My five-year-old nephew refused to sit on the couch, curling up on the cold floor instead.

Part 1: The Silent Witness

The winter sun filtered through the lace curtains of my living room, casting patterned shadows on the Persian rug—a rug I had bought in Beirut in 1982, back when the sound of shelling was my morning alarm. Now, my mornings were filled with the whistle of a tea kettle and the chirping of cardinals in the snow-dusted oak tree outside.