Negar was twenty-two years old, but that night she aged more than in all the years of her life. It was past eleven o’clock; she had a math exam the next day and was reviewing the last lessons. Her math textbook was open on the desk, equations scribbled before her eyes, but her mind was elsewhere. The sound of the television came from her mother’s room, the same repetitive series that played every night. Everything seemed normal. A night like any other.
Then came the sound of breaking glass.
Not an ordinary sound—the sound of something that had struck the glass with force and shattered it. A sharp, piercing sound that echoed through the silence of the night and startled Negar.
She stood frozen for a few seconds, breath held in her chest. Maybe a glass had fallen, maybe something from the windowsill. But she heard no other sound. No sound of glass being cleaned up, no sound of movement. Only silence.
She stood up and walked quietly down the hallway. Her mother’s door was half open. Negar hesitated, wanted to turn back, but something drew her forward. She pushed the door; it opened.
Her mother was sitting beside the bed, staring blankly at the wall. She had wrapped her left hand around her right wrist, and blood was dripping between her fingers. On the floor beside the bed, pieces of glass were scattered. A picture frame was broken—a photograph of her father that had been framed years ago. There was also a hole in the wall where the frame had struck it.
Negar looked at her mother’s hand, at the blood dripping onto the floor, drop by drop, spreading over the dark carpet. She looked at her mother’s eyes—empty eyes, lost, as if someone had left home and only the walls remained.
Her mother turned and looked at her. Their eyes met. Her mother was looking, but it was as if she didn’t see. As if she didn’t recognize Negar.
Negar wanted to speak, to ask what happened, to ask why, to ask how she could help. But there were no words. Her mouth was dry, her tongue heavy. She just stood there, watching.
Her mother moved her lips, whispered: “Forgive me… forgive me…” No sound came, just the movement of her lips. She repeated it: “Forgive me… forgive me…”
Negar stepped back, one step, two steps, three. She looked behind her; the hallway was dark. Her heart pounded in her ears, fast, terrifying. She looked at her mother again. The blood was still dripping, onto the floor, onto the carpet, onto the whiteness of her mother’s shirt.
And then, Negar ran.
She ran out of the room, down the hallway, into the kitchen. She placed her hand on the counter, gasping for breath. She felt like she was suffocating. She opened the window; the cold autumn air hit her face. She took a deep breath, and another, and another.
She thought about her mother’s room, about those empty eyes, about the blood, about her mother’s “Forgive me.” What had happened? Why? Her mother had always been sad, always silent, always distant. But this… she had never seen this.
She stayed in the kitchen, unable to go back. She didn’t hear her father coming. Her father always came home late, always working, always absent. She heard his voice coming from her mother’s room, first quiet, then louder. He was saying something, but Negar couldn’t understand what.
Then came the sound of an ambulance. The siren echoed through the night, closer and closer. Negar stayed there, in the kitchen, behind the counter, until the ambulance arrived, until they took her mother away, until her father came and said, “Stay home, I’m going to the hospital…”
Negar didn’t say anything. She just nodded.
Her father left. The house fell silent. Negar was left with the bloodstained carpet of her mother’s room, with the pieces of glass, with the picture frame that no longer held her father’s photograph.
She didn’t go into that room. She closed the door. She returned to her own room and sat behind her desk. Her math textbook was still open. She looked at the equations, but she saw nothing. Only her mother’s empty eyes. Only the sound of her saying “Forgive me.”
Morning came. Negar didn’t go to the hospital. Her father called and said her mother was fine, that they’d stitched up her hand, that she would stay for a few days. Negar said “Okay” and hung up.
A few days later, her mother returned from the hospital. She was never the same again. Her mother became quieter, sadder, more distant. Her father stayed home more, traveled less. Everything seemed normal. But nothing was normal.
Negar could no longer look into her mother’s eyes. Whenever she did, she saw that night. Those empty eyes. That blood. Those “Forgive me”s.
The next year, she received a scholarship to Canada. She left. She thought by leaving, she could put everything behind her. But she left nothing behind. She took everything with her. In her small suitcase, in her heart, in the sleepless nights of Toronto.
**Return to the present.** Negar was in her Tehran apartment, by the window. It was raining. She placed her hand on the glass; it was cold. Her eyes were wet, without her knowing when she had started crying.
She thought about her mother, about that night, about the twenty years that had passed since then. She thought about all the days she could have called, could have returned, could have said “Forgive me, Mother.” But she didn’t. She didn’t go. She didn’t.
Now her mother was in a nursing home, with Alzheimer’s, losing memories one by one. Maybe now her mother didn’t remember her. Maybe she didn’t remember that night. Maybe she had forgotten everything.
The suitcase was open, clothes scattered on the floor. She should gather them, organize them, decide to stay. But she couldn’t. She stayed by the window, watching the rain, watching the city that was foreign to her, watching a life she didn’t recognize.
Tomorrow she had to go to Dr. Mohiri. The man Farhad said could help. Help… could someone whose wound was twenty years old, festering, deeply rooted in their heart, really be helped?
She didn’t know. But she would go tomorrow. Because there was no other choice. Because she had tried every path and none remained.
She closed her eyes. She saw that night, saw her mother, saw the blood. Then she opened her eyes and looked at the rain, at the droplets that cleaned the window but could not clean anything from her heart.
She stood up and went toward the suitcase. She knelt down, gathered the clothes, folded them, and put them in the closet. She placed the books on the table. She picked up her mother’s photograph and looked at it. The same old picture, the same smile, the same eyes.
She placed the frame on the windowsill, by the window. Where she would see it every day. Where she would remember why she had returned.
She went back to the window. The rain had lessened, falling softly. She placed her hand on the glass, near her mother’s photograph. Two images were reflected in the window: her mother’s picture and her own face. Side by side, in the frame of the rain.
