We sat quietly at the table now, all of us staring at our plates while Zahra disappeared down the hall. We listened to the distant sounds of running water as she washed her hands, stalled for time. I knew she’d have to come out at some point, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be here when she did. I hadn’t been prepared to face Zahra, not like this, not in front of her whole family.
I stood up suddenly.
“Please accept my apologies. I’m so grateful. You’ve been so kind. But I should go.”
“You didn’t even touch your food,” Fereshteh khanoom cried. “You have to stay—you’re wasting away. Smaller and smaller every time I see you.” She turned to her husband. “Isn’t it true? I don’t like it.”
“It’s true,” agha Dariush said, smiling at his wife. He turned to me. “You should eat more, Shadi joon. Just a little bit more, okay azizam? Beshin.”Sit.
I stared at my full plate. I had no appetite.
“Please,” I said, my voice practically a whisper. “Forgive me. I’m so sorry for intruding and for interrupting your day. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me—”
“There’s no need.” Agha Dariush cut me off with a tender smile. “We still have your letter, azizam. You don’t need to thank us anymore.”
“What letter?” were the first words Ali had spoken since he’d arrived downstairs.
I wanted, suddenly, to die.
That stupid letter. I was out of my mind when I wrote it. I’d been delirious with insomnia for days, trapped under a vicious grief, the waking nightmare that was my life. My brother was dead. My parents were killing each other. Every night my father would fall to his knees begging, begging like a child before a strange, hysterical version of my mother. She’d cry when she slapped him. She’d slap him and scream at him and he’d say nothing, do nothing, not even when she collapsed, dragging her fingernails down her own face.
I didn’t sleep for four days.
I’d lie awake in bed imagining my mother curled on the floor of my brother’s bedroom begging God to kill her and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t close my eyes. When I finally collapsed at school I’d been so grateful for the reprieve, so grateful for the few hours of peace and comfort Zahra’s parents provided that it nearly broke me. I didn’t know why I’d decided to immortalize those feelings in a letter, the ghost of which kept haunting me. I didn’t want anyone else to see it. I thought I would actually self-immolate if Ali read that letter.
Fereshteh khanoom made a sound—a sharpeh—something like irritation. It was a sound I’d heard a hundred other Iranian parents make when they were frustrated. “Why’d you say anything about her letter?” she snapped at her husband in Farsi. “Now you’ve embarrassed her.”
“I really should go,” I managed to choke out. “Please. I should get home.”
Fereshteh khanoom shook her head at her husband. “Didichikar kardi?”Do you see what you did?
“Hey,” Ali said, looking at his parents. “What letter?”
“Oh, this was months ago,” his mom said.
“How the hell is that an answer?”
“Don’t sayhellto your mother,” agha Dariush said sharply, pointing his fork at his son.
Fereshteh khanoom smacked Ali on the arm. “Beetarbiat.”No manners.
He rolled his eyes. “Can someone please just tell me what this letter is?”
“I have to go,” I said desperately. “Please. I’ve infringed upon your kindness enough.”
“Mashallah, she’s so articulate,nah?” Agha Dariush beamed at his wife. “‘Infringed’ khaylee loghateh khoobiyeh.”“Infringed” is such a good word.
“Jesus Christ,” Ali muttered.
His mother hit him again.
Agha Dariush looked up at me then, put me out of my misery. “Of course you can go, azizam. You must want to get home to your mother.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Ali,” he said to his son. “Pasho.”Get up.
To me, he said: “Ali will drive you home.”
