His father has forgotten to turn the wipers on, and neither Hadia nor Amar reminds him. Drops of water gather on the windshield when the car slows to stop at a red light, and each drop has caught within it the color red. He turns to Hadia in the backseat. She leans her head against the car door and looks out the window. When the car trembles, so does she. She refuses to meet his eyes even though she knows he is looking at her. He has always prided himself on being able to discern how Hadia is feeling by studying the look on her face, the way she carries herself, what she does not say. But tonight it is impossible to make sense of her.
Abbas’s street is filled with parked cars. It seems news has reached every community member. This is a tragedy, he thinks as he steps out of the car and the door slams behind him. Tonight they have all lost a young man, barely twenty-one. This night, he knows, will be a mark that divides his life. They are soaked by the time they enter the house, which is warm from the people that will continue to visit in shifts. It is sickening to think of Abbas as a body to be buried. The first room—the family room—is full of women. Amira is not there. But Abbas’s mother, Seema Aunty, is surrounded by women who are speaking to her as if she were a child, hugging her to offer their condolences, and she collapses into their embraces, each one making her cry anew. He is hit with the strange sensation that Seema Aunty has comforted him before, that he has felt safe in this very room, and he is not sure if it is from a memory or a dream. He cannot look at her. Women sit in clusters reading from the Quran. Hadia takes a seat in the corner, by herself, without reaching for one of the books. The look on her face unsettles him, a vacancy to her expression that makes him want to shake her. He turns away and follows his father into the men’s section.
He tells his father he will be right back. His father nods and continues on without him. The Ali house is grand and beautiful, and Amar knows every corridor. All that playing hide-and-seek in the dark, even now he could close his eyes and find his way. The corridor to his right has a staircase that leads upstairs, one used only by the Ali family. He stands at the foot of the staircase. Behind him, he hears murmurs, no one wanting to speak loudly in a house of mourning. It is a risk to walk upstairs, an even greater risk to walk straight down the hall to her bedroom and knock on her door, and perhaps there would be nothing more shameful for the two of them than if they were caught, speaking alone in an empty bedroom.
But this is his life. This is exactly what he wants to do with it. He walks straight to the door he’s known for years was hers and feels his knuckles touch it for the first time. An entire minute passes. He turns twice to look at the empty hallway behind him, afraid to hear any approaching footsteps. Then the door opens. Just enough to reveal her face, then a little more. This—that she opened the door wider upon seeing his face—feels like an accomplishment. His chest pinches when he sees the way crying has exhausted her features. He feels guilty for his quickening heartbeat, guilty for how aware he is that they are alone. She steps back from the door, giving him a space to enter, and he does.
“I couldn’t be downstairs,” she confesses, as though they were already friends. She speaks in a voice unlike the one he remembers. “Too many people. No one who really knew him.”
He wondered, on the drive, how they would address what had happened. And now he sees it is as easy as saying “knew” instead of “know.” Her eyes rimmed red are a shocking green. He takes in the little details of her bedroom—a wide bed by the window, the curtains open, the vicious downpour of rain outside. Her walls have been painted a robin’s-egg blue. There is a white desk beside him and on it a framed photograph that looks like it has been set down where it does not belong. He lifts it. It is a picture of the four of them—Abbas, Saif, Kumail, and her. Abbas’s smiling face is young, and Amar remembers that was the year they had all gone camping with the mosque group, and he and Abbas had taken a walk without turning on their flashlights. They thought that was courage. They stood in the center of a dark trail and listened to the sounds of the night. The pattern of the spaces between leaves that moonlight made on the path. The force of the wind through all those trees. He feels sick, almost dizzy, but tries to compose himself; he has not come to be comforted.
“It’s from Kumail’s birthday,” she says, and he realizes he has not looked up from the photograph. Her voice is soft. She continues, “That night we all went out to dinner. Just the four of us. Abbas Bhai had just gotten his first job, and he was eager to pay.”
“That sandwich shop,” he says.
Abbas had only worked there for seven months, but he bragged about his skills for years to come, made them sandwiches when they were hanging out.
“It was exciting because our parents weren’t there, because we were doing something sort of grown up for once. At least that is why I was excited. I don’t think they would have included me if it hadn’t been Kumail’s birthday.”
She does not look away from his face when she speaks to him.
“That’s not true,” he tries.
She smiles, very slightly, as though she had not wanted to. It falls from her face quickly. She bites her lip then releases it. The door behind him is all but closed. They are so alone. Even if they spoke in hushed voices, anyone standing outside would be able to hear them. And if he knows it, so must she, but still she does not ask him to step away.
“This was the year we—”
“Broke the kitchen window?” She half smiles again.
“I was going to say all went to the camp.”
She was right. That year he kicked the soccer ball so hard the kitchen window shattered. The four of them—Kumail, Abbas, Saif, Amar—stared at the space where the glass had been for a good minute, until Seema Aunty’s shocked face appeared there, and even when she began yelling none of them blamed him.
“You didn’t come back for weeks after that,” she says.
Amar feels so shy that she remembers he cannot think of anything to say.
“I got your note,” he finally speaks.
She frowns slightly and he wonders if it was a mistake to bring it up.
“Out of everyone, I was hoping you would come,” she says.
She might be the bravest person he has ever met, saying what she thinks and feels without fear or hesitation.
She adds, “You were one of his closest friends. He would have wanted you here.”
Abbas gone and never coming back. Her voice is so sad it makes him want to touch her, it seems wholly unbelievable that they are not allowed to touch one another, that he cannot even offer an embrace to comfort her. How could something so simple, for the sake of solace in a time like this, be a sin?
Her hair falls in her face and covers a corner of her eye. It suits her. What doesn’t suit her? But her eyes are so beautiful he wants to move her hair just to look upon their full effect. He looks to the ceiling, clenches his hand into fists.
“He loved you a lot,” he says, his words sounding foolish, so predictable as soon as they are spoken. But it was true. One of the reasons Amar loved and respected Abbas was because of the way he spoke about the people he loved.
“And he spoke of you often,” he tries again. “More than the rest of them.”
That seems to make her smile, and this time she lets it stay.
4.