“Um.”
“He could always get you to sleep. No matter what. Even when you were teething, a few minutes on his chest and you were out like a light. You loved it when he held you.”
Mom traced potato-me with her fingers.
“Look how much he loves being a dad.”
Mom’s voice quavered.
I wrapped my arm around her and laid my head against her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
MAGNETIC CONTAINMENT
I wrapped Sohrab’s cleats in the ads section of one of Mamou’s Yazdi news magazines, covered with pictures of scruff-faced men in button-up shirts advertising real estate or plastic surgery or new cars.
It was our last game.
I was not okay with that.
I was not okay with saying good-bye to Sohrab.
And I kind of hated Mom and Dad for bringing me to Iran, knowing I’d have to say good-bye.
I left a few minutes early, so Sohrab could try on his cleats before we headed to the field. But when I got there, a strange vehicle was parked outside his house: a tiny grayish-brown hatchback that had been waxed to such a shine, I sneezed when I caught the sun’s reflection off the front fender.
I knocked on Sohrab’s door and then shifted the box of cleats. I wasn’t sure what to do with it: whether I should hold it out in front of me, or hide it behind my back, or tuck it under my arm.
There was no answer. I knocked again, a little louder.
Sometimes Sohrab or his mom couldn’t hear me knocking, if they were in the bathroom or on the phone or out in the backyard.
Maybe they were enjoying another Ping-Pong table full of romaine lettuce and Babou’s sekanjabin.
I gave up on the front door and picked my way around theside of the house, tiptoeing between the square stones that constituted the Rezaeis’ landscaping.
But the backyard was empty—no Sohrab, no lettuce. Just the Ping-Pong table folded upright and pushed against the wall of the house. It rattled on its hinges, a rigid green sail tossed in the stiff Yazdi breeze.
I rubbed the flat of my thumbnail against my bottom lip. I wished I had some tassels.
I wondered if Sohrab and his mom had gone out. If they had forgotten I was coming by.
But then, through the little window in the door, I caught sight of Sohrab’s amou Ashkan in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, in and out of my view.
I knocked on the back door.
“Hi. I mean, Alláh-u-Abhá, Agha Rezaei.”
“Alláh-u-Abhá, Agha Darioush,” he said. But there was a sadness in his voice, and he wasn’t smiling.
Sohrab’s uncle had the kind of face that looked wrong without a smile.
“It is good to see you.”
He stood back to let me in. I slipped off my Vans and set them against the door. There was no sign of Sohrab.
“Um. Is everything okay?”
