AT THE APPETIZER table he busied himself by filling his plate with samosas and small chunks of tandoori chicken. He wanted to mask the smell of alcohol on his breath, wanted to make sure he had something in his system to dull its effect. He felt calmer. But he should not have gone back to the bar. Less than one hour here and he had already made a mistake. The rest of the night he would abide by their rules. For his mother, for his sister. Her hello caught him by surprise. A jolt like the one before. He looked up to see Amira standing only a few feet away. She picked up a plate, slowly, as if still deliberating, and offered him a smile. He replied to her hello. He was afraid to meet her eyes for too long and focused instead on her wrists lined with red and golden bangles, how they slid on her arms as she moved her plate around. He felt far from his legs, so he tried to stand very still. He looked up at the chandelier, then at the colors that shifted around him. How deliberately and desperately he did not want to look at her. The trick was to appear as though he felt nothing.
Soon they were standing side by side. She set a single samosa at the center of her plate. When she opted for the mint sauce, he felt an unexpected sadness at having predicted it. She turned to face him. Her hair fell across her face and formed a curtain over her eye. He wanted to reach out and tuck it back into place behind her ear. But he could not touch her anymore. He signaled to his own forehead, and she, perhaps also remembering how often he would move her hair from her face, immediately mirrored him and swept it away. A light color rose to her cheeks. He had missed this. A heavier silence ensued, both now painfully aware they still shared a language they should have long since forgotten.
PART TWO
1.
THEY ARE ALL WAITING ON THE DAMP LAWN FOR THE SKY TO light up, at a park near their home on the Fourth of July. How they got there is a miracle. It is the first Fourth of July Hadia remembers coming even close to celebrating, and this—sitting and blinking at the empty sky—feels like a feat. Just an hour earlier, when the sun slipped away, they began begging Baba to take them to watch the fireworks, and he was reluctant, telling them that people would be out drinking and they could watch just fine on their television screen. But even Amar, too young to fully understand what he was asking for, repeated please, please, please like it was one long word until Baba said fine, let’s go.
Hadia and Huda are holding hands and sitting cross-legged. Indian-style, her friends call it, and she does not know what this means or why it makes her feel a tiny bit strange. Just a tiny bit. They have laid their jackets down like blankets, spread their sleeves out like the points of stars. Baba is beside her. He scans the park, his gaze rests on other families who have brought collapsible chairs and thick, checkered blankets. Families that smell like popcorn and hold red cups that look purple in the dark. Mumma is next to Huda and Amar is next to Mumma, leaning on her with his thumb in his mouth. Then there is a bang and a streak of light hisses up, and when it is far past the tops of trees it explodes with a pop—and it is a firework, the exact kind she has seen frozen in pictures. Huda lets go of her hand and claps and shrieks. One after another they pop. Hisses and booms and all the while it feels like each sound is in her own body. That is how loud it is. Amar holds on to his ears but his eyes are wide with wonder, and not terror. Hadia notices that she can follow the tiny flare of light as it shoots into the sky before it explodes into a firework. She tries to watch with her mouth closed, because she is seven years old and not a baby anymore, but she can’t, she keeps smiling until her cheeks hurt and sometimes she says “oh wow” without meaning to.
Each one is different. Some light the whole sky a bright green, as if it were a haunted time of day. And Hadia is grateful for their yellow sun, its rays a blinding white. Some of them die so soon and others fall softly, become specks that look like bigger stars. These are her favorite—the delicate golden ones that burst and stay, their twinkling tails slowly dissolving. Smoke lingers. Amar hasn’t taken his cupped hands off of his ears but he giggles at the ones that sound like rockets, the ones that fizzle out in coils, and Mumma is holding him in her lap now, her arms wrapped around his body like she is hugging him, her chin resting on his head. It feels like the show has been going on for so long. Like it will go on forever. Each explosion makes her a little afraid: what if the tops of trees catch on fire, or what if the flame, which feels so close, lands on their jackets?
“How will we know when the finale comes?” Huda whispers into her ear. Her voice tickles Hadia’s hair, her neck. At home they convinced Baba to come by telling him about it, how there were a bunch of little fireworks and in the end a big one, a finale—Hadia had offered the word—like in an orchestra.
“You’ll just know,” she says, but she has no idea when it will be, or if she will know the end when she sees it. She looks back at Baba, and even his mouth is open, and she can see his white teeth. His face flashes green. And he looks like he is also thinking that the sky looks beautiful. Also thinking, How can I look up without smiling? Then comes the sound of the rocket ones and Hadia can hear Amar’s laughter and the tiny, twisty explosions, and Baba’s face is red, then blue, then gold, and then dark again, just his teeth still bright.
* * *
THE SUN IS relentless. Layla sits with her back straight against the balcony wall, practicing her posture. Her younger sister, Sara, is beside her. They are not touching one another. It is their rule for sitting on the balcony on a hot day: any contact between the two of them could make the heat unbearable. She is comforted by the sounds of her street. The man who tries to sell pomegranates and mangoes. A boy who shouts at his friend with words forbidden to her. The honking of the cars and the clacking of a hoofed animal that walks by their house and into the bustle.
“You have a secret?” Sara whispers. Speaking softly is the other rule of the balcony, they come here only when they want no one to overhear them.
Layla wants to be the one to tell her. She reaches up to tug at one of the magenta petals of the bougainvillea above Sara’s head. This summer is the first time she has felt close to her sister. Before, Sara was just a little girl with whom she had the unfortunate fate of sharing a cramped bedroom. One she had to make sure wasn’t listening with her ear pressed to their door when Layla’s friends visited. Now she is the sister Layla whispers to late at night before they fall asleep. The one she goes to with her complaints about her strict teacher or if she wakes from her dreams alarmed. Sara is a light sleeper, a patient listener. She wakes as soon as Layla calls her name and is eager to be included, to be regarded by her as a young woman, as a friend.
“I might be getting married,” Layla says. She twists the orni around her finger until it is tight.
Sara asks her when and there is hurt in her voice, and Layla wonders if it is because she hasn’t told her until today, or if it is because it means she will be leaving soon. Later that night, the proposal would be coming with his uncle to speak with Mumma and Baba and to meet her.
“Mumma tells me it is a great proposal. That I have no reason to refuse it.”
Sara leans her head on Layla’s shoulder. Layla does not remind her of the balcony rule.
“Where does he live?” Sara asks.
“America.”
“That’s far.”
“There are farther places.”
“What does he do?”
“I’m not sure. Mumma says he has a good job. And that he works very hard—he’s been an orphan for years. He moved there by himself, got a job, a place to live.” She does not know why she sounds like she is trying to convince her sister.