She lingers with the microphone in her hand until the interviewer signals for her to place it back into its stand.
“The thing is . . .” Clay says, shifting in his seat as he gathers his thoughts. He’s wearing a black sports jacket over a heather-gray T-shirt. His angular face is shadowed with a two-day stubble. He has dark eyes, softened by lines. He looks old enough to be seasoned but young enough to have more to accomplish.
“I think there are some of us who can’t look away. We keep trying to make sense of it all. Let’s be real. History books are sanitized, abbreviated versions of the story. One guy assumes power, another guy loses it. But the soldiers and civilians are living this war and suffering the losses. I write about the husband who goes back to his wife in Michigan in a flag-draped casket and the Afghan children shot down during an American airstrike.”
The room is chastened, uncomfortable. Adam shakes his head, and I’m not sure if he’s taken umbrage with the child casualties or with Clay’s cynicism.
“Don’t you think we’ve done enough to clean up these third world countries?” a shaggy-haired man in a white T-shirt asks. I wonder if he came here for this talk or joined in on his way to browse the magazines. “We took the Taliban out for them. They should be responsible for fixing their own problems now.”
Clay exhales slowly, as if he’s answered this question a few times too many.
“I get the fatigue,” he says. “I really do. But it’s complicated.”
I don’t walk up to the mic. I don’t even bother to raise my hand.
“We created the third world,” I blurt.
Heads turn to follow my voice. Adam seems almost amused.
“Go on,” Clay says.
“People say ‘third world’ and think it just means countries without internet or paved roads,” I say. “But ‘third world’ is Cold War terminology. NATO countries are the first world and the Communist bloc is the second world. The third world was where those two clashed. So the mess in Afghanistan is actually a first and second world problem.”
The man shakes his head.
“We didn’t have soldiers before 9/11. We didn’t make the Taliban. They were there already.”
Adam notices I’ve moved forward in my seat. He puts a hand on my knee, his eyes are telling me to back down.
I seem completely incapable of biting my tongue today.
“The United States has always been willing to slip money and guns to anyone fighting the commies. Anyone. The U.S. didn’t meet the Taliban after 9/11. That’s just when they became the enemy.”
The man in the white T-shirt grumbles and mutters. I lean back in the chair, my heart pounding. The space between Adam and me is tangible. He’s shifted in his seat so that he’s leaning away.
“What she said,” Clay says, pointing at me and smiling.
“Indeed,” the bookstore owner says. She flips to her next index card. “There are a lot of layers to the conflict in Afghanistan. Let’s switch gears and talk about some of the surprises you found in Kabul. We never hear about lounges. Tell us about the Mirage.”
Adam takes out his phone, which is glowing with two new messages.
“Gotta return this call. Shouldn’t be long,” he whispers as he ducks out of the store.
When the talk ends, Clay Porter sits at a table near the checkout desk to sign books. Three people have lined up to have their books personalized. A woman hovers behind Clay, thanking his interviewer for arranging the talk. I’m standing on line to pay for the hardcover in my hands when Clay approaches me.
“Thanks for kicking up the conversation a notch,” he says. He tucks his book and pen into his messenger bag.
“I have a bad habit of saying what I’m thinking,” I reply.
“Honesty? Yeah, that disqualifies you from a whole lot of jobs.”
When I smile, Clay narrows his eyes slightly.
“Are you Afghan?” he asks. I’m taken aback. I thought he would ask me where I was from—not identify me.
“Does everyone look Afghan to you now?” I ask, with a laugh, a bit unnerved.
The woman speaking with the interviewer looks over at Clay without pausing in her conversation. She has long brown hair and is smartly dressed, like she fell out of a J.Crew catalog. She looks from me to Clay with curiosity.
“Anyway, thanks. This was great,” I say and turn to hand my credit card to the cashier.
“What do you do, if you don’t mind my asking?” His tone is casual.
“I’m a physician,” I reply.
“What kind?”
“Surgeon,” I say.
The long-haired woman, his wife or girlfriend, promptly joins our conversation.
“I hope you enjoyed the talk,” she says to me, cheerily.
“Selena, this is . . .” Clay looks at me to fill in the blank.
“Aryana,” I say. “And I’m very much looking forward to reading this. Good meeting both of you.”
I stuff my receipt into my bag.
“Did you want him to sign your copy?” Selena asks. “You don’t mind, do you, Clay?”
Since it would be awfully rude to decline the offer, I turn around. Clay pulls a pen out of his bag and takes the book from my hands. He flips it open and scribbles something on the title page.
“Did I hear you say you’re a surgeon? I love that!” Selena says. She has Audrey Hepburn eyes, coquettish and warm. “My father was in a car accident three months ago. He woke up and found out a woman surgeon had stitched his liver back together. He’s such a chauvinist that he actually asked if a male surgeon could redo it. That woman saved his life.”
“I’m glad he did well,” I say. I’ve met men like her father. I’ve also met quite a few women like her father. Turns out sexism doesn’t discriminate.
Clay closes the cover and returns the book to me.
“Very good to meet you, Doc,” he says.
As I push the door open, I hear Selena suggest a sushi restaurant to Clay. I hit the sidewalk and look for Adam. He is walking toward the corner, his phone pressed to his ear. He pivots on one heel and walks back toward me, and I can hear his conversation as he nears me.
“Not even close, bro. You need to bring me ten people and at least one corner-office big dog. Anyway, I gotta run. Yep, later,” he says and ends the call.
“Sending Gavin your Christmas wish list?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“The fundraiser’s next week. And he owes me one anyway,” he says, then suggests we go to the diner on the next block. He asks me when Mom’s coming into town, although I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten. We’ve both been tiptoeing around each other since our last night together, as if we’re afraid to wake a sleeping argument. “Look, Aryana, I’ve been thinking. A lot actually.”
I stop walking. His words are like a trumpet sounding before an announcement. Adam stands with his back to a nail salon. Hanging in the window is a poster of ten toes airbrushed into perfection, a red rose laid across the feet. It’s such a saccharine backdrop that I almost ask if we can stand somewhere else.
“I think we’re amazing and I love you. I just need you to tell me those walls aren’t going to be up forever.”
Adam isn’t wrong to ask this of me. If I want this relationship, any relationship, to work, I’m going to have to figure out how to be more open. I cannot rely on a book talk to do the work for me, and I cannot choreograph the perfect moment.
“We are amazing,” I tell him. “And walls are not. I get that. So I’ll work on the walls.”
I want to tell him his nagging girlfriend comment got under my skin, but decide against it. I don’t want to be accused of being petty. I’m in new territory with this relationship, and it shows.
Adam smiles, satisfied.
“That’s all I needed to hear, Ary,” he says and resumes walking before I can wrap my arms around him for an embrace. “Tomorrow is big. We’re officially announcing the campaign. I found a shark of a campaign manager. He’s on a winning streak.”<
br />
“That’s incredible,” I say, and I mean it.
When the waiter has jotted down our orders, I take a long sip of water and tell Adam I wish he could have heard more of the book talk.
“Yeah, you know me. I’d rather watch the movie. You went a little hard on that guy in there, though. No more documentaries for you, Ary.”
Beads of condensation have collected on the outside of my glass. He doesn’t know, I remind myself.
I think of the time I saw Adam give a best man’s speech at his friend’s wedding in New Jersey. I’ve given plenty of medical lectures to rooms of physicians without any qualms, but to speak on so important an occasion would have made me anxious. Adam was not. He walked the dance floor with a swagger I’d not seen before. Mic in hand, he talked about the time they’d gotten lost driving to Montreal and the time he’d been sick as a dog and his friend had brought him a can of expired chicken noodle soup. After a few claps on the back and a hug from the groom, Adam returned to his seat next to me, beaming.
All through dinner and as I walk home alone, I wonder why I struggle so to tell my story to a crowd of one, especially when that one is Adam.
Chapter 40
Adam has just returned to the table. Our schedules are so mismatched these days that we only meet up for food. He has been chatting up the owner of the restaurant, asking him what challenges he’s been facing as a small-business owner and slipping him a freshly minted business card. He has a new energy about him, a little like a guy who tried to sell me disability insurance. I keep that observation to myself.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I tell him when he slips back into his seat and signals for the waiter to bring the check. “You can strike up a conversation with anyone.”
“It’s not magic. I told him my uncle ran a restaurant in Connecticut and I know how tough it is.”
“Do you know how tough it is to run a restaurant?”
“Must be. My uncle never looked happy,” Adam says. “I’m assuming it was the restaurant that was pissing him off.”
“Makes good sense.” I shrug. “So things are going well?”
“A week in and no major scandals,” he says. “You should have seen the way Vigo grilled me before he joined the campaign. Made me swear on a Bible that I had no skeletons in the closet. I told him about that one college party and the weed, but he said that was forgivable.”
“So nothing to worry about then.”
“Yeah. They’ll seek, but they shall not find.”
“Do you really think they’ll try to dig stuff up?”
“Depends on how tight the race gets. I’ve sworn everybody around me is clean too, so if you have any illegal side hustles, I don’t want to know.”
He’s joking, but my stomach drops. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight over dinner and need some quiet to figure out how to handle this. Adam suggests we go for a stroll. Outside, I tie my hair into a messy bun and tuck my long bangs behind my ears. The evening air feels good on my neck. Adam checks his phone and taps out a few quick replies. It’s impressive to see what he’s done in such a short time, how naturally this all comes to him.
We wander into Bryant Park, past two men playing chess and a mom chasing a giggling toddler. Adam stops and holds his phone at arm’s length. He puts an arm around me and snaps a photo of us, him beaming and me with a surprised smile. He kisses my cheek and leads me to a vacant bench.
Squirrels bounce and run at our feet. A group of teenagers stands in a huddle. Two girls in thin jackets pretend not to feel the cold. A woman in a hijab walks past them with her husband.
Adam takes a deep breath.
“Aryana, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to do this. I think we need some direction. We’ve been dancing around this for a while now, and maybe we should just take that next step.”
He can’t possibly mean what I think he means. We’re facing each other, each of us with one foot on the ground. His arm hangs over the back of the bench.
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘next step,’” I say. I did not see this conversation coming.
“We’re adults. We’re professionals. I’m kicking off a really big next chapter in my life, and I want you to be there with me for it—officially. But before I get out here and make a big old fool of myself, I thought it might be smart to ask how you feel about that.”
“Adam, right now? I mean, we just had a pretty rough conversation the other night.”
“No need to go back there,” he says firmly.
“Of course, but . . . wow. Babe, I’m so proud of what you’re doing and excited for you. Yes, I want to be there for it all.”
He leans in closer, puts a hand over mine, and speaks the warmest words I’ve ever heard from him.
“I want to wake up to you every day. I don’t want to text you to find out what you’re doing. I want to be more than your date. I know asking for more than this is a lot for you, but I think we deserve to give us a real shot. Officially.”
Officially? I should be swooning. But I had so much I wanted to tell him tonight. I was going to leave nothing out.
But how can I tell him that I sometimes soak in my grief? That I dream of one day finding where my family is buried and laying flowers at their graves? That I have kept all this from him until now?
And if he’s changed his feelings about marriage, then is he changing how he feels about children? Does he think I’m going to change how I feel about children? I already know I won’t. I wouldn’t wish myself as a mother on any child. I think of my mother and know that I could never be as present or as patient or as gentle as her. No child deserves any less.
I’ve thought a lot about how tightly my mother clung to us because she’d already lost my sister. Her scars were visible. And I know what I saw in her face in that final second of grief and that grief would have killed her if a bullet hadn’t.
I am not as brave as my mother. I don’t dare make myself as vulnerable as she was, taking a chance that might break me all over again.
“So, let me hear it, Ary. Are you ready for this? Do I renew my lease or not?”
I bring my face to his, hold my hand against his cheek. There is excitement in his eyes.
“I did not see this coming,” I tell him. “My head is spinning a little, to be honest, but in a good way. Give me a little time to get my thoughts straight. Can you come over tonight?”
Adam shakes his head, but he looks encouraged.
“I have to be in the office early. What about tomorrow?”
I tell him if things move smoothly with my surgeries, I might get out at a reasonable hour. There’s a frisson of excitement between us for the rest of the night as we make room for new possibilities.
I take the train home around nine o’clock. It’s too late to get a run in. I need to be up early so I’ll have time to review the scans before heading into the OR tomorrow morning. The subway car winds around a bend, torquing the passengers in one direction and then another.
The man to my left flips a newspaper open. I see a headline about a city council member with $2,000 of unpaid parking tickets.
What kind of world is Adam entering? Is it possible to steer clear of all that comes with public life? Will the spotlight fall on me too? I cross my legs and fold my arms over my bag. No one on the train notices my discomfort. People are too busy to notice me, I tell myself.
I cannot wait for the perfect moment to tell Adam what I’ve kept from him. I can start with my parents and my brother. I can begin in the years when tulips dotted the gardens and music floated from open windows. If I start there, maybe I can get through the rest.
But I already know I will leave out some details.
I cannot tell him that there are nights when I wish I hadn’t crept into the basement of Arg alone but instead floated in sacred company to the stars above.
Antonia and I moved back to the United States for my last two years of high school. By then, girls already had best friends and social circles. W
hen a girl named Martine befriended me, I was grateful. She was similarly an outsider, though in her case it was because she suffered from allergies so severe that to be around her came with balls of wadded tissues and constant sniffling. Martine said we didn’t have to wait on a boy to give us permission to be part of prom and suggested we go together. I liked her reasoning and agreed to be her date.
We bought long, flowy dresses and heels we could barely walk in. Martine’s mother was a hairdresser, lucky for us. She tried different hairstyles and eyeshadow shades on us for an entire month leading up to that May weekend. Antonia was going to drive us there, and Martine’s father was going to pick us up. Three days before the prom, Martine walked up to my locker and told me that she’d been asked out to prom by a junior. When she didn’t say anything more, I realized she was waiting for me to be excited for her.
It was small and frivolous and never should have sent me careening. I missed the next three days of school, staying home to brood about what a terrible person Martine was and wonder how I’d allowed myself to look forward to something as dumb as prom. I went back to school the Monday after prom weekend. Martine avoided me, put off by my sullen face and the way I clanged my locker shut between classes.
Antonia spent those evenings, and so many others, plucking thorns from my soul.
You miss them, she said. That’s grief, and grief is nothing but the far brink of love. Love is the sun, grief is the shadow it casts. Love is an opera, grief is its echo. You cannot have one without the other. But if you follow that grief, you’ll find your way back to love. You haven’t let yourself do that yet, and you need to—in your own way. So cry, scream, run, sleep, pray, or write love notes in the sand. But grieve, so you can get back to love, because love is a better place to be.
I brush my teeth and slip into pajamas remembering Mom’s words. She’d shocked me then, connecting my reaction to prom with the hole in my heart.
In the last decade, taking care of patients, I’ve learned more about grief.
Mothers lie on stretchers next to hospital beds, drinking in their children’s faces while they can. Husbands sit in waiting rooms holding cups of coffee that went cold long ago. Brothers show up with gift-shop teddy bears, wishing they could rewind the years.
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