For one suspended instant, the universe reduced to the sound of a clean breath.
It was a sound Dawud had not known there was. It was the sound of a morning free of illness, of an early life free of loss. It was the sound of his brother, Tariq, filling lungs with air that had been ripped and seconds before had drowned in their own liquid. The ugly, sodden wheeze that had been the accompaniment to Dawud's own fear was just. gone. Taken away.
Tariq's chest rose and fell slowly and steadily. The waxy whiteness of his skin was being stripped off by a warm glow. He blinked, his eyes no longer glassy with fever but shining with a dawning, stunned wonder. He stared at his hands, then at Dawud, as if to confirm that he was actually present.
"Dawud?" he whispered again, the name whole and complet
