One day, long before the troubles, he slipped away without saying a
word to anyone and never went back. And then another day, forty-three
years later, he collapsed just inside the front door of his house in a
small English town. It was late in the day when it happened, on his way
home after work, but it was also late in the day altogether. He had left
things for too long and there was no one to blame for it but himself.
Abbas has never told anyone about his past-before he was a sailor on the
high seas, before he met his wife Maryam outside a drugstore in Exeter,
before they settled into a quiet life with their children, Jamal and
Hanna. Now, at the age of sixty-three, he suffers a collapse that
renders him unable to speak about things he thought he would one day
have to.
Jamal and Hanna have grown up and gone out into the world. They were
both born in England but cannot shake a sense of apartness. Hanna calls
herself Anna now, and has just moved to a new city to be near her
boyfriend. She feels the relationship is headed somewhere serious, but
the words have not yet been spoken out loud. Jamal, the listener of the
family, moves into a student house and is captivated by a young woman
with dark blue eyes and her own complex story to tell. Abbas's illness
forces both children home, to the dark silences of their father and the
fretful capability of their mother, Maryam, who has never thought to
find herself-until now.
