Youssef sat on the floor outside Mariam's door because if he went downstairs, Samira would ask if he was alright, and he had reached the part of exhaustion where being asked that felt like an insult.
So he stayed there.
Back against the wall. One leg stretched out, the other bent. His glasses on the floor beside him because sometime after midnight he had taken them off and never put them back on.
The corridor light was off. Only the kitchen light downstairs was still on, throwing that weak yellow glow halfway up the stairs before giving up.
The house was quiet.
Not silent, houses were never silent.
The tap in the kitchen was still dripping because he had been meaning to fix it for two weeks and then Mariam got sick and suddenly a dripping tap became the kind of problem people with easier lives had time for.
The fridge made its old dying-man noise. Pipes clicked in the walls. Somewhere outside, the neighbor's idiot dog barked once and then remembered the hour and shut up.
