WEEKS PASS AND his father comes home with a large box. He hauls it up the stairs, his forehead gathering beads of sweat. He does not ask Amar to help. Amar stands in the darkness of his bedroom and watches through the open door. His father drops the box with a thud when he reaches the top step and his mother emerges.
His father pushes the box into their bedroom. He does not close the door behind him. Amar listens. Hears the sound of the box being ripped open carelessly, as though his father were certain it would never need to be returned. Then the sound of Styrofoam pellets shifting and being thrown onto the floor. Amar steps into the hallway, on tiptoe; night has long set and the hall is dark.
“What’s this?” he can hear his mother ask.
“A safe,” his father says. Then there is silence. He imagines his father flipping through the instruction manual, the way he did whenever he opened a new appliance. There is a beep. Amar opens his mouth to silence his breathing, presses his back against the wall, until he has no shadow.
“I can see what it is. I am asking why.”
“Precaution,” his father says. “For safety.”
Mumma does not ask safety from whom. He feels it in his stomach: the humiliation. He can’t stay here. Not tonight. He is grateful Hadia is not home to see it. He moves to the staircase. A rectangle of light shines from his parents’ bedroom. At the top of the stairs he looks back at his mother’s pale face. She is watching his father, seated on the floor, setting up the safe, the instruction manual laid out exactly as Amar pictured.
His father has lowered his voice and Amar can only make sense of snippets of his sentences.
“Enough,” he catches him saying, and then, “your wallet in here at night.”
Mumma’s eyes darken.
“No,” she says. “No, no.”
She is like a child in her defiance. His father stands and steps toward her.
“Layla, we cannot pretend anymore.”
Amar steps down a stair. Mumma refuses again, louder this time. If he had not been there to witness it he would never have believed his mother could raise her voice like this against his father.
“How much has to go missing?”
“I want that safe out of my house,” she says. “Nothing of mine is going in there. Not one necklace. Not one penny. Nothing.”
He can sense that something has broken in her; her face is contorted in a strange expression, there is a shrillness to her voice.
Huda’s door cracks open but she does not emerge. His father tries to place his hand on Mumma’s arm, to calm or comfort her. But she pulls away from him, enters the hallway and stops when she sees Amar.
“Oh,” she says, and wipes at the edge of her eye. Even in the darkness her face is pale and stretched tight. It is she who says she is sorry. She whispers it to him, and he feels so angry at himself, so angry that he could strike the wall the way he has before when fighting with his father. But he cannot move. Mumma crosses the space between them and wraps her arms around him. She is at the top of the stairs, and he is one below, so they are almost the same height. He does nothing. He does not lift his arms, does not even thank her. Nothing in his body feels a part of him. Behind her, his father comes to the door, sees the two of them at the stairs, and closes it. The rectangle of light narrows into a thin line.
* * *
BABA CALLS WHEN Tariq is at her apartment for the first time. They have just finished dinner. She does not want to ask Tariq, who has a cough, to be quiet while she is on the phone with Baba, does not want to explain how even a casual dinner at her home could anger her father, so she silences the phone. To explain would be to point out that she is a woman and he is a man. That it is a Friday night. That they are alone.
What she first liked about Tariq when they met semesters ago was how she did not feel self-conscious in his presence. He had taken a seat next to her by chance, glanced over at her notes, and commented on how they were unreadable to him but clearly organized. He studied her face for a moment. I know you, he said then, you’re the one with the sharp questions. When he asked her if she wanted to meet outside of class it was not for coffee or dinner, but to study together at the library. It was never easy with men, not easy talking to them, not easy thinking she could love them. Any interest made her nervous, mistrustful even. But she and Tariq had been friends for months before Hadia decided it was in her hands to reach for more if she wanted it, to call him over for dinner, to make plans intentionally once their excuse of studying together was gone.
Baba calls again, and again she does not answer. Tariq stands to clear the plates and Hadia tries to concentrate on the story he is telling her, but she pictures Amar the last time she saw him months ago, that tear in the seam of his jacket, his incoherent mumbling at the edge of their driveway. It could be bad news. She tells Tariq she will be right back, steps into her bedroom and closes the door behind her, takes a seat on the floor of her closet, surrounded by clothes that will muffle her voice.
“Hadia,” Baba answers right away.
Something in his voice. How a voice is different if one has just woken up or is lying down—but it is not that. She sits up straight.
“When are you coming home?”
She does not have a trip planned. She has been trying to assert herself by setting the pattern of her own life, hoping her parents will grow to accept it.
“I’m not sure yet, Baba. Why?”
“Can you come soon?”
“My next break is in three weeks.”
Baba is quiet for so long she wonders if he has heard her.
“I don’t know what to do.”
His voice quavers. She digs her nails into the carpet of her closet. He has never spoken this way, not these words and certainly not with this tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Something has happened. He’s not going to his classes.”
“This is normal for Amar, remember? He’ll sign up again next semester.”
Her delivery does not even convince her. She stares up into the dark sleeves of her hanging shirts.
“He never leaves the house. Or he goes missing for days. And then he is back, sleeping in his bedroom again. I try to wake him at midday and he does not wake up.”
The four pills in his jacket pocket. She closes her eyes, leans back against the closet wall.
“Have you searched his things?”
Silence, and then, “If you can come home.”
“What would I do, Baba?”
“You could talk to him. He trusts you.”
After she hangs up the phone she steps into the living room. Tariq looks up at her.
“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately.
She has never lost her composure in front of him before.
“I have to go home.”
“Now?”
It is a five-hour drive and it is already eleven at night. Tariq’s concern appears genuine. He has been so open with her. Maybe she will allow herself to become closer to him than she has been to anyone. But how can she be certain he will not look unkindly at her family?
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks.
He is good-hearted. She is grateful. She lifts her purse and grabs her keys and shakes her head no.
* * *