“You know, when I first moved here, people said things to me too. Especially after 9/11.”
She kept playing with my hair.
“I guess I just got used to it. And I worked hard to be as white as I could. That’s one reason I didn’t teach you Farsi like I should have.”
Mom had told me that before: that she didn’t want me to feel different from the other kids.
“I even went by Sharon for a while, because my professors couldn’t say Shirin right.”
“Sharon Bahrami?”
Mom snorted. “It lasted about two weeks, before your dad talked me out of it.” She smiled and twisted a lock of my hair around her finger, then let it go and admired the curl. She rested her palm against my cheek.
“Maybe I should have learned more, so I could prepare you and your sister better. But no one wants to think that their kids are going to get called terrorists at school. And that they can’t protect them from it.”
“You don’t have to protect me, Mom.”
Mom pulled my head down to kiss my forehead.
“Yes I do,” she said. “Always.”
“Well.” I swallowed. “I have to protect Laleh.”
Mom gave me this sad smile.
I had never noticed the little creases in the corners of her eyes before.
“You’re a good brother.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
Rising Hill Elementary School was something of a misnomer. The school sat in a valley between two smaller hills, neither of which were actually named Rising Hill—or named anything at all, as far as I could tell.
The school was new: They finished it right before Laleh started first grade. The exterior was all endless gleaming windows and repurposed lumber, with solar panels on the roof and geothermal heating and cooling inside.
The parking lot was still full as Grandma pulled Oma’s Camry into a visitor’s spot.
Laleh squirmed in the back seat.
“We’re late.” Grandma clicked her tongue. “Better hurry.”
Our meeting with Laleh’s teacher was at 5:00.
It was 4:55.
Melanie Kellner was compulsively early to everything.
I opened Laleh’s door for her and offered my hand as we walked inside, but she shook her head, hunched her shoulders, and trudged ahead between me and Grandma with her hands in her coat pockets.
Everything inside Rising Hill Elementary looked so small: Signs were posted lower on the walls, hallways were narrower, drinking fountains were down at knee height.
Had my own elementary school been that small?
A friendly young white man in a bow tie and thick-framed glasses greeted us.
“Here for a meeting?” he asked. He had a mellow voice, and there was something in it that kind of made me wonder if he was queer too.
