My eyes tear up. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I really wasn’t. I was just trying to help myself. But in doing so, I’ve been horrible to others. I’ve been so, so, horrible.
“I try to be a good person.” This comes out in a near-whisper.
“Oh, you are. You are!” Ike’s irreplaceable blue eyes sparkle. “You’re my favorite person in the world.”
My heart, which had been shrinking, expands again to make room for his love. “You’re my favorite person in the world, too.”
“You just happen to have very short engagements.”
I give him a look that says,
Very funny, buster
.
“But seriously,” he says. “What sort of trouble can this guy cause?”
“Haroun? None.” Of this, I’m fairly certain. “Even today, he was being honorable. He was offering to save me from having to go back. I think he’s one of the good guys. One of the crazy-but-good guys.”
“
Would
you have married him?” Ike asks. “If we weren’t already married, I mean. If you were faced with going back to Iran tomorrow or marrying him today, would you?”
Don’t ask me that.
He raises an eyebrow. “Well?”
“Ike . . .” He’s not going to like my answer, for I would have married Haroun. Absolutely, I think. And I would have done my best to make it work. “Until you’ve lived under a repressive government, Ike, please don’t judge me. You can’t fully understand what living in a place like Iran does to you—you can’t really even understand until you leave it, and not even then, sometimes. It . . . keeps you small. All your thoughts, your hopes. Your mind. Your heart. Your dreams. They shrink to fit what’s allowed. At least mine did. My worst day in America was better than my best day in Iran, because at least here, no matter what, I’m free.”
Free to succeed or fail, to choose or not choose.
Free to just . . . be.
“I regret saying anything harsh about him, then.” Ike gently brushes a strand of hair off my shoulder. “Coming here was a decent thing for him to do.”
“It was,” I agree. “And I should apologize to him. It can’t have been pleasant, what happened just now. He was only trying to be nice.”
Ike smiles. “Maybe you should send him flowers.”
Funny husband. “He’d probably just throw them in the Dumpster.”
He pulls me to him for a hug, and just like that, it’s okay between us again. It’s his heart beating against mine. It’s me tucked into him. It’s him not letting me go. We stay like that until another black car pulls into the driveway. This time, it’s Ardishir, home early from work.
“Another fiancé?” Ike says as he looks out the window.
“Enough already!” He knows it’s Ardishir; he saw him getting screamed at by Maryam last night. “It’s so strange you haven’t met Ardishir yet.”
“He was busy getting nacho cheese sauce,” Ike says with a laugh.
We greet Ardishir at the front door, and I’m filled with happiness as two of my very favorite people in the world shake hands for the first time.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Ike says.
“Thank you, yes.” Ardishir beams. “And you, too, of course. Congratulations on your marriage! We wish we could have been there, and we’d like to throw a party for you.”
“That’d be great,” Ike says. “Although let’s wait until my parents are a little more copacetic with the idea.”
Copacetic
. I have no idea what that means. Before I can ask, Ardishir replies.
“Yes, Tami told us about that.” He furrows his brow sympathetically. “I’m sorry it’s caused problems for you with your family.”
Ike grins happily at me. “Tami’s worth any trouble.”
“Can I get us some tea?” I ask.
“Tea would be wonderful,” Ardishir says.
“I don’t suppose you have any coffee?” Ike says.
“I’m sure we do,” Ardishir says. “Somewhere. Instant, maybe.”
“Never mind,” Ike says. “When in Rome, et cetera.”
While I’m in the kitchen preparing the tea, I eavesdrop on Ardishir and Ike in the living room as they talk about Maryam’s pregnancy. Ardishir says ever since he found out he’s going to be a father, he’s become obsessed with learning as much as he can about American history.
This is going to be my child’s homeland. He’s always got to know how fortunate he is.
Hearing this, I get teary-eyed, for I know exactly what he means. This is how it all comes full circle, by giving your child the most precious thing your parents lost.
“Here we are,” I say cheerily as I carry out a platter with a dish of mixed nuts, a huge bowl of fruit, and the tea, of course. “Hopefully Maryam will be home from work soon, too.”
Ike’s eyes widen. “That’s a lot of fruit for three people.”
“Yes, it is, Mr. American.” As I serve the tea, I tell Ardishir about Haroun stopping by.
“The cashew nut was here?” Ardishir beams. “How
is
the fruitcake? I love that guy. Did Tami tell you how he was convinced our house was infested with bugs?”
Warily, Ike glances at me. “No, she didn’t.”
Ardishir gleefully tells him how Haroun spent about ten minutes compulsively washing his hands when he came for dinner, how he was terrified of germs and saw bugs where there weren’t any and insisted he’d been bitten by a large insect
with tentacles
—he was very insistent about that—while at the dining room table, and how he accused us of not maintaining proper pest control, and how he sent my steak back to the chef at a restaurant because he was convinced it had mad cow disease. And how he avoids flying on airplanes because of the recycled air and how he won’t use rest-stop toilets.
Ike’s smile is strained as Ardishir goes on and on describing Haroun’s many foibles. By the end, he’s grimacing.
“What I don’t understand,” he says, “is why, if you couldn’t find someone appropriate—and
hello, I was right there the whole time
—why not just move somewhere else when your visa expired, like to Canada or France or Spain or
someplace
other than Iran?”
That is a very good question.
And the answer is . . .
“I wouldn’t know anybody,” I say.
“So what?” Ike says. “That’s temporary for a girl like you. You’re outgoing, attractive. People like you. You would have made friends pretty quickly.”
But . . . “Without my family? I . . . I couldn’t do that.”
Could I?
“Didn’t you just tell me a little while ago that your worst day here was better than your best day there?”
I did just tell him that, and I meant it. It’s just . . . to be so
alone.
I think of Nadia, and how she moved to San Francisco all by herself and pregnant, knowing far less English than I do. Could I not have been brave like Nadia?
“Maybe I could have moved to Canada,” I say. “I
have
heard wonderful things about it, and its immigration policies are supposed to be easier than America’s.”
“There’s no maybe about it, Tami,” Ike says. “You should have. Going back to Iran shouldn’t have even been an option. You should have hightailed it out of here and settled yourself there. Disappeared into the crowd someplace.”
“But if I’d gone to Canada, then I wouldn’t have married you.” I blink sweetly at him, hoping to charm him. It doesn’t work.
“Freedom is not for the faint of heart, my dear.” He says this sternly, but sort of in a joking tone, too, and the line is so good it must be from a movie.
“Where did you get that one from?” I ask.
“I think I came up with it myself, actually.” He grins. “But I’ll have to Google it to be sure.”
Haroun’s visit might have bothered Ike more than he’s willing to admit, because he asks if I would mind putting off our visit to the guesthouse until the next day. I do mind—quite a bit, actually—because if he’s not staying with me, then he’s staying with his parents, and they don’t like me. But his home is what he’s used to, and he scared me with his
too much, too fast, too soon
burst of emotion earlier, and I don’t want to push him to do anything he’s not ready to do. So I tell him I don’t mind at all.
As I walk him outside to his truck, we make plans to meet at the guesthouse tomorrow morning. When we hug and kiss good-bye, he sighs with contentment and seems in no hurry to leave me, so I think maybe he’ll change his mind. But no—he climbs into his truck and puts the key in the ignition.
“Good night, Tami.”
“Good night, Ike.”
He must catch the wavering in my voice because he asks, “You all right?”
“I was just wondering, are you going to tell your parents about Haroun?”
He grins. “Is this your scaredy-cat way of asking me not to?”
I can’t help but smile. “I suppose it is.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Just leave my parents to me.”
We kiss good-bye all over again, and after he drives off, I go back inside to find Ardishir waiting for me on the couch. He pats a spot next to him for me to sit.
“Tami,” he says.
“Ardishir,” I say back playfully.
“Ike’s great,” he says. “He’s an absolutely great guy.”
His words warm my heart. “Thank you.”
“He’s one in a million,” he says. “A true prince among men.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
“But I have an issue.”
I swallow hard. Ardishir so seldom takes issue with anything, and when he does, he’s someone I listen to very seriously.
“Anyone can see he’s crazy about you.” At his words, I smile broadly, but Ardishir’s face is gently reprimanding. “You must have known it, too. Or felt it. You were developing a friendship with him for three entire months. You
had
to have a sense of how he felt about you.” His look grows even firmer. “You should have told him about your situation.”
As I begin to say I didn’t know how, he holds up his hand to stop me. “None of that,” he says. “This is your life we’re talking about—
your life
! You needed to be brave enough to move to Canada—he’s right—but before that, you needed to be courageous enough to give him the opportunity to help you. If Maryam hadn’t gone to him, you’d be heading back to Iran right now, all because you were too afraid to trust your feelings.”
Actually, I’d be marrying Haroun right now, but besides that, he’s right. My insides burn with shame. I’m the Cowardly Lion. “I don’t know that my feelings are trustworthy, Ardishir.”
Because I mumbled this, he makes me repeat myself and shakes his head when I do.
“You
had
to have a sense he’d help you,” he insists. “I’ve known the guy for under an hour, and it’s obvious he’s a straight shooter. That’s just it—he is. He would’ve heard you out. He would have considered the options, and he would have made his decision. If it wasn’t right for him, he wouldn’t have married you. But it’s remarkable to me that you never even gave him the chance. What’s
up
with that, Tami?”
I take a huge breath. “I knew I loved him, but . . .”
Ardishir persists. “But what?”
I knew I loved him.
I did.
“But I don’t know,” I say miserably, realizing exactly what the problem was: I loved Ike, but I didn’t see how he could really, honestly, truly love me. What have I done in my life to be worthy of his love?
Ardishir narrows his eyes. “What’s going to happen when your sister’s not there to save you?”
“Ike will save me.” I say this in a joking tone, hoping we can move on from this uncomfortable conversation, but Ardishir taps me on the knee.
“This is important,” he says. “Not something to joke about. You were setting yourself up for an unhappy ending. You know that, don’t you?”
“Now I do.”
“You didn’t at the time?”
I avert my eyes from his and look at my hands, which I’m twisting together, pressing flesh against bone in my search for some small way to put myself in physical pain. “I guess I did.”
Ardishir reaches and covers my hands with his, putting a stop to what I’m doing.
“Don’t do it again,” he says. “Don’t ever do that again. The world will eat you alive if you let it, Tami—so don’t let it. You choose your own ending. Even if it’s only choosing your frame of mind. We all choose our own endings, and it’s important to me—very important—that you choose a happy one.”
“I want that, too,” I say. “I want it very much.”
“Well, then, fight for it,” he says. “You should know by now that no one just hands you your happiness—or your freedom, for that matter. You’ve got to go out there and fight for them, and keep on fighting—sometimes until your dying day. But they’re worth it, even if you have to die for them. The glory is in the struggle. Never forget that. The glory is in the struggle.”
Chapter 9
T
he next morning, when Ike comes over to the guesthouse, he brings with him a duffel bag full of essentials . . . and a dog.
He’s told me about his dog, a golden retriever named Old Sport, but I didn’t see him that night at his parents’ house, and I’m a little worried about why he’s brought him now.
Old Sport rides right alongside Ike in the truck and climbs over him to get out first. Once down, he jumps up on me, pressing his paws against my stomach. I squeal and jump back, crossing my arms in front of me for protection. I’m not used to dogs, especially big jumping ones who slop their tongues all over the place!
Rose, on the other hand, with whom I’ve been enjoying tea and who came with me to greet Ike in the driveway, gets down on her old-lady knees to have an eye-to-eye conversation with Old Sport. “You’re a good dog, yes, you are!” She rubs him behind the ears. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you a good dog?”
“Morning, ladies.” Ike kisses me on the cheek. “You didn’t tell me you’re afraid of dogs.”
“I’m not afraid of dogs.”
He laughs. “You looked a little afraid there.”
I’m not—not exactly. The thing is, not many people have dogs for pets in Iran. It’s mostly a cultural thing, the belief that dogs are dirty and carry disease. Here, I’ve seen many, many people take their dogs even to outdoor restaurants and let the dog lick their hand and in the next moment eat with that same hand—this is definitely not a Muslim thing to do! For me, I don’t fear dogs for their lack of cleanliness—that seems like a holdover from the older days. It’s just that they’re unfamiliar to me. I don’t understand what a person would
do
with a dog, why they would
have
one. And don’t they bite?