A hundred times. If not more. She was stunned and stunned again by them, and her love for them. How much had been lost? Never made it into her memory, never been captured in a photograph?
Hadia closes the hard cover of her book, a snap of sound that reaches her, and she leans back a little as if she has accomplished something great and is now tired. Let this moment make it, she prays, let each of them remember it too.
“Again,” she can hear her son say.
“Again?”
“Yes, I liked it.”
Layla considers walking up to them and breaking the moment’s spell. But she does not have to, Hadia is scanning the library, restless and waiting to be found, and when she spots Layla she relaxes and smiles before reaching for a different book and suggesting they read that one instead. Amar is reluctant; he blows the hair off of his forehead to show her he is frustrated, but then he nods, leans in, and lets his sister lead him.
* * *
HE WAITS FOR Amira in the tunnel beneath the bridge, rests his head against the uncomfortable concrete slope. Here is where they come when they have no time to linger. It is the only meeting spot she can reach by foot. The tunnel is decorated with graffiti and somewhere beneath the layers is the image he and Amira’s brothers once had spray-painted of their own names, laughing from the ease with which they could leave a mark.
After five days of complete silence it was a relief last night to see her name in his inbox: The tunnel tomorrow, she had written, 3PM. Don’t reply. Of course he is sick about it. For days he could hardly eat, woke in the morning unsure if he had even slept, wondered if she had somehow found out that he does drink, does smoke both cigarettes and weed, does not lie to her but also does not offer information she would never think to ask him for. Or maybe she had grown tired of waiting and realized he wasn’t fulfilling his potential, his promises to her. He did horribly on his last chemistry exam but was too afraid to tell her. Yet another failed mark. Every semester he was scared she would discover he couldn’t transfer on her hopeful schedule. The third night she left his e-mails unanswered, he had snuck from his house with Simon, who Amar had grown close to—close in the sense that neither had to speak much to have a good time, and he could count on Simon to arrive with a plan as soon as he called. They had broken onto the rooftop of a friend’s father’s restaurant, and sat there for hours, their legs dangling off the roof, passing a spliff back and forth and staring at the stars until the sky emptied of darkness and glowed a bare white.
It has just stopped raining. The air is thick with mist. The tunnel is dry, save for a weak stream at his feet. When will she come? What will she have to say? It is half past three already. He pulls his knees to his body, rests his head against them. If this is about drinking then I will give it up. If this is about my grades, would your father mind a different career? I will do anything. He presses his thumb to his eyebrow and follows its line to the edge of his face in an attempt to calm himself. Then at last the sound of her shoes as she descends the uneven stairs. She is not being discreet. It occurs to him that this is the first time since they have begun speaking—no, since he has become aware of her existence—that he does not want her to come. Then she is standing at the entrance and it does not matter what she has come to say to him, he hardly thinks of God and never to thank Him, but he thanks Him now.
“I don’t have very long—Mumma had a doctor’s appointment, and they made Kumail stay with me right until he had to leave for class; that’s why I’m late.”
She does not step over the stream to take a seat beside him. She is wearing a powder-blue dress he has never seen, long pleats that run from her waist to her ankles, as if she woke in another time entirely, thinking it was summer. Her hair is disheveled and tied up in a ponytail, loose strands falling over her shoulder. She breathes heavily. She must have run. But what is odd about her is not her dress or demeanor, but that her eyes are swollen and red. He knows it is raining again by the gentle ripples on the surface of the puddles outside.
“Amar,” she says, and he does not turn to look at her. Each raindrop ripples out to join the ring of another. “My Mumma knows.”
He swallows and closes his eyes. A car passes above them and the tunnel rumbles.
“How?”
“I don’t know how.”
“We made sure no one saw us.”
“I know.”
“It might just be a suspicion.”
“She knew details.”
“Let’s not risk meeting for a few weeks,” he says. “She will forget.”
Amira is quiet. She plays with the white belt of her dress, twists it around her wrist until it tightens. He looks at her muddied shoes. If her mother sees them when she comes home she will know.
“I wanted to meet today because I thought I should tell you in person. I thought I owed it to us.”
He must have known it would end, and maybe it was knowing this that made it easier for him to continue to go out at night, to keep a bottle tucked in the laundry basket in his closet if he wanted a drink before falling asleep. He could have tried harder and he did not. She speaks and speaks and sometimes she pauses between her words and sniffles; she is asking him to look at her but he does not want to look at her. Her dress falls just above her ankles, when she moves even a little it sways.
“Won’t you say anything?”
How unlucky that one person has the power to determine the shape of another’s life. He could laugh about it. Please, she is saying, say something, I don’t have much time. But there is nothing he can think to say, and it occurs to him that it is the one who loves less who has the privilege of being able to express their feelings easily and at all.
“What did they tell you about me?”
“Is there something to tell?”
She tilts her head to one side and watches him, steps one foot behind the other, crosses her ankles. They are quiet.
“I can’t do this to them anymore,” she says finally.
“And what about me?”
“They are my parents.”
“Have I been no one?”
“You’re asking me to turn my back on everyone I love.”
“I would do it for you in an instant. I wouldn’t even have to think about it.”
“You don’t care how your actions affect others.”
The little raindrops tap gently against the puddle. Is it possible he feels relief? That now it is done, now her image of him has been ruined, and he has no reason to try to be someone he is not?
“Were you waiting for them to find out so you’d have an excuse to leave me?” he finally asks.
“It’s been three years since you came to my door—what has changed? You don’t know how angry Mumma was. How disgusted with me.”
Maybe her plan had always been to defy her parents as long as it was convenient for her. He brought her comfort and some excitement, and she experienced herself as different—the only girl from the community who dared to speak to a boy, who wrote and received letters, hid a locket beneath her clothes. Or maybe she liked feeling close to or sorry for Rafiq’s boy, who everyone in the community said to stay away from, the rumors about him drinking, the gossip of him leaving every speech to wander the halls regardless of how holy the day, how sad that parents so sweet be given a boy so difficult they would say, how God tested His believers in mysterious ways.
Maybe what she loved in him was never him, but who she hoped she would inspire him to be. Maybe she always intended to withdraw as soon as her reputation, and the sterling, sparkling name of her parents, was threatened. What about his family name? He had been foolish. He had entered with no plan to leave, let himself be her stop on the road, on her way to a man who was dependable, decent, someone she would not have to nag to quit smoking, someone with an education, someone without anger, someone whose parents were proud of him and proud to send forth a proposal on his behalf, and good for her.
“I was wrong about you. You’re just like everyone else,” he says to her, surprised to find that he wants to hurt her.