When Hadia opens the door she is surprised to find me. She glances at the box but says nothing, invites me inside, and while Abbas and Tahira gather around me I hear Hadia’s voice from the hallway, telling someone on the phone, “He’s here. Don’t worry. I’ll call you soon.”
By the time she has come back I have presented the box to Abbas. I tell Tahira, who sulks in my arms, that I will be back next week with one for her as well. She makes little animal noises to tell me that my promise is not enough.
“Why, Baba?” Hadia asks from behind me, her tone concerned. “His birthday was a few weeks ago. Eid is not for months.”
I ignore her. I watch Abbas open the box and lift up the red shoe, and it is astonishing, how he really does look just like you, with that same kind of sensitivity and consideration about him, because I can tell he does not know why I have gotten them and does not particularly want them, but as soon as he erases the initial perplexed look, he thanks me earnestly, ties the laces tight, and runs up and down the hall. I hear the sound of his feet hitting the tile and watch the shoes light up, alternating blue and red lights spilling onto the white tile, flashing, just as you had advertised in one of your posters. Hadia is quiet, even as Abbas breaks the rules of her home. When I look at her, her face is pale. She turns from me and gathers the tissue papers and returns them gently to the box, closes the lid.
“Mumma’s worried. Go home,” she says, running her hand across the cardboard surface of the box, her back to me.
“Do you like them, Mumma?” Abbas asks her when he runs back into the room.
Hadia nods at him, her lips pressed into a straight line in a look that awes me: how like Layla she has become. Abbas looks from me to Hadia, searching for an explanation as to why his mother seems upset.
Later, Hadia walks me to my car, her hands in her back pockets. I can tell she is restraining herself on purpose, not wanting to hurt me, or offend me.
“He will like them,” I tell her. I want her to speak. I want her to say anything, it doesn’t matter what.
“What good does it do now, Baba?” she says softly.
I drive home, thinking of Hadia, and wondering, for the first time, if it was not just you who had been affected by my refusals, but she too. One thing I never told your mother was how secretly impressed I was by the way you had organized the campaign for the shoes. I remember the little facts and drawings you included on the posters. With such determination you decided to go against my initial refusal, with such creative effort. Of course, I could not allow you to see that. But Hadia is right. It doesn’t do any good now. Amar, I had thought that denying you would build character. I thought the not-having would teach you something valuable. You were always so sensitive. And your mother, out of love for you or seeking to protect you, would give you anything you wanted. I was afraid you would grow up spoiled. I especially didn’t want it to be material goods that we spoiled you with. But when you stood before dinner and pulled a sheet of folded binder paper from your pocket and asked permission to deliver a speech, I allowed it. And you had done such a wonderful job constructing your argument. It was well-thought-out and persuasive, even though I knew that you had failed horribly on your persuasive essay assignment.
When we struck our deal, when you met my eyes as we shook hands to make our agreement official, I saw the focus, the dedication, what you were capable of. That night, I told myself that I would allow you the shoes even if you got ninety percent, eighty percent. I thought of how I would explain it to you: you got the shoes because you tried, because you worked harder than you had been working. Your mother was kinder to me that week. Though she never said as much, I could tell she felt more tenderness. Sometimes, I have wondered if she only gave me love when I gave you three love. That without the three of you to care for and raise, she and I would have had little between us. And that when you left, the part of her that loved me began to dwell in our loss of you instead. But I know it is unfair of me to say this. To even think it.
I wanted you to have the shoes, Amar. I want you to know that. You were so proud when you presented your test to me, and we decided we would go to the mall that weekend. You may have hugged me, I don’t know. And I felt, for the first time in a long time, that I did know how to be a father to you. That you had shown me how capable you were of working hard, of keeping your word. That maybe what worked for Hadia and Huda would not work for you, that I could meet you where you insisted on standing, without appearing to compromise. We could find some solution, the two of us. But that night, while you slept, I heard a knock at my office door. It was Hadia. I lifted my face from my papers and invited her inside. She was hesitating with me in a way that I had not noticed before, and I pressured her, perhaps too sternly, when I should have let her keep her secret a secret.
“Amar cheated,” she said. “It’s on the bottom of his shoe.”
To my surprise, I felt a deep disappointment, not with you, but with her. I had found comfort in knowing my children had obvious ties to one another. Even in the way you and your sisters fought, there was love. And though I did not like misbehaving or lying, I did feel an odd kind of pride in how quick you were to take the blame on behalf of your sisters. After having put your loyalty to each other to the test and finding your love for one another exceeded any punishment I might exact, I would watch you three relax, become chattier and begin joking with one another, thinking you had fooled me. But of course, I could not tell Hadia how disappointed I was. She had done what was right. What we had tried our best to teach her—to be honest, to respect the laws of the home, the classroom, and eventually, the greater world. And once she knew that I knew, I could not pretend that all was well. You had betrayed me and our agreement, you had made a fool out of me. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I became.
* * *
BEFORE GOING TO hajj, a momin must repay the debts owed, draft a will, and ask for forgiveness from friends and loved ones. Practically, I imagine, because the hajj is taxing and possibly dangerous, and partially because one then comes back a sinless man, and meeting those conditions might be prerequisites for cleansing one’s life. The older I get, the easier it is for me to imagine that God can forgive a man for his sins when they only affect him, but maybe He wants people to mend any hurt and harm they cause their fellow brothers and sisters while in this life, while living in this realm.
Layla and I went to hajj the first year we were married. I wanted to show her that though she had left her whole life behind, I would care for her spiritual needs as well as any other. In those first months we were together, we were very careful and kind with one another and I wondered if an environment as unfamiliar and challenging as hajj would bring us together in a new and unpredictable way. I was still young. I had very little debt. I paid for my coworker’s lunch as he had once paid for mine. I returned my library books. I paid rent for our small apartment in advance, so the debt would not be incurred while we were away. I called my uncle who had cared for me after my parents’ passing—my mother’s brother, who I had not known very well during their life, but who after their death I thought of as an older brother. I asked him if there was anything I owed him.
“You know there is nothing. Anything I did for you, you have repaid me in full.”
“Is there anything I should ask forgiveness for?”