“You don’t seem like someone who annoys easily.”
I gave her a pointed look. “You’ve known me five seconds.”
“And in five seconds,” she said smoothly, “I’ve learned you’re funny, quick, and very practiced at dodging questions.”
My chest felt tight, like she was testing me the way you test the seams of a dress—checking where the fabric might give.
“Well,” I said finally, meeting her gaze, “if you really want the truth...your brother and I have a talent for bickering. It’s practically our love language. Don’t worry, though. I don’t take him too seriously, and he doesn’t take me seriously at all. It works.”
Amina’s lips curved. “We’ll see.”
As she sipped, I caught the faintest flicker of amusement there, but it was threaded with what I feared—skepticism, maybe even protectiveness.
I balanced the tray and carried it back into the living room. Glasses of juice gleamed like amber jewels beside the neat arrangement of fancy chocolates and Arab sweets that my mother insisted on displaying during visits like this, as if sugared almonds could prove we were a respectable family.
I moved around the room, serving each person, their polite murmurs andthank yousblurring together. When I reached Khalifa, he took his glass with an unreadable look, his eyes flicking up to mine. He leaned in just slightly, voice pitched low enough for only me to hear.
“Thank you,” he breathed.
Two small words, but the way he said them—strangely soft, almost intimate—made me nearly drop the tray. My fingers trembled before I pulled them back, clutching the handle a little tighter as if that could stop the quick flutter that had no business existing in my chest.
I sank onto the couch, smoothing my skirt, trying to look unfazed. Which was, of course, the exact moment my brothers decided to pounce.
“So,” Hakim started, grinning, “what’s it like, marrying a girl who can eat more than you?”
Musa chuckled, elbowing Khalifa. “Seriously. I don’t know how you’ll keep up. At family dinners, she can out-eat all four of us.”
“Five,” Adam corrected, smirking. “Don’t forget Baba. She beat him once in a shawarma count.”
Hakim snapped his fingers. “That’s right—at least until Mama started making her eat in the kitchen by herself.”
“Like a dog that’s been bad,” Abdullah chimed in, like this were a perfectly reasonable family policy.
They laughed, but there was a bite beneath it—a familiar pointedness that had followed me all my life, hiding behind “jokes.” Teasing adorned as affection, meant to bruise under the illusion of love. I smiled like it didn’t sting, my cheeks stiff, my fingers gripping the fabric of my dress.
Khalifa didn’t laugh. Instead, he set his glass down, leaning back, his expression calm, almost casual. “And what do you all do?”
Hakim’s confidence hiccupped. “Uh, I’m a truck driver. Mostly highways and bad gas-station coffee.”
“Construction,” Musa added quickly.
“I’m at the garage,” Abdullah said, squirming in his seat.
“And Adam?” Khalifa asked, his gaze flicking over them.
“I’m in sales,” Adam muttered.
Khalifa nodded once, then let his eyes rest on me. “And Lillian delivers babies. Saves lives. Creates families. Sounds like she has all of you beat, and not just at the dinner table.”
The silence that followed was brief but heavy, the words cutting more for how respectfully they’d been delivered. My brothers shifted, and I sat a little straighter, stifling a snicker.
Before anyone could respond, Khalifa’s father cleared his throat. His eyes—piercing, scrutinizing—landed on me. “So, you’re a doctor. OB-GYN, yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
He bobbed his head in approval. “Impressive. A doctor in the family.” Then, with a wave of his hand, his focus switched to Khalifa. “Unlike this one. He leaves Lebanon, studies to become—what? A history professor. As if stories of the past will feed him or feed a family.”
The room went very still.
