In the living room, she catches sight of one of Abdullah’s dishdashas on the couch, spilling over the arm. He has worn them more frequently over the past year, the European T-shirts and jeans unused in his closet. Riham folds the garment, smells the metallic scent of him. Every hour, it seems, the boy finds a way to enter her mind, some reminder, and then it starts up again, like a faithful Ferris wheel: her worry for him, her fear.
She glances at her watch and starts. Past eleven. She rushes toward the garden. Each morning, like clockwork, her father walks the mile from his house to his favorite café, where he and the other neighborhood men meet for coffee and talk. Since retiring, it is the one thing he does religiously, saying it helps him stay fit. At precisely eleven o’clock, he passes by Riham’s garden, and if she is there, they sit and drink tea. It is Riham’s time with her father, the only gatherings without her mother or Latif or Abdullah.
“Damn,” she curses softly as she stumbles on the lip of the rug. She kicks it loose, then hurries out of the door and down to the garden. Riham smiles at the figure walking along the fence around her yard.
“I thought I’d missed you,” her father calls, unlatching the gate. They meet at the clearing between patches of wildflowers and black irises. There are several chairs and her father chooses one next to the jasmine shrub.
“I was daydreaming in the house.” She smiles at him. “Tea?”
Her father shakes his head. “Already had some?” she asks. She doesn’t mind it, Atef’s reticence. It comforts her, her father’s ability to stay quiet, reflective, when it seems like everywhere—the news, the marketplace, the streets—is one endless soundtrack of prattling.
He examines the jasmine plant, a sapling, by his side. He touches a browning leaf.
“You were right,” she says. “I should’ve just planted acacias.”
“They’ll be fine.”
“They’re drooping. It was the heat this year. It killed everything. The poor darlings dying of thirst.” She gazes at the shrub ruefully. She hates summer.
“Prune them anyway,” he says. “Who knows, winter might be late. It’s still warm out.”
“Dinner tonight, yes?” They do it twice a week, her parents coming over for dinner, Rosie cooking koussa or maqlouba, her mother’s favorite.
He hesitates. “Perhaps later in the week.”
“What happened?” Riham catches his pause. “Mama?”
“Well.” He sighs. “There was a bit of an incident yesterday.”
“Incident?” Riham knew that incident could refer to any of the assorted episodes over the past few years—her mother’s arguments with a maid or neighbor, a misunderstanding with her husband, or something with Riham’s siblings. Riham guesses it’s the last one, for her mother’s favorite topic is her two wayward children, living in a cold city across the world. Karam had moved to Boston, and after Souad moved to Boston as well, their alliance was sealed: Karam and Souad got each other. Riham has never visited them in America, never gone with her parents on their trips for children’s births, Souad’s son, Zain, and Karam’s daughter, Linah, born months apart. “Karam or Souad?”
A smile dances on her father’s lips. “Not Sousi this time.”
“Surprising.” Of all Alia’s topics, Souad’s behavior is her favorite rant: her reckless marriage, her wasted youth, the impulsive move to Boston a few years ago. The girl lives a vagrant life with a husband and two young children, barely ever visiting us, spending her days getting that thankless degree in design like some adolescent. When Souad wed, only their father had gone. Their mother refused, saying she wouldn’t show her face at such an abomination.
“What happened with Karam?”
“Ay.” Atef sits back in the chair, stretching his legs out. Riham settles back as well. She loves these moments, loves being the only child near her parents. The one who never left. She feels a camaraderie when her father brings news of her siblings, those mysterious, unfathomable creatures living lives she cannot imagine. She was planning to go for Karam’s wedding, but they wound up having it in Amman, a brief affair. Riham was not completely over the shock of seeing the elegant, dark-haired woman who was Budur—Budur, the skinny girl from Kuwait, flying to visit Souad in Boston and tumbling into romance with Karam—by her brother’s side, kissing him full on the mouth, both of them so happy that the aunts had whispered about decorum between two young adults.
“They can’t do the December trip anymore,” her father says. “Budur has her thesis defense scheduled then, and Karam can’t take time off in January, so they’re putting the trip off till the summer.”
“Akh.” Riham lifts a hand to her head. It is a sensitive topic to her mother, how infrequently her other two children visit, the rare times she gets to see her grandchildren. All my cousins live with their grandchildren; I’m lucky if I see mine once a year. Riham is torn. She knows her mother is demanding. But she feels her siblings are feckless, wayward, not considerate enough. “Did it get bad?”
He grimaces. “I came in too late. I could hear her yelling from the kitchen.” A sigh. “She brought up the land.”
“Oh, Mama.” Riham groans. The land is a tense topic. Two years ago, Budur’s uncle passed away and left her a plot of land near Erbil. Through relatives still living in Iraq, the land was sold, raking in a tidy sum. The matter of the money was one that Alia spoke about constantly. She could’ve bought stocks or saved for her children’s tuition or helped Karam with the mortgage. Instead, Budur had signed up for courses at Tufts.
“Which led to the topic of Beirut . . .”
“Oh no.”
The Beirut apartments were another point of contention. The money for the apartments came from childless Khalto Widad, who’d died several years ago, quietly, Ammo Ghazi having passed a decade earlier. It had shocked them all, the amount of money she left, equally divided among Karam and Riham and Souad, kept in a Swiss bank, no less. Through a Lebanese lawyer, Riham bought one apartment, Karam the other. Souad used the money for her mortgage in Boston. But Alia was furious with them for buying the Beirut apartments, since the chaotic, lively city was more alluring to her children—and therefore more likely for them to visit—than Amman. Now I have to spend my summers in that land of whores instead of my home just to get a glimpse of my grandchildren.
“Then she told him Budur was wasting money on a hippie degree, studying literature.”
Riham shakes her head. “Did Karam get mad?”
“He was polite. I spoke with him afterward. He seemed worried about her. He said he might try to come by himself, or perhaps with Linah. I told him not to worry, that your mother was just disappointed. He sends his love.”