It only takes me a second. “Princess! That’s it, right? I totally should’ve guessed.”
“Context clues. They’re the key to decoding a new language. They’re how I work out your American slang.”
“I wish I was as good with words as you are. Do you carry your notebook all the time? Just in case the mood strikes?”
He laughs. “Something like that, yes.”
“Is that what you want to do with your life? Write?”
He’s quiet a moment, his amber eyes shrouded. He says, “Writing is not a career option.”
“Writing is my mom’s career.”
“Things are different in Afghanistan.”
“But there are universities.” Several—I know, because I looked them up late one night, curious. “Mati, you could take writing classes.”
“Things are different for me,” he amends solemnly.
“What if you went to college here, in America?” I say, voicing the idea that’s only recently occurred to me. We could do it; we could work if we were together. He doesn’t have to live halfway around the world. “There are writing programs at schools all over the US and aren’t there, like, student visas?”
He lets go of a hefty breath. “There are, though that doesn’t change the fact that I need to return to my country.”
“But … why?”
“Because, Elise. I am my baba’s eldest son, which means I will be khan of our tribe one day. It is my job to take care of things at home—it is my duty.”
I’m not exactly sure what he means by duty, but he seems reluctant to elaborate. Rather than push, rather than risk spoiling this fragment of time that feels otherwise perfect, I sit back to watch the twinkling stars. I feel a sense of solidarity with them, so far away. I have an idea of how lonely it must be, glinting forlornly in the ceaseless sky.
Only for now, I’m not alone.
I read about binary stars once: two stars that orbit the same central mass. That’s what being with Mati is like. We’re linked by a common gravitational pull, circling round and round while the rest of the universe closes in.
Out the window, a flash of light streaks across the sky.
“Oh my God!” I say, and at the same time, Mati says, “Did you see that?”
“Was it—?”
“A shooting star,” he says. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“I haven’t, either. We have to make a wish.”
“Do we?”
“Mati, yes. Superstition demands it.”
He raises a cunning eyebrow. “Aarzo.”
I sit up straight, tapping my chin. “Hmm, context clues … wish? Or star?”
His smile makes our little turret glow. “Wish. Very good. Star is stórey.” He sits up, too, scooting around to face me. His hands land on my knees and their heat trickles through my jeans. “What will you wish for?”
“World peace.”
He nods seriously and I realize, too late, that my insensitive joke was lost on him.
“Wait, I want a redo.” I close my eyes for a quiet second, then say, “There. Your turn.”
“You already wished? In secret?”
“That’s how wishes are made. Unless you’re Janie, because then you wish for cookies all the time, loud and proud.”
“Then I will wish for cookies, too, an endless supply to eat every day, with you.”
“After we walk Bambi?”
“Deal.” He holds out his hand; I grip it and we shake, though making plans like this, plans that include the words endless and with you as part of the same thought, twists my stomach into knots. If duty says he can’t consider school in the States—life in the States—then we have this summer, a few more weeks. Decidedly not endless.
We resettle ourselves against the turret wall, my hand still entwined with is. My phone buzzes; it sounds like a helicopter cutting through the silent night. I glance at the display, expecting to read MOM because it’s getting late, but I see Audrey’s name instead. I turn my phone off completely. She doesn’t get another chance to ruin this night.
“Your mother?” Mati says as I slide my phone back into my pocket.
“Audrey.”
“I bet she’s calling to apologize.”
“I bet she’s calling to bitch about what a horrible person I am. I just—I don’t want to talk about her, okay?”
“Then tell me more about your brother. Your voice does something amazing when you talk about him—it floats into the sky, like you can’t contain all the love you feel for him.”
“Is that weird?”
“No. It’s extraordinary.”
So I tell him about Nick: silly stories from our childhood (he’s particularly impressed with one about how we used to surf down the staircase on my twin-sized mattress), gifts he bought me, pranks we played, trips we took with Mom (again with the surfing—Mati’s fascinated by the revelation that we took lessons in Maui). I tell him about how Nick and Audrey met, their freshman year, thanks to me and a stumble on the sidewalk in front of her house. She was home alone (eternal latchkey kid) and rushed outside with handfuls of Band-Aids. She ended up sticking them all over my leg—everywhere but the scrape—because she was so enamored with my big brother.
“And they were together from that day on,” I say.
“Until…”
“Well, Aud would say they’re still together. Some days I think her devotion’s impressive. Some days I think it’s unhealthy.”
“Her soul knows its mate,” Mati says softly.
My throat swells with sadness. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but yeah. Maybe.”
“What happened to him, Elise?”
I can talk about Nicky until I run out of oxygen, but talking about his death … I still get emotional. Sometimes, I still feel like weeping. “He was a civil affairs soldier,” I say, giving my composure a chance to find its footing. “So he was like a middleman between the US Army and the local Afghans. The emails he sent … He went on and on about the people he was meeting—kids especially. He was always asking us to send packages with things he could give them: candy, school supplies, and little toys. He loved it. I missed him, but when he called he always sounded so happy, so satisfied. It was hard to be upset about his deployment when it brought him so much gratification, you know?”
Mati nods. He shifts to put an arm around me, and I nestle into his side, inhaling the fresh scent of his skin. I can see the moon through the turret window, watching us like a pale face. It’s so late; I wonder whether my mom’s panicking yet. I wonder whether Audrey’s still sad. I wonder what Mati really thinks about what happened earlier, about being here with me now, about leaving me soon.
I toy with the zipper of his hoodie. “Do you want to hear more?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
Strangely, I do.
“My mom didn’t see Nick’s deployment like I did. Neither did Audrey. She was pregnant when he left, and then Janie was born six weeks early, before Nick was due to come home on leave. My mom had to fly to North Carolina to help her. The whole thing was a mess. Aud sent Nick pictures of Janie and they talked online as often as they could, but she was stressed—like, distraught, all the time.
“We don’t know what happened the day he died—not really. We were told one of the Afghan soldiers Nick’s unit was working with was playing both sides. He gave up mission intel, there was an ambush, and an RPG hit the vehicle my brother was traveling in. Three other Americans were killed in the attack. Supposedly Nick died immediately. Supposedly he didn’t suffer. But we’ll never be sure.”
Mati presses his lips to my hair. “Photojournalism … What happened to your brother is why you’re set on traveling the world with your camera.”
I nod. “I hate that I’ll never know exactly what happened. Maybe that’s morbid, but the question marks are haunting. What if he did suffer? What if he was crying out for Audrey? For Janie, who he never even got to hold?” Tears flood my eyes now. I’ve never voiced these worries—I’ve never had the guts—and doing so brings a rush of contradictory feelings: heartache and relief, amity and embarrassment. But none of those is enough to cut me off. “The Afghan soldier who betrayed Nick’s unit … What happened to him? It makes me crazy that I’ll never know. There should’ve been someone there, documenting what happened.”