by Zack Love
Maria’s arms crossed her chest and she seemed to crouch inward a little. “I think maybe we’re all just not used to being around each other – I mean, you and I aren’t even used to being around each other, after so much time.”
Her answer felt like a diplomatic evasion. “True, but it seems less weird when it’s just the two of us, don’t you think?” I persisted.
“I guess.”
“Tell me honestly, Maria. How do you feel about Michael?”
My sister suddenly leaned back with her elbows on the bed, almost as if to avoid direct eye contact with me. “Well, he’s a wonderful man,” she said almost wistfully, looking up through the corner of her eyes. “And I’m really happy that you found him.” She looked away for a moment, and then looking back at me with a forced smile, added, “He’d make for a great brother-in-law, so you certainly have my blessing.”
“Well, it’s just nice to have your blessing for anything,” I said with a grateful smile. “I’m so happy to have you here, and safely back in my life!”
“Me too,” she replied with a smile that shared in my appreciation but was still hiding something.
I had to put my sister at ease a bit more about the subtext surrounding this topic, if I was going to get any real information out of her. So I opened to Maria a little more. “Believe it or not, I’m actually very torn about things with Michael.”
Her expression morphed into one of complete surprise, almost relief. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Well, we never talked about this, but I was actually dating my professor for a while.”
Maria’s face lit up in amusement at my naughty confession. “Really?!”
“Yes. His name is Julien, and I still think about him a lot.”
“Oh. Does Michael know this?”
“No. Since the two of you arrived, he and I haven’t even had a chance to talk much. In fact, I hardly even saw him after I had stopped dating Julien because I had to focus on my final exams.”
“Oh,” she said, as if she wanted to avoid taking any position on the issue. “Well, I’m sure that God will steer your heart wherever it’s meant to go.”
I gently put my hand on my sister’s shoulder. “Tell me honestly, Maria. If I weren’t in any way involved with Michael, how would you feel towards him?
She still wasn’t ready to go there. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if I weren’t in the picture at all, could you see yourself getting romantically involved with Michael?”
“Why are you asking me such a question?”
“I just have a feeling about this and want to know. Please be honest with me, Maria. I promise I won’t be upset with you, whatever your answer is, as long as it’s honest. Could you see yourself with him?”
A smile that she could hardly repress gradually crept onto her face, and then she nodded silently while looking down, as if slightly ashamed.
Chapter 25: Julien
Sunday, 6/15/14 at 21:45.
My therapy session today began with me updating Lily about the aftermath of the incident involving Craig Walkenford. I told her how my lawyers amicably resolved the defendants’ claims out of court with a settlement payment of about half a million dollars. But I explained that the bigger, related cost was the set of redemptions and lost investors attributable to the bad press about Craig’s violent flashback at JMAT.
“The investors who were in the lobby when it happened all decided against working with our fund, but that was to be expected, and a relatively small loss. The bigger problem was that some of my long-term investors began to doubt my judgment and emotional stability, and a few of them even emailed me directly, asking me if I really had chosen to be temporarily homeless.”
Lily’s expression seemed to be one of pity. “And how did you answer those questions?”
“I tried to explain that I was under a lot of stress at the time and had simply taken a brief break from work and fell asleep in the park from exhaustion, and that’s how the rumors started. But doubt can be a hard thing to remove once it settles into someone’s mind. And I think confirmation bias is probably strengthened when money is at risk.”
“As a defense mechanism?” Lily clarified.
“Yes. To protect their capital, I think investors have an even stronger tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. And if something calls into question the integrity or emotional stability of the person in charge of their money, investors will feel a strong motivation either to doubt the reports and seek out information that confirms their faith in the fund manager, or to panic and seek out more proof that they should withdraw their funds from that manager before they suffer a major loss.”
“So how did most of your investors react?”
“Predictably, those whose investments have performed relatively well over the last quarter tended to dismiss the reports as rumors or distorted mudslinging. But those who were disappointed with their returns over the same period generally believed the reports and questioned the safety of keeping their money with me. On the whole, our total assets under management fell by about ten percent as a result of this mess.”
“But you’re confident that your firm can recover from that?”
“Yes. We’ve come back from worse. And I have no regrets about helping Craig. In fact, after karma paid me the nicest possible visit yesterday, I decided to pay for him to get treated at a live-in facility that will hopefully get him back on his feet someday.”
Lily looked impressed by the gesture. “Well, that was very kind of you.” She then squinted a little. “What visit from karma do you mean?”
I released a smile. “Anissa called me yesterday, asking if we could meet. I took her out to dinner last night, so we could talk.”
“And what happened?”
“She told me that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me and was increasingly doubtful about whether she should still date Michael, whom she had barely seen after she and I broke up, because of his lengthy trip to Syria. She admitted that – out of her own inexperience and emotional frailty – she might have judged me too harshly.”
Lily tapped her pen against her lower lip, and her eyes narrowed a bit. “And what do you think was her motive for these confessions?”
I stroked the small scruff that was building up on my face. “I’m not sure there was a specific motive – it all felt very natural. Basically, we just opened up to each other more about how we felt.”
“About each other as individuals or about your relationship?”
“Both. We each admitted what we found so special in the other, acknowledged the major mistakes that we thought we had made, and ultimately exchanged apologies. By the time we said goodnight, we had agreed to give ourselves a second chance.”
There was an unmistakable look of disappointment on Lily’s face. “You think that’s a good idea?” she asked, in the most detached and clinical tone she could summon.
“Yes. I feel like I’ve been on cloud nine ever since,” I admitted with a grin. “And this is actually good news for you as well,” I added ironically, knowing that it would annoy her.
She did her best to look unfazed by my comment. “How is this good news for me, Julien?”
“Well, we won’t have any more of those awkward goodbyes at the end of therapy. Now that my attentions are again fully focused on Anissa, it should be a lot easier to respect your professional boundaries.”
“I see,” she replied with an expression that seemed to say, “It’s not as if anyone was really suffering from those awkward goodbyes.”
“Oh, and my motivation to tackle my past is now greater than ever. I repeated my promise to Anissa that I would be completely open about it with her within three months or she could terminate our relationship for that failure alone.”
Lily brushed aside a lock of her red hair that had fallen in front of her and placed it behind her ear. “Well, as your therapist, I think that’s proba
bly the only good thing that will come of this.”
I couldn’t resist the temptation to toy with her. “Why are you being such a party pooper, Lily?”
“I’ve told you before all of the reasons why this relationship seems unhealthy for you and her.”
“Perhaps I have a selective memory, but the only reason that comes to mind is no longer relevant now that my class is over and I’m no longer her professor.”
Lily rolled her eyes slightly and shook her head. “Julien, you’ve got deep and severe traumas that have prevented you from being truly intimate with anyone and you have yet to tackle them even in therapy. As if that weren’t enough, you’re more than twice her age, she’s a victim of rape and the trauma of seeing her family butchered, and you’re now making her your guinea pig as you try out this new thing called a serious and faithful relationship.”
Maybe Lily had a point.
Chapter 26: Anissa
Saturday, June 21, 2014
To My Dearest,
It’s been a week since I met Julien for dinner, when we agreed to give our relationship a second chance. So much has happened since then, but I’ve been too busy living these things to write about them. I’ll try to catch you up now as fast as I can.
Before that dinner with Julien, I had thought long and hard about my relationship with Michael, and my sister’s interest in him – something I had sensed from the moment I saw the two of them in the Montreal airport. I could tell that they were really happy together and unusually comfortable around each other. I also thought about how Maria had suffered so much during the last two years, when I was living a much safer and happier life in the U.S., and I wanted her at least to have some joy and a beginning of hope. And Michael was exactly what she needed – a source of strength and pride for Middle East Christians in general, and especially one who was a refugee like her, who had fought hard for her freedom and dignity.
To my own nerdy amusement, I even analyzed how my romantic decision had the potential to produce, in economic terms, a Pareto optimal outcome. If I chose Michael, then I might or might not end up as happy as would be the case if I chose Julien, but my sister would definitely lose Michael; on the other hand, if I chose Julien, then she would gain Michael, and our collective happiness would thus be optimized.
Of course, I still cringed at the thought of explaining all of this to Michael, and couldn’t really imagine a more awkward conversation. But we had to have that talk, and I was finally able to sit down with him for coffee on June 13th (the day after the MCA meeting that Maria attended with me, and the day before my dinner with Julien).
“Judging from how hard it is to get a private meeting with you these days, I’d say you’re already the president of a new country,” I teased him, after we had settled into our seats with our coffees.
He winced in embarrassment as his hands fidgeted around his coffee cup. “I’m really sorry, Inās. It’s been more hectic than ever, especially after such a long absence.”
I gave him an understanding smile. “I know, I’m just giving you a hard time.” I paused for a moment until his eyes met mine. “But I am also wondering if that’s the only reason it’s been so hard for us to meet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my woman’s intuition tells me that something might have changed for you during your time in Syria.”
He looked away for a moment. “It was just a really stressful time, but you were a tremendous help, and I’m extremely grateful for it.” His face lightened up in amusement at what he was about to say. “Believe it or not, I’m even starting to like your professor, after everything he’s done for the MCA.”
“He’s not so bad, right?” I asked with an ironic half-smile. “It’s funny how you’ve effectively been partners in so many MCA-related projects – including the liberation of my sister.”
He chuckled at my surprising but true observation.
“You do have a point.”
“And as thankful as I am, she must have been totally awed by your help.”
“It was a pleasure to come to her assistance – she’s a very special woman. I guess it runs in the family,” he added with a wink.
“You certainly made an impression on her.” I raised my eyebrows suggestively, before taking a sip of my coffee.
“Well, I’m sure that every captive feels that way about anyone involved in liberating him or her.”
“So you don’t think there’s any special connection between the two of you?” I asked.
His feet shuffled below the table and lightly bumped mine. “What do you mean? What are you getting at, Inās?” His tone sounded both evasive and defensive.
“It’s OK, Michael. I sensed it from the moment I saw the two of you together at the airport – before you knew that anyone might see how the two of you were interacting.”
Michael’s eyebrows rose in surprise, as he tried to dance around the facts. “We had just been traveling together for over fourteen hours. It’s only natural that we’d get to know each other a bit during that time.”
“On top of the time that you spent with her in Beirut.”
Michael took a sip of his coffee, and then put his cup down. “Yes, but we obviously respected certain boundaries, Inās. We slept in different rooms – I was there only as the man in charge of her safety and to help her get by in Beirut until her visa was approved.”
I realized that I needed to approach the issue more theoretically, as I had done with my sister. “I don’t doubt that, Michael. But tell me honestly: if I didn’t exist, would you be interested in Maria?”
He looked away for a moment, uncomfortable with being put on the spot – almost as if I had asked him whether, in the abstract, he was prepared to cheat on me with my sister. I had to make it even more acceptable for him to speak frankly, so that his response would be clearly beyond reproach. “OK, let’s take it one step further. Suppose that I never broke up with Julien – imagine that he and I have been happily dating since the first time he took me out to dinner a few months ago. You then liberate Maria from her captivity and spend all of this time with her. Would you want something more with her? Or would you always just think of her as a friend?”
Michael’s face lightened up, almost as if a burden had been lifted. “Well, if that were the case, I’m quite sure that she and I would be exploring much more than friendship by now.”
Relieved that I finally got him to confirm what my gut had told me all along, I couldn’t resist making a joke. “If you can’t have one Toma sister, there’s always another one you can try for, right?”
He chuckled. “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. Maria is hardly just a consolation prize. But I would never want to disrespect you like that – especially after we were trying to turn a new leaf. So I just never even let my mind go there.”
I put my hand on his arm for emphasis. “I know, Michael, and I really appreciate it. But I need to be completely honest with you about something... “
His shoulders stiffened a little. I took my hand away and put it back on my coffee cup. “I still thought about Julien a lot after he and I broke up. Nothing happened between us while you were away, but I kept wondering whether I had been too quick to leave him. And it’s not really fair to you that I’m still attached to him on some level.”
Michael raised his eyebrows for a moment and then looked down. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or relieved, but he was definitely surprised and gathering his thoughts. With a self-deprecating smirk, he finally reacted: “Well, I’m the last guy to judge you for still feeling attached to your last relationship.”
I chuckled. “It’s funny how life happens sometimes. Reality is always so much messier than the neat fantasies of life that we nurture in our minds.”
“Very true.”
“So when are you asking Maria out on a date?” I asked lightly, with a mischievous smile.
Michael laughed. “How about we set it up right now?” he quipped with exaggerated enthusiasm, clearly
meant to mock my hasty transition.
I was so relieved that we had made it out of that heavy conversation without too many feelings being hurt that I couldn’t resist some more comic relief and whipped out my cell phone. “You don’t think I’ll take you up on that offer, do you?”
“No, I don’t!” he replied, practically daring me.
I dialed Maria’s number and put her on speaker phone.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hi, Maria, how’s it going?” I began. Michael shook his head in amused disbelief.
“Good, how are you, Inās?”
“I’m doing great, actually. I’m just super excited because there’s this really great guy that I want you to meet. I think the two of you would get along fantastically well!”
Maria’s voice sounded cautiously curious. “Oh really? Wow, that’s quite a recommendation. So who is this guy and where did you meet him?”
“I met him on Facebook actually.”
Maria’s voice suddenly became more skeptical. “Really? But isn’t that kind of random?” she added. Michael was clearly trying to restrain himself from bursting into laughs and spoiling the prank.
“It was kind of random, but I then met him in person, so I can vouch for him – he’s really a good guy.”
Her voice sounded more trusting again. “Well, if you met him and you think we would be good together, then I’ll be happy to meet him.”
“Oh, well I’m very glad to hear that because he’s actually right here next to me, waiting to ask you out on your first date.”
Maria’s tone went back to sounding confused and skeptical. “What do you mean? Really?”
“Yes, you’ve actually met him before. His name is Michael Kassab. Here, why don’t you talk to him directly,” I added pushing my phone closer to Michael with a huge grin on my face.
“What?! Are you playing some kind of joke on me?”
I nudged Michael with my hand and urged him with my eyes to say something, but he was still in shock from the whole thing.
“No, I’m not! I swear to you he’s right here – I’m not used to seeing him so speechless, but I think he gets shy just thinking about you.”
