Darius the Great Deserves Better - Adib Khorram Page 0,56
each about a hundred times. She sniffed and whispered, “I need to call Mamou.”
I stood as quietly as I could and helped Mom tuck Laleh back in. She brushed Laleh’s hair off her forehead and kissed her one last time, and then we closed the door behind us.
Mom got the call started on her computer while I wheeled over a chair to sit next to her.
We waited.
And waited.
And just when I thought Mom was going to hang up and try later—
“Hello?”
Mamou’s pixelated face appeared on the screen. Her voice sounded robotic and compressed, like her bandwidth was throttled, which it probably was.
Mom started crying again, but she sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Hi, Maman. Chetori?”
Mom and Mamou started talking in Farsi.
Normally I could halfway follow their conversations, but with Mamou sounding like she was at the other end of a broken subspace relay, and my own sniffling, I missed some stuff.
Eventually there was a pause, and Mamou said, “Hi, Darioush-jan. How are you doing?”
“Hi, Mamou,” I said. I tried to smile for her, but my face probably just looked constipated. “I’m okay. How are you?”
“I am holding on,” she said.
Mamou blinked at me and wiped her eyes, and I did the same.
I wanted to tell her how sorry I was.
I wanted to tell her how much I missed her.
I wanted to tell her about the hole in my heart.
But I was helpless against her grief, and Mom’s grief, and my own.
I hated how powerless I was.
“I love you, Mamou,” I said. “I wish I was there.”
And I meant it so much.
But it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
Maybe nothing would ever be enough.
Maybe not.
* * *
Mom went back to bed after we said bye to Mamou.
I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. And then, when I couldn’t take the silence anymore, I called Sohrab.
Sometimes you just need to talk to your best friend.
But the call rang and rang. His icon pulsed on the screen.
Eventually, a little error message popped up.
I don’t know why, but the little blip noise is what got to me.
My grandfather was gone.
I curled back up in my bed and wound my blankets around myself like a burrito and cried into my pillow until I finally fell asleep.
* * *
At some point, Mom must’ve called into school for me, because when she knocked on my door around noon, all she asked was if I needed anything.
“I’m okay,” I said.
And then I said, “We have a game tonight.”
“I talked to your coach. She knows you’ll be gone.”
“Okay.”
Eventually, I got that feeling in my legs, like they were full of springs, and I knew I had to get out of bed.
I went with Oma to the grocery store that afternoon. When we got back, I sat in the living room with Laleh while she read.
I tried calling Sohrab again—no answer—and then wrote him an email.
We called Dad, and I talked to him for a while.
“I’m so sorry,” he kept saying, like it was his fault Babou was gone. “I’ll be home soon. It’ll be okay. I love you.”
That evening, Oma made grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Linda Kellner’s solution to all of life’s problems was grilled cheese and tomato soup.
It’s not like either the sandwiches or the soup were particularly good. Oma used regular American cheese slices and white bread for the sandwiches. And the soup came from a can, made with water instead of milk since, according to Oma, milk gave Grandma gas.
But I thought maybe cooking for us was Oma’s way of showing she loved us, since she almost never said it out loud.
“Can I help any?” Landon asked.
He’d come over after school, with a little bouquet of flowers for Mom and a card for me.
“I’m fine,” Oma said. “You relax.”
Landon shifted in his seat.
I think the sight of Oma cooking with American cheese was deeply disturbing to him.
“Why don’t you make some tea?” Oma suggested.
“Okay.”
So Landon put the kettle on while I pulled down some Second Flush Darjeeling Mr. Edwards had us sample a couple weeks ago. It was maltier than the first flush from the same estate, and brisker, but it was still pretty good.
While the tea steeped, Oma cut the sandwiches into quarters diagonally—the only acceptable way to cut grilled cheese sandwiches—and started ladling soup into bowls. Landon set the table and I went to get Laleh from her room.
“Laleh?”
She was curled up against her pillow, a new book open on her lap.