“I was still asleep.” Mom’s eyes are still puffy and pink from crying, even after eleven hours of sleep. She leans against Dad as they sit on the couch like he’s the only thing holding her up right now. He might be. “Safa, our office assistant, woke me up to say she was running late, then called back to tell me the clinic was just . . . gone.”
Tears well up in her eyes and she pauses, takes a deep breath and a small sip of coffee. “I threw on some clothes and went to Manshiyat Nasr, but the police would not let me inside the cordon, even after I showed them my OneVision identification.”
She tells us that she didn’t want to sit at home doing nothing, so she stayed at the scene and treated people who had been injured in the blast—shrapnel injuries, mostly, from glass and brick—until a police commander agreed to speak with her.
“He confirmed that three bodies had been found in the rubble but had not yet been identified,” she says. “I called Jamie’s phone over and over. Then I called Sarah, who told me he’d forgotten his lunch when he left for work. If he had just gone back—”
Mom’s face crumples and she breaks down again, crying into Dad’s shoulder. He strokes her hair and I struggle with my own tears. How can someone justify blowing up innocent people? How can anyone believe that is what God wants?
“He—he had his whole career ahead of him.” She blows her nose and blinks rapidly as she continues. “If I had been there—Casey, it should have been me.”
“Hey.” Dad touches her chin and she looks up at him. “There was no scenario yesterday that would have left the world a better place today. If you’d been there, I’d have lost my wife and Caroline would have lost her mother, but someone would still be dead. I get that it’s hard not to blame yourself, Beck, but none of this is your fault.”
“When I spoke with the regional director from OneVision, he reminded me that everyone knows the risks when they agree to the job,” Mom says. “But I was supposed to do that surgery. I was supposed to be there.”
“You’re not Wonder Woman.”
“I have a cold, Casey,” she says. “If I had just sucked it up and gone to work—”
“Do they know who did it?” I interrupt, trying to derail her guilt. “Was it ISIS?”
“No, but it was a young sympathizer who wanted to impress the Islamic State by targeting a foreign-run clinic in a predominantly Christian neighborhood,” she says. “He bragged about it on Twitter and was reported to the police by one of his own friends.”
Dad finally asks the question that’s been on my mind since yesterday. “So what happens now, Beck?”
“OneVision believes this was an isolated incident, but they have to decide if they are going to continue operating in Cairo or relocate.”
“What do you want to do?”
Mom sighs. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to turn tail and run, but that’s not who I am. I made a commitment.”
“Don’t forget about the commitment you made to me,” my dad says. “When I said till death do us part, I didn’t think you meant to put yourself directly in its path.”
The corner of her mouth trembles a little, like she can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. She does both as she rests her head on his shoulder. “I know.”
He kisses her hair. “I need you, Beck. Maybe it’s time to go home.”
Mom goes back to bed and Dad sits on the balcony making calls. We don’t know if the bombing made the national news back in the States, so he fills in the details to my grandparents and Uncle Mike. I can only imagine the “I told you so” from Grandma Irene. I go to my room, where I find a text on my phone from Adam: How is your mother?
She feels responsible for her coworker’s death and guilty that she is alive.
I’m sorry, he writes. Then, Teta has been cooking all day. She would like to bring food for your family. Would that be okay?
I go out onto the balcony and walk quietly past my parents’ bedroom to where my dad is sitting. “Adam’s grandma wants to bring over some food.”
“I haven’t even thought about dinner,” he says. “That would be welcome.”
Yes, I text back to Adam. Please.
? ? ?
All five members of the Elhadad family turn up at our apartment, and any disapproval, any anger, is hidden beneath an avalanche of food. Adam’s grandmother, laden with shopping bags filled with plastic containers, disappears into the kitchen. Mom gets out of bed and brushes her teeth. If this were a proper visit, we would offer an appetizer, but today the world is upside down and our guests have brought their own baba ghanoush.
Mrs. Elhadad wraps her arms tightly around my mom, who dissolves into tears again. Adam’s mother touches her forehead to Mom’s and the two women stand this way, with Mrs. Elhadad speaking softly in Arabic, until my mother pulls back, nodding, and wipes her tears. Whatever transpired between them was private, but as the two women settle on the couch, Mom looks lighter somehow. Her smile, though fragile, is still a smile.
The elder Mrs. Elhadad comes from the kitchen with food and drinks. While the adults talk about the bombing, Adam, Aya, and I take our sodas into my bedroom. I leave the door open.
“Will you have to go home?” Aya asks as she looks at the photo of Hannah and Owen. For all the time we’ve spent playing soccer together, this is the first time she’s been to my apartment.
“I hope not,” I say. “Three months ago I didn’t even want to come here, but now I want to keep playing soccer with the Daffodils and school starts next week.”
The thought of leaving is painful, but I know going home isn’t the worst thing that could happen. The worst has already happened.
“Do you guys want to go for a walk?” I ask.
Dad and Mr. Elhadad give their permission for us to go, provided we don’t go far and we’re back in half an hour. The bombing has rattled us all, as if danger knows where we live now, as if it followed us right to our front door. The three of us cross the road and walk down to the park. Once inside its leafy confines, Adam holds my hand. We haven’t had a chance to talk since Alexandria. His excitement over scuba diving got lost in the shuffle and even now it feels improper to talk about happy things, but as a dinner cruise boat motors past, Adam takes the leash off his enthusiasm.
“It was as if the world had suddenly doubled in size,” he says. “And it felt like touching history. I can’t . . . I have no words to explain it.”
“Were you frightened?” Aya asks.
“Only at first.”
She offers him a reluctant smile. “You are like a cork that has been freed from the neck of a bottle. I worry that you have grown too large to fit back in the bottle.”
“You sound like Ummi.”
“Do you think our mother’s concerns are not valid?”
“No,” Adam says. “Which is the reason I am going to speak with her and Baba about attending culinary school. I do not want to go back into the bottle.”
His sister’s dark eyes go wide for a moment, and then her dimples appear. “Very good. I was afraid you were willing to accept being a waiter at the Ritz-Carlton. I’m happy you have a plan.”
I lift myself on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. “I’m proud of you.”