“I’ll be at the Bryant Park event on Tuesday,” he says.
My stomach flips. “I thought you were just doing publicist duties for the tour. I didn’t expect you’d attend the local events after we get back.” Assuming he’s still employed.
His gaze is steady. “If you’re there, I want to be there.”
His image blurs before me. My eyes are wet, my fingers trembling as they loosen around his. I stand up, forcing steel into my spine to stop it from turning to goo. My throat feels too tight, constricted. I offer what I hope looks like a smile but may well look like evidence of a neurological disorder.
“Then, I guess…I’ll see you there. Safe travels home,” I say shakily and head toward the door, the clop of my heels on the pavement echoing in the alleyway.
Pushing back through the door, I barely register the lingering patrons; the picked-over displays of my book; the polite goodbyes between Mom, Maral, and Shanthi as we don our jackets and gather our bags at the front of the store. I tap at my Uber app as if in a trance, shuffling Mom into the car on autopilot and participating only in rote conversation on the drive home.
It’s not until my phone pings with a message from Nadia as we’re speeding down Morrissey Boulevard that I’m jostled from my inertia.
Interest from Scope!
My stomach leaps at the name of the popular L.A.-based TV network, whose bright logo was splattered on more than a few billboards we passed on our way to Glendale just yesterday. A tartness settles in my belly, but that’s just how hope feels when it comes as a pleasant surprise.
Yay!I make my fingers type, despite the tension in my shoulders.Already left L.A. tho?
Her response comes a few seconds later.NP, can do zoom mtg next Friday
I take a deep breath, screenshotting the text chain and sending it to Maral. Mom’s profile is silhouetted against the moonlight as she talks about the nazook she baked for us to enjoy with coffee tomorrow. This is good. It’s good. I exhale slowly.
I’m back in the game.
Chapter 19
The nazook is delicious. So is the Armenian coffee, the dolma, the lahmejoun, the kofte, and every other delicacy Mom toiled over in the days leading up to my arrival. You’d think I was staying for a week with the sheer volume of food she’s prepared, so I do my due diligence and stuff myself. The food brings back treasured flashes in time—Maral and I stealing bites off each other’s plates at the table and giggling over the yeasty crumbs stuck in our dads’ beards; our moms affectionately stroking our heads, gratified to fill our bellies, murmuringanoush, anoush,which translates directly tosweetbut is used to meanI hope you’re enjoying it. Mom does the same now as I bite into a flaky boreg, her eyes shining with tenderness as she whispers, “Anoush, anoush,” and it makes me want to stay in this moment forever. In the love she bestows so freely, the best way she knows how, filling my stomach and my heart.
If only it could always be like this—I would move us to L.A. together right now, to hell with the show. But it isn’t long before conversation inevitably veers into unwanted territory again.
Like when Reese Witherspoon’s team gets in touch asking me to record a short video for their socials, and I set up in the garden (a scenic backdrop), and Mom watches on confoundedly.
“What’s all that for?” She nods at the portable ring light/tripod combo before me.
“It holds the camera and improves the lighting quality for the video.”
Her brows rise. “To think you could be traveling with a medical bag. Instead you cart this”—she waves at the setup on the grass—“equipmentaround to make your little videos.”
I swallow hard. Count to five, this time with Ryan’s suggestion hanging in the back of my mind: to share my needs with her, ask her to stop with the disparaging remarks. Whether she hears me or cares or changes her behavior is up to her, but I could put the ball in her court. I give it a shot.
“Mayrik, that commentary isn’t going to help me get this done any faster.”
Okay, as far as shots go, it’s a weak one. It doesn’t exactly convey my needs, but at least it succeeds at stopping the diatribe for now, as she heads inside to set the table for afternoon coffee. Somehow the idea of being any firmer feels more like an intrusive thought than anything—uncharacteristically aggressive, and its likely result needlessly disruptive.
Handily, my visit is short enough that unwelcome conversation is curbed by the various projects she’s saved for me to do—packing away the outdoor furniture for the season, clearing the acorn husks from the oak tree out of the gutter, removing unused programs from the ancient desktop computer in the kitchen so it doesn’t take ten full minutes to load a single web page. Typical adult–child tasks she won’t let me outsource between visits.
I’m lugging a box of extra dishware to the basement (Why do I need so many plates and cups if I’m the only one here to use them?she asked wistfully) when my eye catches on a cable-knit sweater vest slung over a brown faux-leather suitcase from the previous century. I set the box on a shelf and pick up the garment, its wool coarse and springy against my fingers. I bring it to my nose.
It’s been too long for his scent to remain, but I swear I detect a whisper of it in the fibers. Smoky khoung, warm and homey. Memories—his broad smile, crooked teeth shining bright against his dark beard, soulful eyes glittering under thick brows—rush over me with such potency that my nose burns, the broad gray cables blurring before me. I bury my face in the sweater, breathing him in for long moments, sinking into the feeling, until I hear Mom’s footsteps heavy on the basement stairs and drop it like a teenager caught with a joint.
She pauses halfway down the staircase, eyes lingering on the fabric swinging on the edge of the suitcase. Time seems to slow, the basement air heavy, like we’re underwater. Movements lethargic, strenuous.
I swipe at my eyes, arrange my face into a smile. “Done down here,” I chirp.
She’s silent for a long moment, not noticing—whether by true or willful ignorance—anything untoward in my demeanor. “Good. Almost time for dinner.”
When my Uber arrives on Monday morning, Mom’s wringing her hands by the door, griping about how short my visit was until I hug her, offering assurances that we’ll see each other again soon. She hands me a travel cooler full of leftovers, insisting that I share some with Mar, Shanthi, and Ryan on the train back to New York. I promise I will, even though Ryan flew out yesterday so he could be back at work this morning. Today is his potentially consequential meeting that was delayed till the tour ended. I cringe, thinking of Ryan facing a firing squad made up of Woodsworth’s top brass and HR, hoping against hope that my email made a dent, and count the minutes until I can text him to see how it went.
