I didn’t know what was waiting for us or what the future might hold, whether it would hold us at all. Still, I felt a burgeoning hope when I thought of him, felt it push through the pain. I felt, for the first time, like one of the raging fires in my life had snuffed out.
I’d apologized.
Not long ago I thought I’d have to live my entire life plagued by the drumbeat of a single regret. Not long ago I thought Ali would never speak to me again. Not long ago I thought I’d lost forever something I knew now to be precious. Rare.
I looked up then, searched the sky.
When I found the moon I found God, when I saw the starsI saw God, when I let myself be inhaled by the vast, expanding universe, I understood God the way Seneca once did—God is everything one sees and everything one does not see.
I did not often believe in men, but I always believed in more.
The God I knew had no gender, no form. Islam did not accept the personification of God, did not believe in containing God. The common use ofheas a pronoun was an error of translation.
There was onlythey, the collectivewe, the idea of infinity.
I’d always seen religion as a rope, a tool to help us grow nearer to our own hearts, to our place in this universe. I did not understand those who would malign, without forgiveness or empathy, others who did not conform to a series of static rules—rules that were never meant to inspire competition, but to build us up, make us better. Such moral superiority was antithetical to the essence of divinity, to the point of faith. It was made clear, time and time again, that it was not our place to exercise harsh, human judgment over those whose hearts we did not know. It was made unequivocally clear in the Qur’an that there should be no compulsion in religion.
And yet.
We were all of us lost.
When I pushed open the front door, I realized two things simultaneously:
First, that I’d left my backpack—my stupid, cumbersome, ridiculous backpack—at Zahra’s house, which meant that if I wanted to have any chance of ever catching up on my homework, I’d have to go back and get it, the mere idea of which sent a chill through my heart.
And second—
Second, I realized my father was home.
My first clue were his shoes, sitting neatly by the door, the familiar pair of brown leather loafers I hadn’t seen in weeks. My second clue was the smell of olive oil, chopped onions, sautéed beef, and the soft, sweet smell of fresh, sleeping rice. I heard the sound of my sister’s voice, a peal of laughter.
Quietly, I shut the door behind me, and the scene came suddenly into view.
My mother was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of food made with ingredients that, just hours ago, had not existed in our cupboards. My father was sitting in a chair at the dining table, looking bone-weary but happy, his face older than I remembered it, his hair grayer. Shayda was sitting in a chair next to him, holding one of his hands in both of hers. She looked close to tears but lovely, her dark hair framing her face, her wide brown eyes rich with emotion. I seldom understood my sister, and did not understand her then, either. I didn’t know how she could love a complicated man without it complicating her love. I didn’t know how her mind sorted and prioritized emotion; I didn’t know how she’d landed here—lookingincandescent—after all we’d been through.
I realized then that it was none of my business.
I had no right to drag Shayda down with me. Had no right to steal the joy from her body. It was not my fault that I could not bend my heart to behave as hers did, and it was not her fault that she couldn’t do the same for me. I supposed we really were just different, in the end.
My father was the first to notice me.
He stood up too fast, gripped the table for support. Shayda cried out a warning, worried, and my father didn’t seem to notice. His face changed as he took me in, studied my eyes.His eyes.He looked away, looked back, seemed to understand that I hated him, loved him.
Hated him.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until he came forward on slow, unsteady legs, didn’t realize I was sobbing until he pulled me into his arms. I cried harder when he became real, his arms real, his shape real, his body real. I cried like the child I was, like the child I wanted to be. I’d missed him, missed my horrible father, missed the way it felt to be held like this, to press my face against his chest, to inhale his familiar scent. He smelled like flowers, like rain, like leather. He smelled like exhaust fumes and coffee and paper. He was a horrible person, a wonderful person. He was cold and stupid and funny.
I hated him.
I hated him as he held me, hated him as I cried. The man who’d once felt to me like a solid block of concrete felt suddenlylike blown glass, papier-mâché. I felt his arms shaking. Felt the cold, papery skin of his hands against my face as he pulled back, looked at me.
I couldn’t meet his eyes.
I looked away, looked down, looked over his shoulder. My mother and sister were watching us closely, the two of them standing side by side in the kitchen. I stared at my mother, her hands clenching a towel, tears streaming down her face.
“Shadi,” my father said quietly.
I looked up.
