“I’m driving,” Amina said.
“Keys.Now.”
She scoffed, tossing them to him with a roll of her eyes, and slid into the passenger seat. “Obviously you haven’t managed to soften him up, Lilly. He’s still as bossy and stubborn as ever.”
I sank into the back, sighing. “Tell me about it.”
Khalifa shot me a glare through the rearview mirror.
Amina turned toward me. “So, when’s the last time you visited Lebanon?”
I swallowed the strange lump of nerves. “Actually...I’ve never been here.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Really? Why not?”
“Well,” I said, “my family came every year before I was born. But once my dad lost his parents, they decided there was no point. And my mom—well, she’s an only child. They both are. Which might explain the whole ‘we only want boys to continue the mighty family bloodline’ vibe they had going. Unfortunately for them, they also got me before any tubes could be tied.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Amina murmured.
I waved a hand. “It’s fine. You can’t grieve people you’ve never met.” Then a wry laugh escaped me. “My mom always says it’s good they died before knowing me, because I would have just disappointed more people.”
The words landed with a little too much intimacy, and I froze, suddenly aware of how careless they sounded. “I...I don’t know why I just told you that. Sorry.”
I glanced up, catching Khalifa’s eyes in the mirror. They were still on me, but gentler now, less harsh than before. I looked away, letting the warmth behind his gaze settle somewhere in my chest, unacknowledged and unclaimed.
The drive from the airport stretched out like it was aware of my awe. Beirut unfolded in a patchwork of sun-baked buildings, narrow streets crowded with scooters and cabs, their horns blaring in a chaotic symphony. The scent of sea salt mixed with freshly baked bread and the faint spice of street vendors’ wares curled through the cracked window, teasing me.
I’d grown up hearing about Lebanon, tasting it only in bits and pieces—falafel at dinners, strong coffee in the mornings, stories of a homeland that felt just out of reach. But I had neverbeenhere, never breathed the breeze that carried its history inevery brick. And yet, even as a foreigner, even as someone who didn’t speak the language as fluently as she wanted, I felt a strange tug of familiarity, like coming home to a place I hadn’t known I longed for.
The hills rose and fell in terraced layers, dotted with cedar trees, and buildings clinging to the slopes like they were holding on for dear life. The Mediterranean shimmered in the distance, endless and blue, with small fishing boats drifting lazily near the shoreline. I drank in all of it—the ornate balconies, the old stone houses, the occasional splash of bougainvillea tumbling over a wall, pink and defiant. I’d lived my whole life without this thread of culture running through me, and somehow that absence had left a vacancy I didn’t even know I had.
As mesmerizing as it was, the scars were impossible to ignore. Beauty here didn’t exist without interruption; it shared space with damage, with grief. Crumbling apartments sat beside freshly painted ones, cars were crushed and abandoned at odd angles, roads patched and torn and patched again, as if the city itself had been stitched back together too many times. The evidence ofIsraelimissiles lingered in the absence where a building should’ve been, in the way people walked past wreckage with the practiced ease of survival.
It broke something in my chest to see the aftermath of war laid out so plainly, close enough to touch, instead of in a history book or a headline or filtered through a screen. It was all there—woven into daily life, into morning commutes and grocery runs and sunsets over the sea. I tried to imagine what it must be like to live this way as an innocent civilian in Lebanon, in Palestine, in so many places across the Middle East, to raise children amid uncertainty, to fall in love under the constant threat of loss, to keep going while the rest of the world watched in distant silence.
The dystopian nature of it all struck me hard, and sitting there, safe and temporary and able to leave, I became painfullyaware of my own privilege, how my peace had been handed to me by nothing more than geography. I hadn’t earned it. I’d simply been born on a different corner of the globe.
Beirut was still beautiful. That was the most devastating part. Its resilience was breathtaking, its people luminous in their persistence. But beneath the shimmer and color was a sadness that hummed constantly, and once I heard it, I knew it would follow me long after we left. It was an ache I would carry, a reminder of everything I had, and everything so many others were forced to live without.
Amina’s voice pulled me back to the car, chatting animatedly from the passenger seat, filling the car with stories about their family, their childhood, snippets of humor and memory. I smiled politely, letting her words wash over me, but I felt like an intruder, listening in, catching fragments of Khalifa that didn’t feel like mine because they never came from him.
The house came into view—whitewashed walls, cedar shutters, a small courtyard framed by terraced hills. The front door opened before Khalifa could knock, and we were greeted by his family, the scent of Turkish coffee and homemade ka’ak wrapping around me in a tangible welcome.
Amina led the way, calling out in rapid Arabic. I followed behind, noticing everything—the tiles underfoot, the intricate patterns on the wooden panels, the afternoon light gilding the furniture.
A woman appeared in the doorway—older, maybe in her sixties, eyes rimmed with fatigue. She moved toward Khalifa, her arms wrapping around him without hesitation. I realized then that this must be one of his aunts.
He hugged her tightly, his head dipping for just a moment against her shoulder, and that small, fleeting gesture—so full of tenderness—made my chest throb. I told myself it was empathy,that it was only natural to feel for him, but beneath that reasoning was something else entirely.
When they pulled apart, I stepped forward, offering a polite, careful hug. “It’s nice to meet you, Khaltu. I’m Lillian.”
She smiled, her hand squeezing mine. “You’re kind to come, habibti.”
Before I could respond, his father—the sole architect of my husband’s lifelong grumpiness—appeared. His gaze was narrowed, controlled—a look meant to pierce straight through, to remind you of your place without saying a word.
Khalifa didn’t return it. His focus stayed somewhere over his father’s shoulder, as if he could will himself invisible. I felt a protective impulse stir inside me, an irrational urge to step between them, to block that poisonous stare, to tell this man to take that look and shove it somewhere anatomically inconvenient. But then Khalifa lifted his chin, expression smooth and unreadable.
“Salam, Baba,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
