this ugly feeling. One I couldn’t shake.
I wondered if Mom was embarrassed by me.
“It reminded me of Yazd,” I said.
Mom rested her palm against my cheek.
“Mom! Mom!” Laleh ran in. “Look!” She showed off her pink nails, which transitioned from fuchsia on her thumbs to bubblegum on her pinkies.
“They’re beautiful, Laleh,” she said. “How was school?”
Laleh told Mom all about her day while I made a pot of jasmine tea.
But by the time it was ready, the puzzle had been cleared off, and Oma and Grandma were playing on their iPads again.
Laleh was curled up reading her book, and Mom had gone upstairs.
It was like we had been living in this static bubble of joy, but it had undergone a subspace field collapse, and now everything was covered in a melancholy residue.
Our perfect moment had evaporated.
I didn’t know how to get it back.
* * *
I had a hard time sleeping that night.
When I was in eighth grade, in the middle of Yet Another Prescription Change, there were nights I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling like I was being smothered.
I felt like that again. Like the weight of a dark matter nebula rested on my chest, and every sad thought kept echoing in my mind, poised on the event horizon of the singularity of my life.
I wanted to cry. Or howl.
But it was late, and the whole house was asleep.
So I turned my pillow over to find a cool spot and tried to sleep.
* * *
Around two in the morning, someone knocked on my door.
I reached for my trunks and slipped them on under the covers.
“Come in?”
The door creaked open. Mom stood silhouetted in the hall light.
“Mom?”
She just stood there.
“Is everything okay?”
“No,” she said. “I just heard from your Dayi Soheil.”
My heart thudded.
“Babou passed away.”
ACROSS TIME AND SPACE
There was no going back to sleep after that.
I put on some clothes and went downstairs to put the kettle on.
When we visited Iran, Babou showed me how Iranians make tea. And then he drank it while clenching a sugar cube between his teeth.
I was crushing cardamom pods when I couldn’t hold in the tears any longer.
The thing is, I knew Babou was dying. We had known that for months.
But it didn’t hurt any less, losing him bit by bit, because it still felt like we had just lost him all at once.
There was no more Ardeshir Bahrami.
There was a hole in the center of our family.
Oma and Grandma trudged down the stairs, Oma in her robe and Grandma in her pajamas.
“I’m so sorry, Darius,” Grandma said. She took both my hands, and then pulled me in for a brief hug. “Don’t cry.”
“Where’s Mom?”
Oma pulled a paper towel off the roll and handed it to me. “With your sister.”
I nodded and blew my nose.
Grandma said, “Shouldn’t you try to go back to bed?”
“I can’t sleep.” I hiccupped. “I should go check on them.”
I poured three cups of tea and put them on the little wooden tray Mom had brought back with her from Iran. It matched the one Mamou had in Yazd, the one she would use to bring tea and snacks to Babou when he was resting.
I held in a sob.
Upstairs, Laleh’s door was cracked.
“Mom?”
“Come in.”
I elbowed the door open. Mom was sitting on Laleh’s bed, holding a sobbing Laleh and rocking her back and forth.
She looked up at the tray of tea.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I croaked.
Mom nodded and scooted over to make room for me. I set the tray down on Laleh’s nightstand and sat on Laleh’s bed. I wrapped my arms around Mom and Laleh both. Mom rested her head against my shoulder.
I’d been taller than Mom for a couple years, but for the first time, it really struck me how she would never hold me again the way she was holding Laleh. And one day, Laleh would be too big for her to hold too. And she would grow older.
Time would flow inexorably forward.
And someday, she would be gone too.
I held my mom as tight as I could.
And I cried harder than I had ever cried before.
* * *
Oma and Grandma came in to check on us, and to take away the tray of cold, untouched tea. They brought a fresh box of Kleenex and an extra trash bag, and kissed Laleh on the forehead, and whispered in Mom’s ear, and patted my shoulder. But mostly, they left us to our grief.
Once we’d cried ourselves out—Laleh actually cried herself back to sleep—Mom kissed us