There was only they, the collective we, the idea of infinity.
I’d always seen religion as a rope, a tool to help us grow nearer to our own hearts, to our place in this universe. I did not understand those who would malign, without forgiveness or empathy, others who did not conform to a series of static rules—rules that were never meant to inspire competition, but to build us up, make us better. Such moral superiority was antithetical to the essence of divinity, to the point of faith. It was made clear, time and time again, that it was not our place to exercise harsh, human judgment over those whose hearts we did not know. It was made unequivocally clear in the Qur’an that there should be no compulsion in religion.
And yet.
We were all of us lost.
When I pushed open the front door, I realized two things simultaneously:
First, that I’d left my backpack—my stupid, cumbersome, ridiculous backpack—at Zahra’s house, which meant that if I wanted to have any chance of ever catching up on my homework, I’d have to go back and get it, the mere idea of which sent a chill through my heart.
And second—
Second, I realized my father was home.
My first clue were his shoes, sitting neatly by the door, the familiar pair of brown leather loafers I hadn’t seen in weeks. My second clue was the smell of olive oil, chopped onions, sautéed beef, and the soft, sweet smell of fresh, sleeping rice. I heard the sound of my sister’s voice, a peal of laughter.
Quietly, I shut the door behind me, and the scene came suddenly into view.
My mother was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of food made with ingredients that, just hours ago, had not existed in our cupboards. My father was sitting in a chair at the dining table, looking bone-weary but happy, his face older than I remembered it, his hair grayer. Shayda was sitting in a chair next to him, holding one of his hands in both of hers. She looked close to tears but lovely, her dark hair framing her face, her wide brown eyes rich with emotion. I seldom understood my sister, and did not understand her then, either. I didn’t know how she could love a complicated man without it complicating her love. I didn’t know how her mind sorted and prioritized emotion; I didn’t know how she’d landed here—looking incandescent—after all we’d been through.
I realized then that it was none of my business.
I had no right to drag Shayda down with me. Had no right to steal the joy from her body. It was not my fault that I could not bend my heart to behave as hers did, and it was not her fault that she couldn’t do the same for me. I supposed we really were just different, in the end.
My father was the first to notice me.
He stood up too fast, gripped the table for support. Shayda cried out a warning, worried, and my father didn’t seem to notice. His face changed as he took me in, studied my eyes. His eyes. He looked away, looked back, seemed to understand that I hated him, loved him.
Hated him.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until he came forward on slow, unsteady legs, didn’t realize I was sobbing until he pulled me into his arms. I cried harder when he became real, his arms real, his shape real, his body real. I cried like the child I was, like the child I wanted to be. I’d missed him, missed my horrible father, missed the way it felt to be held like this, to press my face against his chest, to inhale his familiar scent. He smelled like flowers, like rain, like leather. He smelled like exhaust fumes and coffee and paper. He was a horrible person, a wonderful person. He was cold and stupid and funny.
I hated him.
I hated him as he held me, hated him as I cried. The man who’d once felt to me like a solid block of concrete felt suddenly like blown glass, papier-mâché. I felt his arms shaking. Felt the cold, papery skin of his hands against my face as he pulled back, looked at me.
I couldn’t meet his eyes.
I looked away, looked down, looked over his shoulder. My mother and sister were watching us closely, the two of them standing side by side in the kitchen. I stared at my mother, her hands clenching a towel, tears streaming down her face.
“Shadi,” my father said quietly.
I looked up.
He smiled, his skin wrinkling, his eyes shining. He pulled me close again, wrapped me against his insubstantial figure. I could feel his ribs under my hands. Could count them. He spoke to me then, spoke in Farsi, pressed his cheek against my head.
“God alone,” he said, his voice shaking, “God alone knows the depth of my regrets.”
Twenty-Three
I ran through the night on shaking legs, tore through gusts of wind, propelled myself through the freezing cold by sheer force of will. I wanted to run forever, wanted to fling myself into orbit, wanted to drive my body into the ground. My skin was crawling with unspent emotion, the sensations spiraling up my back, skittering through my head.
I wanted to scream.
I’d run out the door based on a pretense, the pretense that I’d left my backpack at Zahra’s house and needed to get it back, a pretense that held weight only as a result of Zahra’s mom having called my mom to inform her that I’d had dinner there that night.
It has all my homework in it, I’d said. I’ll just be gone for a little while.
A different version of me had used a similar excuse a thousand times to buy myself more time away from these walls, from the suffocating sorrow they contained. I was always inventing reasons to spend longer at Zahra’s house so I wouldn’t have to be trapped in the amber of my
