LAYLA HAD THOUGHT THE SEPARATION FROM HER FAMILY would be harder to bear, but when she steps from the plane into the airport for her layover, she only worries for her father, waiting for her in a hospital in Hyderabad. In this airport she is someone without anyone—without Rafiq, without her children—and it is refreshing, lonely in a way that being alone in her room is not. I am Layla, she thinks, as she drags her carry-on through the airport, studies the screen that displays the Departures and Arrivals, stops to purchase gum, and finds her gate without asking anyone. And as she watches the slowly moving planes make their way across the tarmac, she feels a strengthening in her aloneness, a comfort in knowing she can rely on herself.
It is also comforting to realize her self un-witnessed is in harmony with her self seen. That she discreetly does the minimal wudhu in the bathroom, seeks out a room in the airport where she can pray. That despite the fact that no one would know if she skipped her prayers and slept as she wanted to, she unfolds a napkin on the floor, sets down a small sajdagah, and prays. And as she lifts her cupped hands in prayer, she recalls Amar’s question from months ago, do you pray for yourself and God or do you pray because you’re told to? And before she dismisses the thought, she thinks now she could answer Amar with honesty: I pray for myself, and for God, who is my witness.
Three days ago, her father had a heart attack while Layla was dropping her kids off at school. She came home to an empty house and the answering machine light flashing red, a message from Sara at a moment when their father’s recovery was unpredictable.
“You should go,” Rafiq said on the phone, before she even finished explaining what had happened.
“The tickets,” she said, thinking of how expensive they were, the reason she had not made many trips back in the past, and never on a whim. Always it was her parents who would come and stay with them for months. They gave Layla company in the daytime, and on the weekends the whole family would take trips to see the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Mystery Spot. They were planning on coming for Hadia’s high school graduation at the end of this school year, and Layla called them every week to remind them to book their tickets, that Americans took graduations very seriously, and that it would mean a lot to Hadia if they came.
“It does not matter,” Rafiq said, dismissing her concern. “He is your father.”
She was grateful his first response was to suggest exactly what she needed and wanted to do. But who would drop off and pick up the children? School had begun just a week earlier. It was still early in September. Amar was in seventh grade now and had joined the soccer team, wanting a break from basketball, Huda was a junior, and Hadia was eighteen and in her senior year. Layla had never left the three of them in the house alone for more than a few hours, her girls never cooked the meals she made but experiments they pulled from cookbooks, and Amar fought with them often, which always angered Rafiq—and perhaps her biggest worry of all was that she could not trust Amar and Rafiq to be left in the same room alone for too long.
“Layla. We will take care of it. I will cancel my work trip next week,” Rafiq said, when she asked him how they would manage.
Her tickets were booked before Rafiq returned home from work. And Layla swelled with love for him, her love born from gratitude.
When it is time to board the plane to Hyderabad she steps inside with her right foot first. As she walks down the aisle she looks at each seat number to make sure it is not her own, clutching her purse and passport in her hands, and it is Oliver Hansen she thinks she sees, Amar’s teacher from years ago, tucking his bag beneath the seat before him and sitting up to buckle his belt, but of course it is not him. It surprises her: who returns in thought when one is so far from familiar life. She finds her place, recites her prayers, and soon feels the mighty force of the plane take off from the runway, pushing her back into her seat.
* * *
FOUR YEARS AGO, Amar was in the third grade for the second time, and finally flourishing. Layla was grateful for two things that year. The first was that Mark had continued to be his friend, despite the new grade gap between them. She felt for her son, who watched his classmates move on to another classroom, eat during a different lunch time, open a new set of textbooks. Still, Mark remained loyal, and Layla loved him for it. Layla became friends with Mark’s mother, Michelle, an articulate woman with a closet full of bright dresses and matching shoes, and a soft-spoken demeanor that was so different from her rambunctious son’s. At Christmas, Layla would gift Michelle a box of chocolates, a video game for Mark, and write their family a small card that Hadia checked over for her. Michelle waited in the kitchen when she came to pick up Mark, and while the boys finished up their games or begged for five minutes more, Layla made her tea the way she liked it, without Carnation milk and without any sugar, and the two of them spoke of the boys’ antics; or Michelle, who had no daughters, asked about Hadia and Huda, and complimented Layla on having raised daughters who were sweet and polite. Even Rafiq, who was hesitant when it came to school friends, suggested inviting Mark if they were going to get pizza, or going to the movies, knowing how excited Amar would be to call and ask.
The second thing she was grateful for that year was Amar’s third-grade teacher, Mr. Hansen, a young man who had just left graduate school. Amar spoke endlessly at dinner about Mr. Hansen. He recounted what Mr. Hansen had taught him, or what joke he had made even if it was not funny when repeated, or would announce to everyone if a movie came on television and Amar happened to know it was Mr. Hansen’s favorite.
“Can we hear about something else, Amar?” Rafiq half joked one night.
But later, when the children got up to clear the table, Layla gently reminded him, “He’s excited about school for once. Let’s be grateful.”
Excited about school, and responsible too; for the first time he had been the one to remind them of the parent–teacher meeting. Rafiq sighed. They always went together. They listened to the complaints in silence. Layla would nod, look around the room, and try to picture her son there, scan the little desks and wonder which one was Amar’s.
“I can’t skip work that day,” Rafiq said.
“He’s doing well this year,” Layla said. “I can go alone.”
The lights in the classroom were off, a purple tint, some of the curtains drawn. It was late afternoon. Amar was to wait for her on the picnic table outside and she made him promise three times he would not budge from it. He asked her to take him to get ice cream if he kept his promise, regardless of the news she received in the meeting, and because she was three minutes away from being late, she agreed. It had been years since he and Hadia and Huda had been in the same school, and still she felt the loss of that change, how comforted she would be when she said good-bye to them in the morning and watched the three of them trudge off, knowing that at least when they left her sight they would be near one another. How would she present herself, what would she say? Sometimes when in public she was so shy others assumed she did not speak English, and they would ask Rafiq or Hadia to ask her something, and she would feel deeply embarrassed, too embarrassed to respond fluently in English as she knew how to. Mr. Hansen was sitting at his desk, his head bent, hands busy shuffling papers, and she could see his light brown hair had been neatly combed, and that he had worn a tie. She knocked beneath the light switches and his head jerked up, and she asked, “Mr. Hansen?” and felt the questions she had prepared during the drive over leave her. He was so very young. Why had she come without Rafiq, who always knew what to say?
“Please, call me Oliver,” he said, and he stood with his hand resting at the center of his tie. It was red with three navy blue stripes at the bottom. He didn’t offer a hand to shake and she was grateful. He gestured at the open seat across from him and waited to sit until she took her place.
“So you’re Amar’s mother,” he said, smiling, and Layla felt relief, a smile there instead of a concerned look, which she was so used to from Amar’s teachers who were careful with their words, perhaps out of fear of hurting her. His jittery excitement allowed Layla’s own nerves to relax.