It All Comes Back to You

by Farah Naz Rishi

  If there’s one good thing that’s come of Dad’s upcoming move, it’s that it gives me something to do other than buying stuff I don’t need for my college dorm room, listening to melancholy lo-fi hip-hop beats playlists while stuffing my face with leftover wedding cake, or crying over videos of lost baby animals that would surely perish if not for their timely rescue and friendship with a significantly larger, motherly dog. Thanks to my efforts, the entire basement is now a mini-city of boxes I’ve stacked to look like skyscrapers. Call me Sadzilla.

  But the other strong contender for worst thing that’s happened since the wedding is that Amira hasn’t spoken to me once since she called it off. After her pronouncement, we drove her back home—our home—in total silence. Riz spent the night with her, the two of them locked in Amira’s old bedroom. At least she had someone to talk to, I guess.

  Someone who wasn’t me.

  “You all just need a few days to cool your heads,” Asher assured me over FaceTime on that first night. “Would it help if I GrubHub’d you some ice cream?”

  Last but not least, I can’t focus on any of my summer reading and I move to campus in less than a week.

  It all comes back to Deen.

  At this point, Deen could assert squatter’s rights and gain full ownership over my brain space, if he wanted. To be honest, I’m still in a daze over what happened, over how angry he was at me.

  As if she’s in any position to tell other people how to live their lives!

  It was a low blow. But I can’t help feel like he’s right. It didn’t exactly come from nowhere, either; Deen even tried to talk me out of my decision to go to med school, as if I was making some terrible decision that was obvious to everyone but me. Foxx had said something similar, too, when I told him I wasn’t going to pursue dance. Is that really such a pipe dream?

  It was as if at the wedding, all of the hidden feelings Deen locked inside came bursting out from him in a way I’d never seen before. There was something about him that was strange from the get-go. Like before the dance, when he’d said that I wouldn’t have to see him again. At first, I thought he was being sarcastic, or facetious, like he always is. I mean, regardless of the wedding’s outcome, we wouldn’t have much of a reason to see each other, anyway. Not that I minded.

  But thinking about it now, there was something much more final in his tone that night. As if he knew the fight would happen, or maybe was afraid it would. If he saw the plan on my phone, he must have known that I’d try to stop the wedding. That he would have to try and stop me. Is that why he looked so unbearably sad? Because the dance was actually a goodbye?

  But then, why would he look so miserable?

  And speaking of Foxx—he hasn’t logged on to the guild chat for the past few days, either. It worries me. For Foxx not to log on, right after the fight with Deen, and right after Deen said Kas’s name . . .

  It feels like too much of a coincidence. But if he is Foxx, then why didn’t he say anything sooner? Then again, if he did, would it have changed anything?

  The dance, too—I can’t stop replaying the dance in my head, only the image is tattered and blurry, like film that’s been exposed to too much light. Like there’s something I’m missing.

  What am I missing?

  It’s the question I’ve been wrestling with since the wedding.

  Kas.

  I dunk a cinnamon graham cracker into a glass bowl of half-melted cookies and cream like the gremlin I am, before scooping a glob of ice cream into my mouth.

  But does it even matter anymore?

  The stairs creak and I snap my head toward the sound, graham cracker still jammed in my mouth.

  It’s Amira. With her hair down, she’s ghostlike in an old blue bathrobe she’s had since she was in high school.

  “Hey,” she says in a voice that doesn’t quite sound like hers.

  I suddenly choke on my graham cracker and bang at my chest with my fist. After what feels like the longest minute of my life, I manage to dislodge the cracker and swallow it back down. I take a loud gasp of air.

  “H-hey,” I manage finally.

  Amira floats over to the fridge. She lugs out a jug of mango juice like it’s too heavy and pours herself a glass. Her big brown eyes are half-lidded, like she’s in a daze.

  “Is Riz still with you?” I ask carefully.

  Amira takes a long, slow sip. “She flew back home to Chicago late last night. But she says bye.”

  “Oh.” My chest rattles with a shaky breath.

  “Have you . . .” My throat is tight. I clear it, though it doesn’t really help. “Have you been sleeping well?”

  She laughs dryly. “I’ve slept better.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Mm.”

  Amira takes another sip as guilt bites at the pit of my belly.

  There’s a thick, hanging pause, and it’s quiet. The house has never been so lifeless with Amira in it. Even the sound of my own breathing feels too loud.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Amira’s gaze glides to the ceiling. She lets her head dip for a while before answering.

  “That’s a good question. I’m honestly not really sure yet,” she says. “But I’ll take my time. Postpone the bar exam. Maybe head back to New York for now. Try to pick up the pieces.”

  She leans against the counter and swirls the mango juice in her glass, seemingly deep in thought.

  “It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life,” she whispers.

  I wish I had the words to say to make her feel better. I wish I could let my guilt melt into white-hot righteous fury: toward Deen for interfering, toward Faisal for not being forthright in the first place. It’d be so much easier to say it was all their fault. But the reality is, I’m the one who stormed that stage. I’m the one who egged Deen on.

  Amira looks at me, letting her long hair trail on the countertop. “When I heard everything Faisal did, you know what I felt, more than anything else? I was . . . disappointed.”

  I stare at my bowl, at the creamy dregs of melted ice cream. “He lied. Of course you’d be disappointed. He wasn’t the guy he pretended to be.”

  “The funny thing is, it’s not the content of the lie that upsets me, but the fact that he lied at all.”

  I look up at her, confused.

  “I’m upset because he felt like he couldn’t tell me. I thought by now, he’d feel comfortable enough to talk to me. About everything. Did I make him feel like he couldn’t be honest with me? Did he think I couldn’t handle it? That my love is that shallow?

  “I guess it’s like you said all along. He and I had only known each other three months before we decided to marry. Maybe I rushed it a little without even realizing because I was still coping with losing Mom. And maybe that wasn’t enough time to build that trust.”

  But then Amira’s eyes flicker with light. “See, but the thing that really gets me is, Faisal might have an excuse. So my question is, what is yours?”

  I go still.

  “You’re my sister,” she continues. “You of all people should know me. So why didn’t you say anything sooner? Why didn’t you talk to me?”

  “I—” My head goes blank and I scramble for words. “I tried. I tried, but . . . every time I did, I felt like you were so happy. For the first time since Mom died. I didn’t want to ruin that.”

  “And how’s that working for you?” Amira shoots back.

  My eyes begin to flood. I blink the wetness away. But she’s right. She’s so right.

  Amira’s face softens. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” I whimper, shaking my head. Fat tears leak down my cheeks. “Please do not say sorry to me right now. Please. I will cry.”

  “You’re already crying.”

  “I know.”

  A teardrop plops into my melted ice cream and I wipe away at my face with the hems of my sleeves. I shouldn’t be crying. I have no right to cry—Amira’s the one with the Free Tears for Life card, and
I really don’t want to be one of those assholes who make things all about them. But it’s like this dam has been broken inside me and I can’t hold it all back in.

  “I’m sorry,” I manage. “I’m sorry I ruined your wedding and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you from the start and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Deen. I’m sorry.”

  Amira sets her glass down—at least, I think she does, because it’s hard to see right now—and walks over to me. She tugs on my arm and pulls me into a hug.

  She’s warm. “Don’t hug me, I’ll cry harder.”

  “I know.” She rests her cheek on my quaking shoulders. “But if you’re really sorry, then promise me that from now on, you’ll talk to me. That’s all I ask.”

  I nod, and more fat droplets escape from my eyes.

  “No matter what. No matter any reservations or worries you might have. Even when we get older and it gets harder and harder to stay in contact. With Mom gone, who else are we going to talk to anyway?”

  I make an ugly sound, something between a wet laugh and a sob. A slob, maybe. It’d be fitting.

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good.” She holds me a little tighter.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and just let her hold me. And for the first time in forever, I feel like Amira’s baby sister, and I’m okay with it because right now, in her arms, in this kitchen, it’s like I remember how to breathe again.

  I’m upstairs in Dad’s room.

  After our talk, Amira went back to New York, and Dad isn’t home yet, so I take the opportunity to do something I’ve been putting off for over a year now.

  I take a deep breath, steeling myself, and open Mom’s closet door, which swings open with a groan.

  I step inside and I’m immediately swept by the familiar smell of antibacterial Softsoap and jasmine oil.

  But the smell feels weaker today, for some reason. Time is fading it away.

  The thought makes my chest ache.

  But.

  I drop a big, empty cardboard box in the center of the closet, and let the other flattened boxes I’ve tucked beneath my armpit fall to the ground.

  “The sooner you get it over with, the better, right?” I tell the closet.

  The closet doesn’t answer back, and for that, I am grateful.

  I click play on a jazz-hop playlist on my phone, roll up my sleeves—still damp from my earlier sob fest—and begin folding up Mom’s clothes. Each piece has a memory attached to it: the white T-shirt with the Cal State logo that Mom wore to my school picnic in fifth grade. The black dress Mom wore to that anniversary dinner Amira and I planned for her and Dad. The baggy jeans with the green paint stain on the left leg was from when Mom had to help me with my third-grade class project, when I had to build a leprechaun trap. I find a fake pearl necklace in one of her sweaters, one she’d let me borrow for my high school performance of Beauty and the Beast (I played one of three feather dusters). All pieces of our life, stitched in fabric and leather and beads. An entire existence, reduced to a single closet.

  Slowly but surely, though, the closet begins to empty. It’s when I reach the back corner of her closet that I hesitate—not because I’m tired, but because this was where we put the clothes that were easier for her to put on as her disease progressed.

  All bad memories.

  I check the pockets of her cardigans and find tissues and wet wipes, vitamins and pills. An old prescription card. A number for another ENT specialist. Seeing these again—the memories are too painful, too raw. Grief starts to claw its way up my throat. But I can’t let Dad and Amira do this.

  So it’s up to me.

  My hands graze a soft black cardigan, one Mom asked me to cut holes in the sleeves of so she could stick her thumbs through. She wore this one the most. Except, instead of her, it smells stale, like disinfectant. Like a hospital.

  My fingers reach into the pocket and find a crumpled, roughly folded piece of paper.

  I pull it out, expecting another doctor’s note. Slowly, I unfold the paper. It’s a page from the legal pad I gave her so she could communicate.

  My ribs knit tightly together as I recognize the shaky handwriting. I begin to read:

  My little Kiran, my sweetest heart,

  I’m sorry to leave you so soon. I’ve tried so hard to steer you, and there’s so much more I want to tell you. This letter will have to suffice for now.

  I know I told you to look after Amira and your dad. But that doesn’t mean you take on the world by yourself. You’ve always been so strong. But being strong means trusting them to take on their own battles once in a while. Do that for me and I promise everything will be fine. That’s what it means to be family.

  I’m so proud of you. Even though I’ll be gone, take a deep breath and don’t be afraid. No matter how you might feel, you are ready to go off on your own, to follow your heart. I hope that you will. But most important, don’t let anyone make you feel like you can’t do what you want to do. Not even me. Not even you.

  It must have taken her forever to write this. My hands tremble. It’s like the rest of the world has fallen away. Like nothing and everything suddenly makes sense. Like Mom was giving me the permission I didn’t even know I needed.

  The permission to just be.

  And yet, it was so like her to say exactly what I needed to hear, exactly what I needed it most.

  It was so like her.

  Alone, in the safety and quiet of my mom’s closet, I hug my mom’s letter to my chest, and I cry again.

  Only this time, I’m smiling, too.

  Chapter 34

  Deen

  Thursday, August 26

  “BROTHER DEEN!”

  Imam Obaid’s voice catches my attention, and I find him standing at the main entrance to the masjid. He waves me over, his toothy grin a crescent moon against his black beard.

  I can’t believe I’m back where it all started: the masjid.

  I shove my hands into my pockets and lumber over to him.

  “Come, come, don’t be shy!” calls the imam cheerfully. “Although after the wedding, I guess you can’t really help it, huh?” He laughs loudly, slapping my back so hard I stumble into the masjid.

  It’s been four days now, but it feels like a year since Amira called off the wedding. Yesterday, I had to take Professor Pryce’s Intro to Poli-Sci exam at eight in the morning, which I’m pretty sure has to constitute some kind of labor law or human rights violation. When I expressed this to Professor Pryce, he rubbed at his temples and informed me that if I’d bothered to be better about my attendance, I would have learned that no such laws exist. We agreed to disagree.

  But when I wasn’t studying at the last minute, I was in New Jersey, hovering by Faisal’s door.

  “You’ve humiliated us all,” Mom had said the night of the wedding as we drove back to the house; Mom driving with her high heels in her lap and the hair she’d gotten done at the salon completely frazzled, Dad staring ahead, his glasses reflecting the reds and greens of traffic lights. And Faisal, in a dazed silence, sitting in the back. Alone.

  I cradle my head in my hands as my temples throb. Mom didn’t care that Faisal had just lost the love of his life. All she cared about was that I’d embarrassed her, that I’d ruined her perfectly laid out plans to regain her status as community linchpin, plans that hinged on Faisal’s big redemptive wedding.

  The last time Faisal locked himself in his room like this, I was afraid he’d never come out again. The only hope I had was that this time, the protein drinks in the kitchen fridge were disappearing at the usual steady rate. Still, though. I got so worried, I almost responded to one of Kas’s dozens of messages on the guild chat asking if I was okay. Except I don’t even know how to talk to her anymore. As much as I might want to.

  Even Haris tried to coax Faisal out. To no avail.

  But on the third day, Faisal finally stepped outside, went into my room, and charged at me with a pointed finger.

  “Ma
sjid.”

  I fumbled for my phone, which I’d nearly dropped when he threw open the door. “W-what?”

  “Go to the masjid. Imam Obaid is waiting for you.”

  And with that, he left, retreating to his bedroom again.

  Which is why I’m here at the masjid now. Even with all those muscles, I’ve never seen Faisal hurt a fly. But lately I’ve been feeling like less than a fly—a runty maggot, maybe—and I really don’t want to test him.

  I slip off my sneakers and shove them in a cubbyhole before following the imam deeper into the masjid, into the prayer area. It’s a Thursday afternoon, so it’s pretty quiet, and the air is stagnant, smelling faintly of sweaty socks and spicy pakora. Weirdly comforting smells. Now that Kiran’s not here and I can actually look around, I start remembering things I’d tucked in the back of my head, seemingly insignificant, at the time. Like how after Sunday school classes ended for the day and I’d finished the afternoon prayer, Dad would pick me up and we’d stop by this local Mexican joint for fish tacos. Maybe it was his way of trying to bond, even though we’d usually just eat in silence. Or when prayer would begin, there’d always be some guy correcting everyone’s positions, telling us all to stand shoulder to shoulder. At the time, it was annoying being shifted around on the floor, being sternly told that to leave space between a brother in prayer was to leave space for the devil.

  But in its predictability, in the unwavering routine of it, it became comforting, too. Like the chirrups of morning birds. Or the evening call to dinner at the table.

  It’d been a while since I’d heard any of it.

  I take a seat in front of the imam at the front of the prayer room. I half expected Faisal to be here, too. But it’s just the two of us.

  “Do you know why your brother wanted you to come see me?” the imam asks, hands on his knees.

  I jut out my bottom lip and shake my head. “N-nope.”

  “I thought as much.” He watches my wandering eyes and smiles softly.

  “You don’t come to the masjid, do you?”

  “Well, I’m in college in New York, so . . .” I shift uncomfortably.