To be unable to show your face. To be afraid to.
Simon had come for him before dawn and as Amar stepped out from his home for the last time, he thought to himself, if I really hated this place, if I were really ready to leave, I would not look back. But he did look. For so long the sky might have lightened, the little magnolia leaves trembling like it were a normal day, the stars already dimmed, his stupid basketball hoop with its torn net and his stupid window. Looked and even thought, if Hadia’s face appears in my window, I will change my mind and I will stay. Looked until Simon touched his shoulder and said, are you sure? Amar nodded because he could not speak. He felt the terror of a boy being dropped off at school for the first time as the car began to pull away, and Simon drove slowly, watched him quietly, maybe thinking that Amar would ask him to turn around, to take him back, but Amar was brave. He had thought it was bravery then. Now he thought it might have been cowardice. But whatever it was, he had not seen his father again until just hours earlier, when he had watched him step out into the blue light of their backyard and Amar had thought, even if I were to walk outside, if I were to approach him, stand by him, shoulder to shoulder, same height as we are now, we would never be near, never be close. To stand side by side in that way, to stumble through my thoughts until I had something to say, would only emphasize it—the impossibility of us.
* * *
“WHAT DID YOU say to him?” Layla asked.
“Nothing.”
Huda was clearly frustrated. It always surprised Layla when Huda expressed her frustrations. She depended on Huda to be respectful and even-tempered.
“Then why did he rush out?”
There were murmurs in the hall, people mingling before the speech started.
“I just told him to meet Tariq.”
“Who asked you to interfere?”
Huda looked at her as if she despised her. Layla disliked the way she was speaking too, how easy it was to unleash her worry on Huda.
“Hadia asked me to.”
There was a sharpened edge to Huda’s voice. Layla was beginning to get a headache. Her neck hurt. She had not enjoyed the wedding since she first saw Amar speaking with Amira Ali, and could not even say why the sight had so unsettled her.
“We have to be very gentle with Amar. We have to be careful to not upset him.”
“Yes, God forbid we hurt Amar’s feelings. God forbid we say anything to him, or ask him to have even an ounce of consideration for any one of us.”
Huda held up her hand with her index finger against her thumb, showing how tiny. Layla pressed two fingers against her temple.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“He said he needed a moment alone.”
Layla wanted to find Amar and reassure him that he could meet Tariq at his own time, but Moulana Baqir took the stage, said his salaam, and the hall of people responded in unison. She had to stay and listen. He had been good to them—had spoken privately with Rafiq when Amar first began to trouble them and had respected their privacy after and not pried. He often praised them on Hadia’s successes. Tonight he would recite the nikkah on her behalf. Layla turned to Huda but she had gone. Alone, Layla suddenly felt drained. This was the night she had looked forward to for years. She had hoped Amar would come and was thrilled when he did. Now she was so tense she wanted nothing but the night to pass smoothly. Wanted the nausea of watching Amar and Amira Ali to have been for nothing—a fleeting encounter, a salaam out of courtesy, their brief story still sealed shut in the past. And she wanted Amar to enjoy the wedding, to feel welcome, so that by the end of the night he could stay, or leave with a plan to visit. Now that she had seen him again it was difficult to recall the three years that had just passed, a life in which she could not speak to her son or even know how he was, where he was, and even the possibility of returning to that separation felt unbearable.
Tariq was listening intently and nodding as Moulana Baqir spoke of marriage as a blessing, how people were created to look out for one another. Regardless of what she might have felt when she first learned her daughter had gone against their wishes for her, she could not help but love him now. He would be a good husband to her daughter. It was a weight lifted from her mind, that now there would be someone to care for her daughter and be responsible for her safety, someone to know if Hadia came home from work at night, someone to keep her company. These were small comforts that accumulated, and what she most wanted for her daughter was a comfortable life.
* * *
HADIA THANKED MOULANA Baqir for his speech. Tariq stepped away while the two of them spoke.
“You are the first generation of our community. I am honored,” Moulana Baqir said, placing a hand on his chest.
The nikkah was soon. Moulana Baqir left the stage and Hadia looked over at Tariq and saw he was speaking to Amar. What Amar was saying was making Tariq grin, as if they were already at ease. Maybe they would never be what she pictured and wanted for her family. But they could be something else. The two of them noticed Hadia alone and walked to her. Amar took the seat by her.
“I was just hearing about how bossy you were,” Tariq said, and he winked at Amar.
“Oh?” She smiled. “Did he give you any tips?”
“There are none,” Amar said, speaking directly to Tariq, in a voice that suggested he was joking.
The entire hall looked like a movie set. The stage had extravagant flower arrangements on both sides, the couch was placed atop a gorgeous Persian rug, and Hadia looked from her brother to her husband-to-be and felt that this was the beginning of the rest of her life.
“Amar was also telling me about being a chef,” Tariq said.
Hadia’s breath caught in her. She kept still the expression of her face, did not even look at Amar, and she nodded as if she had known it all along. She did not want Tariq to think her brother was a liar. It was like an animal instinct, to defend her pack in even the slightest of ways, despite Tariq being the man she was making into her family.
“It’s true,” Amar said, and he touched Hadia’s knee to get her to turn to him. “It’s a part-time thing, but I’m getting good.”
A part-time chef: maybe this meant he was responsible where he was, maybe he was unafraid of hard work, maybe it was part-time so he could attend school as well.
“You must cook for us, then,” Tariq said.
“Remember when—” she began.
“I think of it every time I cook,” Amar interrupted before she could finish, as if he were excited they were grasping for the exact same memory.
“Hadia’s cooking show,” he explained to Tariq, caring to not leave him out.
He was in high spirits. She had been right to invite him. Amar told Tariq about the way Hadia had narrated each step, even mimicked the accent she had spoken in. It surprised her, how happy it made her to hear Amar share information that he or Huda alone had access to. She remembered those weekend mornings fondly, when Mumma and Baba slept in but she and her siblings rose early to watch the best cartoons. The three of them in their pajamas, so short they needed chairs pushed against the counter to see the countertop. She made them breakfast and garnished her sentences with phrases she picked up from cooking shows on television: “Like so,” she said after each step. “Lovely,” and “Voilà!” She theatrically cracked eggs into glass bowls and fished out fragments of the white eggshells when the two looked away. Amar waited patiently for his food, rested his cheek against the cold counter, looked up at her with an expression she now knew was admiration and respect, a look she never found again in anyone’s eyes in quite the same way afterward. All was going well. Tariq laughed whenever Amar intended laughter. If there was an image of other “harmonious” families, this could be as close as they came and she would be happy.