THERE WAS A tap on his shoulder and he looked up to see it was his father. Amar was still in the courtyard, sitting on the lone bench. His first thought was that he could get away with it, trick his father into thinking he was composed, that the edges of the world had not begun to spin. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. His father took a seat. The night was cold. The gray clouds that had raced across the sky when he sat by Amira were gone. His father handed him a glass of water and Amar gulped it down. He thanked him. He had not realized he had been so thirsty.
“Baba,” he said, just to break the long silence. But he sounded like a child pleading—a break between the two syllables. He had not called him Baba in years. There was a day when he decided this was how he would punish his father, that he would not only withhold affection and respect, but he would also keep from calling him father. The light of the lamp at the far end of the courtyard doubled and swayed.
His father placed a hand on his shoulder and left it there. His hand was warm and Amar could feel it through the fabric of his shirt. He did not move just in case his father’s hand slipped. How did Amar get here and was this really happening? How long ago had Amira been sitting in the courtyard across from him? She wore a delicate gold necklace. She had beautiful lips. She laughed the same way she had always laughed. Some things never changed, and those things were a comfort, and a way to mark all the rest that had.
“Do you remember the story of Imam Hussain as a child, and how he climbed onto the Prophet’s back during prayer?” Amar asked.
“Of course.”
“Why do you think we were told that?”
Baba looked up, and then down at his feet. He shrugged.
“To show us how much he loved his grandson,” Baba said.
“But what if it was meant to show us more? What if we were meant to look closer?”
There was a pause.
“I don’t know, Amar. I never think about things the way you do.”
“I do think about things.”
He meant it as a statement but it sounded like a question.
“I know you do.”
“Is it enough?”
“I pray it will be.”
Baba cupped his arms in his lap then lay them open.
“I just wanted you to know that I remember that.”
His father nodded. Was Amar crying? Is that why his shoulders were shaking? Is that why Baba’s hand was moving up and down his back, and he was pulling Amar close to his body? And Amar knew that scent. They are driving down a long street lined with lots of trees and it is exciting to be so close to the wide window, and Baba leans across him to turn the knob of the window until the wind slaps his face and that is the scent. Now his father was saying something to him, and Amar focused on his words until he heard that he was saying it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. He was repeating it like a prayer.
How long had he wanted this without knowing it was what he wanted. It’s okay, his father said, his heavy hand moving up and down his back, and Amar knew that he was crying. He nodded into Baba’s arm and tried to close his eyes, but that made the spinning worse. Then he remembered there was a wedding, and the wedding was Hadia’s, and that it was why he had come. I have to go back, he thought. But he must have spoken it aloud because his father shook his head.
“I have to go back, but you can’t come back inside, Amar,” Baba said.
He had fucked up. It was apparent to anyone who looked at him. He nodded.
“Will you go back now?” Amar asked.
“Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for?”
Baba did not answer him.
“Why do you do that?” Amar asked.
“Do what?”
Amar touched his hand to his eyebrow and ran his fingers along the length of it, then back up again.
“I didn’t realize I did it.”
“You always have.”
“I suppose I’m just thinking.”
“I always thought it meant you were so angry you wouldn’t speak.”
Baba shook his head. He looked up at the sky again, as if he were searching for something there.
“It’s okay,” Amar said, repeating what had just been said to him, and he touched his hand against his father’s shoulder, because even in the blue-dark it looked like Baba was the one who was now about to cry.
“Was your father a good father?” Amar asked.
He did not know why he asked it.
Baba was quiet. Then he said, “He was very strict. I was very afraid of him. He died when I was a boy, so I never knew if it would be different between us when I grew older. If he would be another way with me.”
“I look like him,” Amar said.
“You do.”
Baba smiled a little.
“Will you leave soon?”
“In a minute.”
Both of them looked at the moon in the sky. And the tiny stars. Amar shivered.
“I don’t think I will make it,” Amar said. “I’m sorry.”
“Of course you can’t come back inside, Amar—you can hardly sit up.”
“No, I mean to the other place. The next place. I don’t think I’ll make it. I don’t think you’ll find me there.”
He had left the path. His parents had given him a map, and directions, and he had abandoned it all. Now his heart was so ink-dark he could be lost and not know it, and not care, and never know how to find his way back.
“Listen to me.” Baba held on to his arm. “You could never be more wrong, Amar. We taught you one way, but there could be others. We don’t even know, even we can only hope. How many names are there for God?”
“Ninety-nine.”
He knew all of this by heart. Didn’t that count for something?
“And are they all the same kind of name?”
“No.”
“Some contradict each other, remember? Didn’t you just say to me—what if this is meant to show us more? What if we are meant to look closer?”
Amar nodded. Wind rustled the leaves. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve.
“We will wait until you are allowed in,” Baba said, as if to himself. “I will wait.”
Baba pointed at the sky, and Amar looked, past the stars and past the lighter patch of the Milky Way, past the moon, and maybe God was there and maybe God wasn’t, but when Baba said to him, “I don’t think He created us just to leave some of us behind,” Amar believed him. Amar wanted to.
Baba opened his wallet.
“Take this,” he said, and he folded a bunch of notes into his hand. He did not count them. The bills were layered and layered.
“Will you have a place to sleep tonight? Is where you were near where we are now? Can you go back with ease?”
Amar wasn’t sure but he nodded.
“You have enough for a taxi?” Baba asked.
He nodded again. Baba added another note and pressed it into his palm, closed Amar’s fingers around it, and said, “A little more, in case it is farther. This should be enough.”
Amar leaned his head against Baba’s arm. Baba stopped speaking. It felt as if neither of them were breathing. Then he patted Amar’s hair down, like Mumma would do for him when he was younger.
“It will be all right, Inshallah. But I have to go back inside now.”
Amar felt as he did as a boy, when Baba dropped him off at school and before he closed the door Baba reminded him, you have to stay here the whole day. You cannot call Mumma and you cannot call your sisters. I have to go but you have to stay.
“You will be all right? You feel all right.”
Amar nodded.
“It’s just—it’s just the drink?” Baba whispered it.
Amar nodded.
“Khassam?” Baba asked him.
“Khassam.”