burst through. Adrenaline, exhaustion, and emotions she hadn’t wanted to admit to having all collided in a rush and a crash.
The partners went home to their families, and the other associates dispersed like captured squirrels suddenly set free from their cage. With her heart and brain both racing toward an invisible and possibly nonexistent finish line, Jessica couldn’t bear the thought of going back to her empty apartment. She needed to decompress, defocus, and escape herself. She gave the cabbie a different address, not caring that she was alone, in a suit, and carrying a briefcase.
The stress had eaten away at her stomach, but she saddled up to the theater snack bar anyway to order some Jujubes because, well, when in Rome. She didn’t have to battle any crowds at the theater that night. It was New Year’s Eve, after all. But she still managed to bump into the guy with the bay-blue eyes standing behind her. She smiled through her apologies before going to the theater to find a seat.
Maybe it was the lack of strength that weakened the usual barriers, or maybe it was the Jujubes. For whatever reason, Jessica welcomed Mr. Bay-Blue Eyes to sit next to her in the theater, to walk the city sidewalks in the cold moonlight with her, and to talk her down from her postclosing rush.
Every year since then, the two had found a movie and stayed in. Jessica brought the Jujubes.
Shit! The Jujubes! She checked the time again. She was late as it was, and she only knew of one place where she could still find what was apparently considered a vintage candy. They would have to skip them this year.
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