The Refugee Lawyer | محامية اللاجئين
"She fights for refugees' rights. He's the case that haunts her—the Iraqi translator she couldn't save. Years later, they meet again."
The Refugee Lawyer
محامية اللاجئين
I lost his case ten years ago.
Denied asylum. Deported. Every night, I wondered if he was still alive.
Now he's standing in my Washington office.
I'm Sarah.
Forty-eight, immigration attorney, specializing in asylum cases. I've won hundreds.
Karim was the one I couldn't win.
"Assalamu alaikum, Ms. Morrison."
He's older—obviously. But the eyes are the same. The ones that haunted my dreams.
"Karim? How—"
"Long story. Can we talk?"
He spent five years in hiding.
After deportation, the militias found him. Translator for Americans—death sentence. He fled to Turkey, then Greece, then a dozen places I can't pronounce.
"I applied again. From Germany. Different circumstances."
"And?"
"Approved. I've been in Chicago for two years."
"Why are you here now?"
"I wanted to thank you. For fighting."
"I lost."
"You fought. That's what I remember. Everyone else had given up. You didn't."
"I think about your case constantly. What I could have done differently."
"You did everything. The system was broken. Not you."
"That doesn't feel true."
"It is true." He leans forward. "And I wanted you to hear it. Before I could move on."
"Move on to what?"
"A life. A real one. Citizenship. Maybe... connection."
"Connection?"
"I never forgot you, Sarah. You were the first American who saw me as human. That matters."
We start as professional contacts.
I help with his citizenship application. He helps with other Iraqi cases—translation, cultural context.
But something else builds.
"This is complicated," I say one evening.
"Everything involving refugees is complicated."
"I mean us."
"I know what you mean." He sets down his coffee. "Is complicated bad?"
"Complicated is complicated."
"That's very lawyer of you."
The first kiss happens after a hearing.
We won—a Syrian family, five years of waiting. The joy spills over.
"Sorry," he says after.
"Don't be."
"I've wanted to do that for ten years."
"So have I. I just didn't know it."
"Is this okay? Given... everything?"
"You're not my client anymore. I'm not your lawyer." I take his hand. "We're just two people who survived something together."
"Survived is generous."
"It's accurate."
He undresses me in my apartment.
Gentle, almost reverent. The woman who fought for him when no one else would.
"Beautiful."
"I'm not young—"
"Neither am I. We've earned our bodies."
We make love like people who've waited.
For asylum, for permission, for each other. When I come, I'm crying—not from sadness.
From finally being able to let go.
"Shukran," he whispers after.
"For what?"
"For not forgetting me. All those years. When you thought I was dead."
"I never stopped thinking about you."
"I know. That's why I came back."
Three years later
He's a citizen now.
Works as a translator for the State Department. The irony isn't lost on either of us.
"Happy?" I ask.
"For the first time since Baghdad fell."
"That's a long time to wait for happy."
"I had a good reason to keep waiting."
We married last spring.
Small ceremony. Refugee clients as guests. The flag he couldn't save under became the one we pledged to.
"Mrs. Al-Rashid," he says.
"Ms. Morrison-Al-Rashid."
"Hyphenated?"
"I compromise now. Lawyers learn."
Alhamdulillah.
For cases that come back.
For lawyers who don't give up.
For refugees who survive.
The End.