“The what?”
“The house Dad gave his old girlfriend. Or maybe not-so-old girlfriend.”
I forced myself to stay calm. To keep breathing. “It’s in North Carolina.”
“Have you seen it?” she asked.
“From the outside, yes.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s not big,” I told her. “It’s just a nice, normal-size house.”
“Who cares how big it is!” Adam burst out. “This whole thing is fucked up. Screw this.” He stormed out of the kitchen. I heard him going up the stairs and slamming the door to his bedroom.
“I know this doesn’t make any sense right now,” I said to my daughter. “But we need to reserve judgment until—”
“Stop.” Ayla backed away, hands over her ears. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The phone calls and texts started coming in almost immediately. My parents called from the West Bank, where they spent several months a year now that Baba was retired.
“Is it true?” Mama asked. “I can’t believe it.”
Baba’s irate voice sounded in the background. “I told you it’s not good to marry a boy who has a girlfriend. You and your mother should have listened to me.”
“He shamed his whole family,” Mama declared. “They have no honor now.”
“Maybe they knew,” Baba said. “Maybe Ali’s family kept his secret.”
“Baba,” I said, “I don’t think they knew.”
“Maybe.” His skeptical voice was tinny in the background. “I knew a guy who disappeared for nine years and the family pretended not to know where he was, but they knew. They always know!”
“It’s not true,”Um Aliinsisted over the phone when she called later. “My son wasn’t like that. It’s a lie.”
She truly seemed shocked. Maybe Ali’s family hadn’t known? I couldn’t reassure her, so I kept it vague. “I’ll figure everything out.Wallah.I swear.”
I did appreciate it when Claudia reached out to ask how she could help. But annoyance flashed through me when Nicki and Rula, who had basically been MIA since Ali died, texted to see if I was OK andask if it was true that my husband left a house to his mistress. I ignored their messages. I was learning that maybe friendships, even the longest and deepest ones, had a season, and ours had come to an end. I would be cordial when I saw them, but my inner circle had shifted. Ali’s death had realigned my relationships.
Lulu and Nasser came over right away.
“Well, this is pretty messed up,” Lulu proclaimed as she made hot mint Arabic tea for us.
“How do you think this happened?” I asked Nasser. “How did it get out?”
“I asked around. I haven’t heard back yet. But you did tell people,” he reminded me.
“Youdid?” Lulu slid a steaming mug in front of me. “Who did you tell?”
My head throbbed like I had the worst caffeine headache in the world. But a thousand cups of coffee wouldn’t cure this disaster. “I mentioned it at dinner with some of Ali’s college friends. I thought they might know something.”
Lulu handed Nasser a coffee. “Would your college friends call a gossip column?”
He shrugged. “It’s DC. Word gets around.”
I swiped a tear away. “If only Ali had never gotten that stupid TV gig. This wouldn’t have made a local gossip column if he was a boring accountant that no one had ever heard of.” Not that Ali had ever been boring.
Nasser’s phone pinged. He studied it. “Well, that answers the question of how the local gossip website found out.”
