by Sara Jafari
“Soraya,” he breathed.
She opened them tentatively and was met with the sight of his large brown eyes focusing on her.
“It’s only ever been you.”
She shook her head again. “Lies,” she breathed.
“Soraya, I love you.”
A punch to the gut. Her head was shaking uncontrollably. “No, you don’t.”
He frowned, stepped back, turned away from her. His broad shoulders were hunched, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. He didn’t say anything.
She jumped off the table, her legs wobbly. As she stepped towards him her movements were slow and careful. She didn’t have anything to say, but the distance between them felt wrong.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That I just told you I love you,” he said, almost angrily. All she could see was the tension in his back, and she was sure if she touched it, it would be rock-hard. She tested her theory. Her palm lightly grazed his shoulder, and she was rewarded with a shiver. “Don’t,” he said quietly. She tugged at him so he’d turn to her.
“You’re seeing someone,” she stated.
He breathed heavily. “I was.”
“What happened?”
He made a dismissive noise. “I don’t want to talk about that, Soraya. I just—I want you to know how much I care about you. I don’t want to talk about girls from my past.”
“I’m a girl from your past! I came before her; she’s more recent than me!” The words came out almost in a shout.
“I only dated her to forget about you, and it didn’t work. It just made me miss you more.” Soraya stared at the balloons they’d decorated the space with, unable to meet his gaze. “Soraya, look at me.”
Her teeth were chattering, her whole body a knot of nerves. “How do I know I’m not just another rebound from some other girl you’ve dated?”
There, she thought. At least she had said it, what she had feared all along.
Magnus didn’t seem to comprehend. “She knew what she was to me. I was clear about my intentions.”
“I went on a date with a guy a couple of months ago. He knew you from uni. Said you’d basically slept with everyone. Is that true?”
Magnus furrowed his brow, pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “What? Who was it?”
“That’s not the point. I worry that I’m just…” She couldn’t quite finish her sentence. Thinking that Magnus only wanted her for sex was one thing, but having him there in front of her, reminding her of their past, how gentle he’d always been, she couldn’t say the words. She didn’t believe them anymore.
“None of the girls I’ve been with before meant anything to me, they were always short flings or…I don’t know, I don’t really want to talk about it. I want to talk about us. Whether there could still be an us. Or have I got this wrong? Was what you said in your diary how you really felt? Am I being a total idiot here?”
“No, you’re not being an idiot,” she said quietly. “Nothing has changed. I’m still not sure I’m ready to have sex. I need to find myself, I guess. And if or when I do want to do it, it’ll take me a while. I want to take it at my own pace, and I know that annoyed you—”
“It didn’t annoy me—”
“Oh, come on, it annoyed you. So much so that you lied to your friends about it.”
He took his hands out of his pockets and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Soraya, these past months without you have been awful. I went to Paris to escape, thinking if I wasn’t in London anymore, if I had a new adventure, I could forget you, forget about my family, but I can’t. I know I’ve been shit, but I’m asking you to let me show you that I won’t be this time, that what we have is real, it just started off a bit weird. I’ll show you all that if you give me another chance.”
“Come on, if we still haven’t had sex in a year, you’re saying you’d be OK with it?” She laughed. “Be realistic.”
Both his hands were on her face, his lips inches from hers. “I just want you. However much you can give, I’ll be happy with.”
“I want to believe you—”
“Then do,” he breathed.
“You said I don’t talk about my feelings,” she said tentatively. She didn’t want him to jump on this flaw of hers, but it had to be said. “That you don’t even know me. And maybe you don’t. How has that changed?”
“I was projecting on you, I realize that now.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “I’ve always been annoyed with myself for bottling up my feelings about my parents, for quite literally running away from them, leaving home as soon as I could and only going back at Christmas. I think I projected that onto you. All the things I said to you, I guess I was saying to myself. But we’re all different in how we deal with these things, and I shouldn’t have said what I did. You should be able to tell me things in your own time. I’m sorry.”
“But some of what you said was true, and I’m working on it,” she said. “And I’m sorry. For the things I said in my diary. I didn’t mean them.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I guess it’s a good job I didn’t write about how much I fell for you,” she said, laughing nervously. “That would have been embarrassing.”
He smiled. “I think I would have liked that actually.”
“Wait, aren’t you living in Paris?” she asked.
He gave a laugh, his breath mingling with hers, making her dizzy.
“Barely. I could quite easily move back. I want to come back.”
“Why?” she asked, in a small voice.
“Soraya”—he put his forehead against hers—“you’re so special to me. You know that, don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“Well, that’s my fault. I should have made it clear how important you are.” He paused for a moment and frowned. “Of course, if you’re not interested, if you’ve moved on, that’s fine. Obviously it’s fine,” he said quickly. “I’ll leave you alone. Although I’d like to be friends eventually, if you would.”
She smiled; couldn’t help it. Normally she was the one to ramble. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.
“I’d like to try again,” she said finally. “But I know I also need to work at finding myself, whatever that means. I’d still like to take things slow.”
“You don’t know how happy you’ve just made me,” Magnus said, grinning.
“I was wrong about you, you know. We’re not that different after all.”
“I guess we were wrong about each other.” He smiled down at her and linked his fingers with hers. She looked down at their hands together, hers small and tan, his large and white. He squeezed her fingers, and in that moment she felt safe, loved. More than that, it felt something like coming home or letting out a long-held breath.
“By the way”—she looked into his eyes, and for the first time said exactly what she was feeling—“I love you too.”
It was the time of new beginnings, forgiveness, fresh starts. Ahead of Nowruz, Iranian New Year, Neda spring-cleaned the entire house. She dusted the tops of the wardrobes, flipped mattresses, and cleaned windows.
In the weeks that followed, she set to work redecorating Laleh’s bedroom, removing Hossein’s belongings from the room. Neda placed her daughter’s old things in boxes, opened the windows, and let the room breathe. She painted the walls a soft pink. It was the first time she had ever painted anything. She could have found a decorator but it felt right for her to do it. She needed this. More than that, she wanted it.
She had purchased furniture from Habitat, all white and sleek. Soraya helped her assemble the different pieces. The bedroom would no longer be stuck in the nineties. It was now inviting and neutral. Unrecognizable. When choosing a new bedspread, Neda wondered what her grandchild would lik
e, and such thoughts gave her hope.
She spoke to Hossein every day. He seemed to be thriving in Tehran, had even agreed to go to a rehabilitation center. It was the longest he had been sober. The future ahead of them was unknown; part of her still resented him, but at least she now understood him. She knew better than to pin too many hopes on his recovery; for the moment she thanked Allah that things were changing, and remained patient.
She knew Soraya had gotten back together with the English boy. They did not speak openly about it, but she noticed a change in her daughter. She appeared lighter, happier. She was not sure if it was because of the boy, or because he was no longer a secret she was keeping from her mother. Neda knew the weight of secrets all too well.
Neda, too, remembered Soraya’s surprise when she first discovered Laleh had stayed with her boyfriend all this time.
“But it’s been ages,” Soraya had marveled. “And they were so young when they first met. I never imagined that they’d still be together.”
She had replied at the time that while he was not Muslim, he seemed like a good, caring man, and ultimately that was all that mattered. Neda had changed a lot over the past year; this was not something she would have said to her daughter openly before. She would have worried it would give Soraya ideas that she could also make a relationship work with a non-Muslim man. She still worried, but needed to let her children live their own lives. There was a lot of unlearning to be done.
Of course, Neda too was surprised that Laleh and her boyfriend had stayed together. It was not what she expected from an English man. She had always thought English people switched romantic partners like it was nothing. Admittedly, she was proven wrong, in this instance at least. It was one of the few times Neda was overjoyed to be mistaken.
And then the day finally arrived.
Neda wore her finest hijab: blue silk with a subtle floral pattern, bought from Liberty London ten years ago.
“This is weird,” Soraya said.
Amir and Parvin were dressed conservatively, Amir in a button-up shirt and trousers, and Parvin in a long flowing dress. As ever, Soraya did not get the dress-code memo and wore a minidress with thick tights and an oversize jumper. Neda was thinking about telling her to change when there was a knock on the door.
They all froze for a second. Neda made her way towards the door, but before that she hissed, “Amir, be nice to the boy.”
Of course, Neda didn’t like that Laleh and Matthew were still unmarried, but she’d lost the right to have an opinion on the matter when she allowed her child to be disowned. She knew that, at least.
Amir grumbled something in response. His tone reminded her of Hossein’s.
“You’ve had girlfriends, you can’t talk, remember that,” she shot back. There was a definite change in the family dynamics. Amir’s misdeeds, which formerly had been let slide, she now called him out on. She was reconsidering what had been ingrained in her thinking: that exceptions were always to be made for men. She’d always known it was wrong, the way she treated her daughters differently from her son, but had ignored her own misgivings, too caught up in Hossein to check herself.
But that was changing now.
It was a start.
Through the stained glass in the front door Neda could make out three figures. Sixteen years had led to this point. So much lost time, so many missed firsts. Would her daughter hate her? Would her granddaughter be scared, resentful even, of the family that disowned her mother because of her? It was different talking on the telephone, the small talk during those strained conversations. It was nothing like now. You can’t hide how you’re really feeling in person, Neda thought.
Neda wrung her hands three times, needing to release her nerves.
With her eyes closed, she turned the handle and opened the door.
Standing before her was her long-lost daughter. Laleh. She was taller now, perhaps after a growth spurt in her later teenage years. Next to her stood an even taller man and behind them a young woman. Matthew was slender, with thick circular glasses and curly hair. His skin was almost translucent, mirrored in their daughter, who was pale with black curly hair. Her eyes were large. She stood nervously behind her father, despite him trying to push her in front.
“Hello, Mum.” Laleh’s voice cracked.
“Darling,” Neda said.
Neda saw so much of herself in Laleh, but her daughter was her own woman now. There were small lines by Laleh’s eyes, Neda hoped from laughing. It was one thing to see her daughter grown up in pictures, but to see her standing before her left Neda almost speechless.
Zara was her mother’s daughter. In fact, Neda was sure if she’d seen her in the street she would have known instinctively that this was her granddaughter. Zara had Laleh’s strong jaw and soft hazel eyes, but she also had her father’s solid, straight nose.
Neda’s heart hurt from wanting to know everything about the women before her, understanding she should have done this much, much sooner. She blinked past the tears and turned her gaze to the man.
“Hi, I’m Matthew,” Laleh’s partner said, his voice polite and measured. He gave her a small wave, while simultaneously attempting an equally small bow. She imagined Laleh had briefed him on the fact that Muslim women couldn’t shake hands with men.
“Hi,” Zara said quietly, her Scottish accent audible, shifting her weight nervously from leg to leg.
“Do you know who I am?” Neda asked Zara in the tone she adopted whenever she addressed anyone under the age of sixteen.
They had spoken on the phone several times, usually on Zara’s birthday, but their conversations were always short. They didn’t know each other well enough to have a rapport.
Neda had to raise her head to look Zara in the eye while she spoke. The girl was tall for a recently turned fifteen-year-old.
She nodded. “Yeah, you’re my grandma?” She looked to her mother as she spoke.
Neda smiled and then covered her mouth, eyes brimming with yet more tears. It was not the hesitation in her granddaughter’s voice that made her tearful, but rather the possibility of redemption the child’s visit represented. Neda understood she was being given another chance at a relationship with her granddaughter and daughter. This time she would be assertive, fair, an ally to all her family. She would be everything she had wanted Maman to be to her, instead of letting history repeat itself.
“Come in, come in, everyone!” Neda said, not meeting their gaze for fear she would start crying in earnest.
As they removed their shoes by the front door, she offered them plastic slippers to wear inside. Laleh accepted but Matthew and Zara declined.
“It’s part of Iranian culture to wear slippers inside the house,” Laleh explained to Zara.
“Yes, it’s a lot more hygienic and comfortable,” Neda chimed in, proud of her daughter for remembering. “Have you had a long journey to get here?”
“We came to London on Friday and did some sightseeing yesterday,” Matthew said. “And then got the train to Brighton this morning. It gave us an excuse to go to London as a family at least!” Neda detected a slight lisp in his speech and wondered if it came out more with nerves. He had an air of softness about him, quite unlike the men she had grown up around.
“Ah, that sounds lovely,” she said.
While other families might have gathered to greet their guests at the door, Neda’s children were socially awkward and sat waiting in the living room. She imagined them grimacing together. She would scold them about this later.
When they walked into the living room, Parvin, Amir, and Soraya stood up, eyes ranging in every direction—towards the sister they hadn’t seen for sixteen years, her boyfriend, and the niece they hadn’t known about.
Neda noticed Soraya, in particular, observing the couple before her, who had managed to stick together despite all the odds that were stacked against t
hem. Soraya and Neda had both always thought love prevailing over all was just the stuff of fiction. Until now.
Eventually there were tears—Laleh and Parvin couldn’t hold them back when they first saw each other, and because Neda was already on the brink she let her own tears flow. They embraced in a three-way hug, with Neda muttering, “I’m so sorry,” while Parvin said, “I’ve missed you,” and Laleh repeated, “It’s OK.” Holding her daughters together felt right, and for the first time in sixteen years Neda was whole again. She hadn’t realized how big a part of her was missing without her eldest child and granddaughter, until now. A piece of her had finally returned.
Soraya, Amir, Zara, and Matthew watched the three women hold each other as they sobbed.
Despite having been told not to, Amir began sizing Matthew up.
“You’re all so big,” Laleh said, taking in her siblings.
Zara looked to the doorway, where their heights over their childhood were marked. Neda followed her gaze.
She power walked to the kitchen and returned with a marker pen.
It seemed even Amir, despite resenting the way Matthew had not yet married Laleh, had thawed towards him when he learnt his sister’s partner was a fellow accountant. They had begun an in-depth conversation about the merits of setting up your own business.
“Look here.” Neda pointed to the doorway. “When your mum was your age she was this tall.” She indicated a point on the doorframe.
Zara tentatively walked over. She ran her fingertips along the frame. She grinned, exposing her small teeth, which reminded Neda so much of Hossein’s.
“Ha! Look, I’m way taller than you were at my age, Mum,” Zara said after a moment of observing. She looked at Laleh triumphantly.
“You get it from your dad.” Laleh laughed.
“Can I…do you want to put your height here?” Neda asked.
“Why not?” Zara said.
Hope.
“Brilliant,” Neda told her granddaughter. She handed Parvin the marker and watched as Soraya laughed with her niece, and Parvin marked Zara’s height on the frame.