They sat together. Then he blinked and Baba was gone. One night, when he was very little, before Huda began to wear her scarf, Mumma told them what it would be like in heaven: Everyone will be born again with the faces they had in their youth—mothers and daughters will look like sisters, fathers and sons will look like brothers. In heaven no one will be old. No one will be tired. There will be nothing to want. There will be rivers of water, and rivers of milk and honey. There will be homes made entirely of jewels. Emeralds and rubies and sapphires.
But just before we make it to heaven, she said, there will come the Judgment Day. Amar’s heart was thumping in his chest. Mumma said, there is an angel whose entire existence is spent waiting for that moment to blow into the shell and wake every soul that has ever lived. That day, everyone will rise to fend for themselves. Everyone will forget that in life, they had a mother, a daughter, a friend, they will only worry for their own souls, if their soul will make it to the other side. We will wait so long to be called forward, it will feel like lifetimes pass before it is our turn. And then, when the long line has dwindled, and we stand to be judged, each body part will speak against us to say what we did in our life—if we had gone toward evil or stayed away from it—and the angels that sat on our shoulders will unroll their scrolls and read out our actions for God to decide our fate.
Amar had been frightened. He pictured a stampede of people. He pictured his hands speaking against him to say that he had shoved Huda, he pictured his tongue speaking against him to say he had told lies. But the thought of looking the same age as his parents frightened him the most. How would he recognize them? What would it be like if they all rose and no one cared for each other? Mumma continued speaking about the bridge that would be as thin as a hair and sharp as a blade, and it was Baba who noticed the look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Baba asked him.
“We won’t care about each other?” he asked.
“Ami, no one will be caring about anybody,” Mumma said, “not until everyone has made it to the other side, to heaven.”
“How will we know what our faces in heaven will be, how will we reunite if everyone who has ever existed is there?”
He had begun to cry. He did not want this life to end. He did not care for houses made of rubies or rivers of honey, not if the sound of the shell separated him from them.
“We will find you,” Baba had said, “don’t worry about that. Just worry about your deeds. I could find you anywhere.”
Soon the spinning would steady. He would find his way to a place where he could rest until morning. Maybe there was no God. But maybe the God of his parents was there, watching him tonight as on all nights. And if He was there, He had revealed ninety-nine names for them to understand him. There was the Avenger, the Firm, but there was also the Forgiving, the Patient. To read any surah in the Quran, one first had to read of God’s mercy and compassion; almost every single chapter began with that line. The Prophet was the leader of the entire ummah, his every action an example, but when his grandson climbed his back, he had bent the rules, and what if it had been because it was more important to protect a child from pain than to be unwavering in principle? Maybe it was the exceptions we made for one another that brought God more pride than when we stood firm, maybe His heart opened when His creations opened their hearts to one another, and maybe that is why the boy was switched with the ram: so a father would not have to choose between his boy and his belief. There was another way. Amar was sure of it. He wanted them to find it together.
* * *
THE PHOTOGRAPHER WAS scheduled to leave but Layla asked him to wait just a moment longer. Her husband and son were about to come back.
“Our family photo,” she said to him. “It’s more important than the others.”
The photographer looked at Layla as if he could not decide if he was irritated by her or felt sorry for her, but he agreed, and Layla thanked him with her hand on her heart.
Her headache had worsened. She held her hand over her mouth each time she thought she was about to cry. Rafiq had disappeared at least half an hour earlier. A tightness coiled in her chest had not loosened, and she looked forward to the end of the night, when she could sit on her bed, take off her heels and jewelry and heavy sari, and just close her eyes. Rafiq approached. Amar was not with him. Still, she felt a wave of relief, stepped quickly toward him, and when they were face-to-face she reached out to touch her hand against his cheek.
“You’re cold,” she said. “Did you find him?”
“No.”
“You looked?”
“Yes.”
“Everywhere?” She looked behind him, down the corridor Rafiq had come from.
“Layla.”
She began to walk past him but before she could go far he reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. She glanced around. Guests passed, not noticing. He looked at her tenderly until she stilled, and then he let go. The rims of his eyes were red. There were times in their marriage when he had horrified her by the way he could yell at their children, but Layla had never felt afraid of him. What he sometimes unleashed on them he always held back from her. When he spoke now, he did so softly. “We have to go back to Hadia. It’s time to give her away.”
They turned to look back at the main hall. A young child was asleep on her father’s shoulder, her little feet bare, her mother following with her shoes hooked on curled fingers. They had their whole lives ahead of them: they moved through a world where anything was possible and did not even know it to be grateful for it. One day the possibilities of their life would narrow until there was only one outcome to a night like this. Layla stared at the family until they were on the other side of the glass door. Rafiq touched her back. She knew what he was asking of her. To give up hope of finding Amar.
“I can’t do this,” she said.
“You can,” he said, and she looked up at him. “You have been so strong and patient for years.”
He guided her back as if she had forgotten the way. Before they stepped into the main hall she spoke. “I made a terrible mistake.”
It was a relief just to say it.
“What do you mean?”
“You were right—all those years ago. I should never have gone to Seema.”
“Why are you thinking of this now?”
“He knows.”
Rafiq stopped walking.
“If he left tonight, if he is leaving, it is because of me. They spoke—she told him. Let me go look for him. Let me apologize.”
Her husband had aged in a night. He did not say anything but he looked from where Hadia stood on the stage waiting, to Layla, then back down the corridor. Amar was back there. He had found him.
“Layla, we did then what we thought was right. And now we have to do what is required of us.”
He gestured to Hadia, who lifted her hand up to get their attention. The photographer was looking at them too. Rafiq was right. Layla looked over at her husband’s profile as they walked. She could not read the look on his face—he hid what he felt from everyone and it had the opposite effect he intended: it only made her care more. Rafiq extended his hand to help her up the stairs. Her children would all leave. But Rafiq would remain a blessing in her life, the center, the constant, the only one who truly bore the weight of this moment the way she did.
She thanked the photographer and he stood with his camera to position them. He did not ask any questions. The weakness she had felt after Rafiq returned without Amar left her when she saw a panicked look on Hadia’s face.
“No,” Hadia said, “absolutely not. We wait for him.”
“There is no time,” Layla said.
Tariq did not know what to do. He looked from Layla to Hadia, then at his lap.
“We will wait for him,” Hadia said, shaking her head. Her teekah shifted from the center of her forehead. Huda stepped forward to fix it. Hadia moved her hand away.
“He’s not coming, Hadia,” Layla told her, her voice stern.
Comforting Hadia distracted Layla from her own grief. She would mourn tomorrow, alone, with no one there to witness, but tonight she would be strong for her daughter. Hadia’s eyes filled at once, that sheen before crying.
“You knew about this and didn’t tell me?” she asked Huda.
“He told me he was going to come back the last time we spoke,” Huda said.
“Baba, will you go look for him?” Hadia asked.