Sometimes I thought Dad liked Nowruz more than the rest of us combined.
Maybe it let him feel a little bit Persian.
Maybe it did.
So our Haft-Seen was loaded with everything tradition allowed, plus a framed photo of Dad in the corner. Laleh insisted we had to add it, becauseStephenbegins with the sound ofS.
It was hard to argue with my sister’s logic.
“Darius?”
“Yeah?”
“This goldfish only has one eyeball!”
I knelt next to Laleh as she pointed at the fish in question.
“Look!”
It was true. The largest fish, a leviathan nearly the size of Laleh’s hand, only had its right eye. The left side of its head—face—(do fish have faces?)—was all smooth, unbroken orange scales.
“You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t notice that.”
“I’m going to name him Ahab.”
Since Laleh was in charge of feeding the fish, she had also taken upon herself the solemn duty of naming them.
“Captain Ahab had one leg, not one eye,” I pointed out. “But it’s a good literary reference.”
Laleh looked up at me, her eyes big and round. I was kind of jealous of Laleh’s eyes. They were huge and blue, just like Dad’s. Everyone always said how beautiful Laleh’s eyes were.
No one ever told me I had beautiful brown eyes, except Mom, which didn’t count because (a) I had inherited them from her, and (b) she was my mom, so she had to say that kind of thing. Just like she had to call me handsome when that wasn’t true at all.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No,” I said. “I promise. Ahab is a good name. And I’m proud of you for knowing it. It’s from a very famous book.”
“Moby the Whale!”
“Right.”
I could not bring myself to sayMoby-Dickin front of my little sister.
“What about the others?”
“He’s Simon.” She pointed to the smallest fish. “And he’s Garfunkel. And that’s Bob.”
I wondered how Laleh was certain they were male fish.
I wondered how people identified male fish from female fish.
I decided I didn’t want to know.
“Those are all good names. I like them.” I leaned down to kiss Laleh on the head. She squirmed but didn’t try that hard to get away. Just like I had to pretend I didn’t like having tea parties with my little sister, Laleh had to pretend she didn’t like kisses from her big brother, but she wasn’t very good at pretending yet.
I took my empty cup of genmaicha to the kitchen and washed and dried it by hand. Then I filled a regular glass with water from the fridge and went to the cabinet where we kept everyone’s medicine. I sorted through the orange capsules until I found my own.
“Mind grabbing mine?” Dad asked from the door.
