The Courthouse

'Dear Milord. No. Dear Your Lordship. Dear Judge-Saab. Dear Sir. My son Sohail is seven years old. He was born on July 8, 1952. I thought he would be a girl because I never felt tired, not once. Even though my husband told me to rest, I was always running around; I even planted hydrangeas that year. The day he came I sent for the midwife and she told me to squat and push and he didn't make a sound, just looked up and told me he was going to be my Lucky Boy. He looks just like me, though I fear he has inherited his father's unruly eyebrows; someday he will have to keep a special comb in his pocket. I tried to give him books for children, like Five Go to Smuggler's Top and Mystery of the Flying Express, but he climbed into my steel almirah and found Wuthering Heights, the copy I rescued the day my father had to sell his first editions to the debt collector. My daughter, Maya, is dark and thin, like her father, and already she has caused me tears because of her steely will. But she sings, Your Lordship, and not childish rhymes, she has already started on the ghazals. Milord, Your Judgeship, the children are still in a state of shock at the untimely demise of their father. They need me, and their home, to ease the burden on their little hearts. Please, take pity. Take pity. Take pity.'