He carried his suitcase over to the front door. He walked through the door, not stopping to knock or ring the doorbell; this compound was as much home as his parents’ place on the other side of the country. “Mama! I’m here.” Rami felt a rush of apprehension—what if his mother was still angry with him about the engagement? What if she didn’t want to see him even now?
“We’re in here, Rami,” Karima called out from the living room. Rami could hear the sounds of crying, muffled by distance, and steeled himself for the sight that he knew awaited him. He walked through the foyer and towards the living room, wishing that Mia were at his side. If I’ve messed everything up with her I will never forgive myself, he thought, remembering their conversation the day before.
Karima was sitting with Rami’s younger siblings—two boys and one girl: Adil, Hafiz, and Ghaliya. On the other side of the room, Rami saw his mother’s sister, Hadiyah, and his uncle Latif. His mother was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Mother?” he asked Karima.
“She’s in her room,” his sister said quietly. “She…” Karima shrugged. “She says she can’t keep herself composed. She’s refusing to see anyone.”
“Let me take her something to eat,” Ghaliya suggested, pointing to the table where friends and relatives had already started piling food.
“No, Gali,” Rami said, giving his youngest sister a brief smile. “I’ll grab a couple of the pastries she likes and go tell her I’ve arrived.” He hugged each of his siblings, kissed his aunt and uncle in greeting, and made up a small plate of the foods he knew his mother loved most. She can’t keep herself composed? What happened to the woman who raised me? Rami shook off his disbelief, left his siblings and other relatives behind and made his way down the hall to his mother’s room.
He knew without asking that she would be in the same room she had always stayed in—the one she had shared with his father. Rami took another deep breath as he came to the door. He could hear muffled sounds of crying even through the thick wood. The sound, and the emotions it stirred up, shook him. He somehow hadn’t expected to find his mother actually, truly grieving for her husband. Rami lifted his free hand and tapped lightly on the door. “Mama, it’s Rami. I brought you some food.”
“Come in, Rami,” she called, her voice thick. “I’m not hungry, but you can come in.” Rami opened the door and the sight that greeted him was like nothing he’d ever seen. His mother was on the floor, her face buried against the blankets on his father’s side of the bed. She was dressed in black, but her veil was cast off, thrown onto a chair. She looked up at Rami, still standing in the doorway, and he saw that her makeup was smeared, inky trails from her mascara running down her cheeks.
“Mama,” Rami said quietly, finally remembering to close the door behind him. He strode across the room quickly, setting the plate down and sinking onto his knees next to her.
“I don’t know what to do, Rami,” his mother said, her voice tragic. She buried herself in his chest, her arms draping around his shoulders. “I don’t know what to do without him. I don’t know how we’re going to live. Who’s going to run the companies? What am I going to do, Rami?” Rami stroked his mother’s back, wrapping his arms around her.
“I am your eldest son,” he told her firmly. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, but now that I’m here, I will do what I have to do. I will take care of Ba’s affairs. Don’t worry, Mama.”
“I miss him so much, Rami,” his mother said, her words stuttering to a stop on a hard, ragged sob. “I miss him. I don’t know who I am without him.”
“It’s okay, Mama,” Rami said, holding his mother’s shaking body tightly against his. “It’s going to be all right. I know you miss him; I miss him too.” Rami felt a pang of guilt that his words weren’t genuine, but he knew the truth would only hurt her more. “I will take care of everything, I promise you.” His mother nodded, rubbing her face against his shirt. Rami suppressed a wince at the knowledge that his smart, clean outfit would be hopelessly ruined by the makeup his mother was smearing on it. You’ll just have to change clothes, then. How much of an asshole are you, worrying about your clothes when your mother just lost her husband?
Rami hadn’t had any idea that his mother felt so strongly about his father. The two of them had been—at least in his eyes—almost as icy towards each other as they had been to their children. But they had had four other children after adopting me; they must have liked each other enough to conceive them. Rami patted his mother’s back, a frown beginning to form as he realized just how much more difficult the next few days were going to be with his mother so thoroughly distraught. He had counted on her being able to help him—on telling him all of the people he needed to contact. “Do you want me to get Gali or Hadiyah to come sit with you? You shouldn’t be alone right now, Mother.”
“Just hold me for a moment, Rami,” his mother said between gulps for breath. “Please, just hold me a moment and let me cry. I have to be strong around the others…” Rami nodded, stroking his mother’s back, still astonished that she could possibly have even an ounce of weakness in her. He had never seen any evidence of it in his entire life until that point.
EIGHT
Rami decided he would set to work on dealing with his father’s estate first thing after breakfast the next day. More and more family members were arriving in town, and to his relief, his mother had regained at least some of her composure.
At breakfast, Rami spent a few minutes talking with aunts and uncles. He greeted his grandmother, kissing her hands before consigning her to the care of the other members of the family. “I will be back, but I must leave for a few hours to begin taking care of Ba’s affairs,” Rami told his relatives.
Relief flooded through Rami as he left the compound. His father’s corporate headquarters were only about twenty minutes’ drive away from the house, and the stresses of his family’s grieving. As he climbed into his rented car and navigated his way out of the compound, Rami couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty that he was relieved to be getting away.
Even though the prospect of spending the next few hours looking over reports and financial records wasn’t exactly appealing, he thought he would prefer it to sitting in the main house, surrounded by his shell-shocked family, talking about what a good man his father had been. Rami didn’t think his father had been a bad person, he didn’t hate the man, but he had so few genuine memories of him from childhood that he felt strange being surrounded by people who had dozens of recollections.
In next to no time, Rami found himself at the big, towering building, gleaming with glass and steel. He pulled into his father’s parking spot,