* * *
TAHIRA AND ABBAS are here for the weekend. Hadia and Tariq have driven up to Lake Tahoe. Layla is happy to be with them and I am thrilled she has something to focus on other than me. She has made a list of activities: a children’s author is coming to the library, she has rented The Lion King, apples are stocked for our walk to the horses. They have gone out to Layla’s flower garden, and from the window I can hear her voice and I know where Huda got her skills as a teacher, how calmly Layla explains the name of each flower, the way to cut the stem with the garden scissors, how she would think to arrange them.
Nine years married. Nine years ago the hall filled with everyone we knew, and you also came, coaxed into the suit your mother had bought you just in case, and I was at every moment thanking God for the gifts He was bestowing upon us, my daughter soon to be married, my family intact. I watched you for any sign of what we had feared when you left, but you seemed fine: your hands shook a bit and you smoked often but that was all right. Don’t go to him, Layla had said, and I did not. Had I been a saint, had I done nothing to hurt you over the years, I would tell her how upset with her I still am—but I have so much guilt to bear and she has the grace to never remind me of it, so I do not.
“I want Nana to cook.” Tahira teases me as dinner approaches.
She has Hadia’s slightly mischievous streak. It is something she has been doing all weekend: announcing I want Nana to tell a story, I want Nana to help with my shoelaces. Had Layla not seemed so pleased at the sight of me “cooking” by stirring the ingredients she had put in the pan while Tahira was occupied, she might feel I was stealing her weekend.
Abbas brought his basketball from home and we can hear the shots he misses that hit the garage door. He is eight now, and not nearly as good as you were at that age. I finish stirring the khorma and think I might have liked cooking had I ever tried it properly. When Layla calls Abbas in, we eat together. The sun sets pink and I do not step out for a walk. After dinner, Abbas teaches me what his classmates have taught him about reading palms. I stretch my palm open and he tickles me with the movement of his finger.
“This is your life line,” he says, and I don’t know if he is making things up. “You will have a long life.”
He folds my hand into a fist and studies the grooves beneath my pinky.
“It says you will have four kids,” he says, then looks up at me and twists his mouth.
“That’s enough,” I say. “It’s maghrib time. Do you want to pray with me?”
I never asked you to pray with me. We always told you what to do. I watch Abbas do wudhu after me. He does it correctly. He cups water in his little palm and washes from his elbow to his wrist, washes his face, does each step methodically and carefully.
“Did your mumma teach you?” I ask, when we dry our faces with towels.
“And Baba,” he says.
“You are very good. Not a drop spilled.”
He smiles. I lay out our prayer rugs. He straightens them. I recite the adhaan. I concentrate on looking ahead of me but I can sense his focus. He is listening. I had recited these very verses into his ear when he was a newborn. They were the first words he had ever heard. I wonder if his soul recognizes what his mind does not remember. We pray together and when it is time for us to ask for what our hearts desire, my first wish is that he remain steadfast in faith, and then, if he does not, that he never believe that God is a being with a heart like a human’s, capable of being small and vindictive.
Later, I tuck Abbas in to sleep in Hadia’s old bedroom, even though he is too old to be tucked in. He likes sleeping in Hadia’s old bedroom. He likes going through her things and finding what she left behind from when she was his age, school projects and stuffed animals and books and porcelain figurines I once gifted her. The light by the bed is on and the room is warm and golden. I point at the window.
“When your mother was little, she and Huda and Amar made a phone out of Styrofoam cups and a string. They pushed out the screens and somehow connected the rooms from the outside.”
Abbas laughs.
“I was very angry with them,” I say.
“Why?” he asks.
“I don’t even remember.”
“Did the phone work?”
“Yes.”
“Could we make one?”
“Yes.”
“Was it Mummy’s idea?”
“I think so.”
“It sounds like Mummy’s idea.”
“Abbas,” I begin, not knowing how I will say what I am desperate to, “am I still your number two?”
He stopped ranking us when he turned four. He smiles widely.
“Yes,” he says, then lowers his voice to a whisper, “but don’t tell Baba. And don’t tell Nani.”
He has learned how to care for others’ feelings. How to have a secret.
I look around the room. Then out the window. Bismillah, I think, I begin in the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
“Can you keep a secret for me?” I ask.
His eyes widen with excitement.
“Can you memorize it?”
“I memorize a lot of things really fast,” he says.
“You get that from your mumma.”
The comment has pleased him. I search my heart and then I say, “Maybe sometimes you get a phone call from a secret friend.”
He moves his body away from me a little. His back touches against his pillow. He does not say a word. He’s so clever.
“Maybe you don’t, maybe you do, I’m not asking you to tell me anything,” I say quickly. “But I have an important message, just in case you do, to pass on from me.”
At first, he does not change the expression on his face. Then he nods very solemnly.
“ ‘There is another way. Come back, and we will make another path.’ And if he says no, and if he says nothing, will you say this: ‘I used the wrong words. I acted the wrong ways. I will wait, until you are ready. I will always wait for you.’ ”
Abbas is quiet. He scoots close to me, his eyes very big, reaches over and touches his palm to my face. He wipes my cheeks dry.
“I memorized it,” he whispers.
“Don’t tell your mumma?” I ask.
“I won’t,” he promises.
I kiss his forehead. I stand to leave. Outside in the hallway, where he cannot see me, I kneel on the floor and I touch my forehead to the ground, overwhelmed by my gratitude to God.
* * *
I SUPPOSE WHAT I need is for you to know these things. That I am sorry about the shoes. That I remember those drives we took to the barbershop. That we did not even realize how good you were at basketball. That I should have encouraged your habit of keeping a notebook. Maybe the two of us can go for ice cream alone, and I can try again to strike up a conversation with you. I’ll prepare a list of the things I can talk to you about casually. And when we reach the ice cream parlor, I can pretend to peruse the cartons of ice cream flavors. I will nod at you to order first and wait to see what you ask for. I want to know if you still ask for pistachio ice cream. I want to know what kind of clothes you wear. If you still keep a notebook. What your job is. If you have a family. What they are like. I want to know if you still do that thing when you lie, if you still press your tongue against your cheek, twist your lips a little. And what that looks like on a man’s face.
* * *
BECAUSE YOU WERE born as you were born. Because neither I nor your mother could hold you immediately, and the doctor advised that though all was well, it was best to take you to the neonatal ward to be observed, to monitor your body and your little lungs, because we could do nothing but agree, I could not do what all fathers must do for their newborn children: hold you up until your ear was right by my mouth and whisper to you the adhaan. The first sound we want our children to hear is the voi
ce of their father, telling the child where it has come from, who its creator is, and whose care it will be in now. Telling the child, there is no God but God, and God is Great. Instead, you heard the patter of footsteps and the rolling whoosh of wheels, doors opening and closing, the ticking of a clock, voices of people who were not your father or your mother. I was not there at the beginning for you. We were separated by a sheet of glass. And maybe this is why I fear you won’t be there for me, when it comes time for my end. Because instead of holding you and delivering that message, I paced the hallway in front of the room where you slept, having already failed you in that first and crucial way.
* * *
I HAVE TRIED a hundred times to remember our final conversation. I had been stressed about so much that night—entertaining the guests, speaking with Hadia’s in-laws, paying the caterers and photographers. You were missing. Layla and Huda were distraught. Layla asked me to go look for you. I didn’t know what I’d find. I was mainly afraid I wouldn’t find you at all. And I don’t know how it is possible but I felt a force pull me as I walked through the hallways until I reached a back door and something told me to open it, and I found you there, slumped over on a bench, your suit jacket missing.
I sat by you. You did not stir right away. I don’t remember exactly what we said to one another. And maybe it does not matter. You were upset. You realized what you had done—that you could not conceal how much you had drunk, and could not come back inside. I held you. You let me. You were mumbling about the story of Imam Hussain as a child, and I was touched that you had remembered it, even as I felt uncomfortable that you were drunk as you spoke of it. You said to me, Baba, what if we were meant to look closer? You called me Baba that night. I’ve looked closer, Amar, I have looked, and I have looked again, and I have exhausted myself looking. For his beloved grandson, out of his love for him, even the Prophet of Islam could pause the single most important requirement of faith, regardless of how many watched. What were we meant to learn from this that we had failed to?
I couldn’t understand what you were saying half the time you spoke. But just the drink? I asked. Nothing more? And you swore. And believing you, I was relieved. I had to go back. I did not want to leave you. I looked up and I thought, God, help me be strong. Help me do what is required of me in this moment. On one hand my family waited for me to complete my daughter’s wedding and on the other my son was letting me hold him. I had a lot of cash that I had to pay the photographers with, I gave it all to you. You tried to give it back, knowing it meant I would leave soon. And maybe you already knew then what I did not, that I would not be seeing you again after that, because just when I stood, you held my arm and though your face had matured you were still that boy who looked back at me when I sat you in the barber’s chair, a look that said please, don’t go. I was still your father. I would always be. I sat down again. I know I have failed you as a father in many ways. But when I look back on that night, though there is much I cannot remember, and though I was painfully aware I was in the company of a man who had been drinking, I am proud of myself for not letting that thought keep me from sitting next to my son. Once, Imam Ali had been with his companions when a drunk man had staggered by, and a companion had pointed to him and said look, there he goes, the town drunkard. But Imam Ali said two things: first, that we must imagine for one another seventy excuses before landing on a single judgment, and also, on that night, he told his companions to refrain from condemning a man, even as he staggered by showing proof of his sin, because they could not know if he would repent when alone, or fathom what existed in his heart.
You held on to my sleeve and said things I did not understand. And then all at once I did understand: you were saying good-bye. Not only in this life, but in the next, warning me that you would not make it to heaven, that our souls would not reunite there. Of all my mistakes the greatest, the most dangerous, was not emphasizing the mercy of God. Every verse of the Quran begins by reminding us of God’s mercy, I tried to tell you that night, and you nodded, but how can I know what you heard or what you would remember.
Amar, here is what I tried to tell you, and if you ever come back, I will tell you again: what happens in this life is not final. There is another. And maybe there, we will get another chance. Maybe there we will get it right. I will see you again someday. I believe that. If not in this life, then in the next, the angel will blow into the shell, the soul of every being that ever lived will rise, and our sins will be accounted for, and our good deeds too. You might have made mistakes in life, but you were kind to each of God’s creatures, you were considerate and you were compassionate, in ways that I did not even think to be. Alone we will all be made to cross the bridge as thin as a hair and as sharp as a knife. Alone we will be judged. Some of us will go to heaven right away, and others will have to repent, the hellfire cleansing us of our sins first. And if what we have been taught is true, I will not enter without you. I will wait by the gate until I see your face. I have waited a decade, haven’t I, in this limited life? Waiting in the endless one would be no sacrifice. And Inshallah one day, I know I will see you approaching. You will look just as you did at twenty, that year you first left us, and I will also be as I was in my youth. We will look like brothers on that day. We will walk together, as equals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANK YOU, first and always, to my parents, Mirza Mohammed Ali and Shereen Mirza, whose way of loving, seeing, and being taught me everything: for believing in me, standing by me, and expanding your hearts each time I tested your limits. To my brothers, Mohsin, Ali-Moosa, and Mahdi, for your unwavering loyalty and confidence in this novel. Knowing you three always had my back gave me the courage to take risks and stay true to myself. Thank you, Mohsin, for your ability to understand with nuance and empathy—I know these characters, and myself, better because of it. This book is born from my love for you all: us, reenacting scenes from The Lion King and Jurassic Park, climbing to the top of the world, Mumma Baba calling us back home.
Thank you to my dada, Mirza Mohammed Kasim, my first champion and my dearest one, who throughout my childhood told me one day he would see my name in print. How I wish you could have been here to see it. To my number one amma, Meher Unnisa Begum, who once described her first voyage to the UK, looking out at the endless sea and thinking she was like a woman in a novel: for your bravery and resilience. And to my dadu, Shams Kasim, who prayed more for me and this book than I’ve ever prayed for anything: for tracing each Ya Ali, and for your steadfast belief, which captivated my imagination more than I know.
Thank you to my extended family for your love and support, but especially to my beloved mamu, Hussain Mirza, and my incomparable phuppojaan, Nishat Nusairee. For reminding me that what is essential is unchanging, thank you, Khayam Mirza, Aliza Mirza, Zainab and Laila Khan, Samana Khan, and Mirza Mohammed Kabah. Thank you, Ummul Nusairee, for being the sister I never had, and for never telling.
I am grateful to UC Riverside’s Honors Program and Creative Writing Department. I will never forget the generosity of Charmaine Craig and Andrew Winer: thank you for nurturing what you saw in me and this book. Thank you to Sherin Barvarz, for your wisdom, humor, and lifelong friendship.
I am deeply indebted to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which was home for as long as I lived there, and to my incredible teachers: Lan Samantha Chang, Ethan Canin, Marilynne Robinson, Paul Harding, and Karen Russell. Thank you, Connie Brothers, Deb West, and Jan Zenisek. Sam Chang, thank you for that first call, and for all you did after to ensure I could write this novel. I am grateful to Garth Greenwell, whose friendship warmed even the bitterest of Iowa winters and whose sharp insight shone a light on these pages. I cannot overstate my gratitude to D. Wystan Owen, whose generosity, intelligence, and close reading was an immeasurable gift and guide for me. And my fondest thanks to Hannah Rapson and Ida James: for welcoming me into your beautiful lives, and for the peace of my time with you, the porch and patio where I worked o
n so many of these pages.
Thank you to the Marble House Project and the MacDowell Colony for providing magical spaces in which to work and the James Michener and Copernicus Society of America for their support.
Thank you to my wonderful agent, Jin Auh, for believing in this book from the beginning and for advocating on its behalf.
I have been so moved by the enthusiasm of everyone at SJP for Hogarth. Thank you, Rose Fox, Rachel Rokicki, Molly Stern, and my brilliant and big-hearted editors: Lindsay Sagnette, for seeing all I wanted seen and for showing me what I failed to; Becky Hardie, for an eye both precise and sweeping; Parisa Ebrahimi, for knowing when I needed reassurance and when I needed to be pushed toward the finish line. My heartfelt thanks to Sarah Jessica Parker, for your faith in this family’s story, for reading with love, and for bringing this book into the world with that same love.
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