She always made Persian tea—black tea bursting with cardamom. It felt like being back in Iran, with Mamou and Babou (when he was sick but could still do things). In their house, the kettle was always on.
I swallowed away my sadness.
“This is good, Laleh,” I said. “Thanks.”
She didn’t look up. “Not too much hel?”
“It’s just right.”
Laleh nodded and kept reading.
I thought about sitting with her, but she seemed like she didn’t want company.
She wasn’t sick anymore, but there was something going on with her. Something she wasn’t saying out loud.
I studied my sister, but she just sipped her tea and turned the pages of her book.
So I went upstairs to do my Algebra II homework. Ms. Albertson had assigned us a bunch of exercises, but I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around the point and purpose of conics.
Who goes around slicing a cone to see what it looks like on the inside?
I ran a hand through my hair, tracing the line of my fade. I liked the way my skin tingled.
Dad knocked on my door frame. “What’re you working on?”
“Parabolas,” I groaned.
“That bad?”
I shrugged.
“Want me to look?”
“Sure.”
Dad stood over my desk, resting his hand on the back of my neck. He gave it a squeeze as he read over my equations.
The light from my desk lamp cast his face into sharp relief. The lines around his eyes looked deeper, and I remembered the weird tension in the car ride home from my game, and how he and Mom had been whispering last night.
“Is everything okay?” I blurted out.
“What?”
“Just...” I swallowed. “Things seem weird. With you. And Mom.”
Dad sighed.
He moved his hand down to my back.
“Things are okay,” he said. “Money’s just a little tight right now, after the trip to Iran, and sending money to help out Mamou.”
I nodded.
Dad drummed his fingers on my back. I didn’t think he knew he was doing it. “With your mom working so much overtime, and me being out of town, we thought it would be good if your grandparents came to stay with us for a while.”
“Oh,” I said.
The thing about Dad’s moms was, even though I knew they loved me and Laleh, I never got the feeling they actually liked us.
