Quietly, I shut the door behind me, and the scene came suddenly into view.

My mother was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of food made with ingredients that, just hours ago, had not existed in our cupboards. My father was sitting in a chair at the dining table, looking bone-weary but happy, his face older than I remembered it, his hair grayer. Shayda was sitting in a chair next to him, holding one of his hands in both of hers. She looked close to tears but lovely, her dark hair framing her face, her wide brown eyes rich with emotion. I seldom understood my sister, and did not understand her then, either. I didn’t know how she could love a complicated man without it complicating her love. I didn’t know how her mind sorted and prioritized emotion; I didn’t know how she’d landed here—looking incandescent—after all we’d been through.

I realized then that it was none of my business.

I had no right to drag Shayda down with me. Had no right to steal the joy from her body. It was not my fault that I could not bend my heart to behave as hers did, and it was not her fault that she couldn’t do the same for me. I supposed we really were just different, in the end.

My father was the first to notice me.

He stood up too fast, gripped the table for support. Shayda cried out a warning, worried, and my father didn’t seem to notice. His face changed as he took me in, studied my eyes. His eyes. He looked away, looked back, seemed to understand that I hated him, loved him.

Hated him.

I didn’t even realize I was crying until he came forward on slow, unsteady legs, didn’t realize I was sobbing until he pulled me into his arms. I cried harder when he became real, his arms real, his shape real, his body real. I cried like the child I was, like the child I wanted to be. I’d missed him, missed my horrible father, missed the way it felt to be held like this, to press my face against his chest, to inhale his familiar scent. He smelled like flowers, like rain, like leather. He smelled like exhaust fumes and coffee and paper. He was a horrible person, a wonderful person. He was cold and stupid and funny.

I hated him.

I hated him as he held me, hated him as I cried. The man who’d once felt to me like a solid block of concrete felt suddenly like blown glass, papier-mâché. I felt his arms shaking. Felt the cold, papery skin of his hands against my face as he pulled back, looked at me.

I couldn’t meet his eyes.

I looked away, looked down, looked over his shoulder. My mother and sister were watching us closely, the two of them standing side by side in the kitchen. I stared at my mother, her hands clenching a towel, tears streaming down her face.

“Shadi,” my father said quietly.

I looked up.

He smiled, his skin wrinkling, his eyes shining. He pulled me close again, wrapped me against his insubstantial figure. I could feel his ribs under my hands. Could count them. He spoke to me then, spoke in Farsi, pressed his cheek against my head.

“God alone,” he said, his voice shaking, “God alone knows the depth of my regrets.”

Twenty-Three

I ran through the night on shaking legs, tore through gusts of wind, propelled myself through the freezing cold by sheer force of will. I wanted to run forever, wanted to fling myself into orbit, wanted to drive my body into the ground. My skin was crawling with unspent emotion, the sensations spiraling up my back, skittering through my head.

I wanted to scream.

I’d run out the door based on a pretense, the pretense that I’d left my backpack at Zahra’s house and needed to get it back, a pretense that held weight only as a result of Zahra’s mom having called my mom to inform her that I’d had dinner there that night.

It has all my homework in it, I’d said. I’ll just be gone for a little while.

A different version of me had used a similar excuse a thousand times to buy myself more time away from these walls, from the suffocating sorrow they contained. I was always inventing reasons to spend longer at Zahra’s house so I wouldn’t have to be trapped in the amber of my own home and my parents knew this, had always seen through me. They probably knew I was up to no good even now, but perhaps they’d also seen something in my face, understood how I might be feeling, that I needed to leave. Run for my life.

Reluctantly, suspiciously, my parents let me go.

I ran.

I ran through the night on burning legs, with burning lungs, dragged air into my chest with difficulty. My limbs were trembling, my body shutting down.

I pushed harder.

I let the wind sear my skin, let it whip the tears from my eyes. I let the cold numb my nose, my chin, the tips of my fingers, and I ran, ran through darkness, chest heaving, breaths ragged.

I collapsed when I got to the park, my knees sinking into wet grass. I rested for only a moment, body bowed halfway to prostration before I pushed myself up again, dragged myself across an open field. When I saw the shimmering lights in the distance, I realized I knew what I wanted to do. I also knew then that Shayda had been right.

I’d probably lost my mind.

The gate was locked so I jumped the fence, landed poorly. Pain shot up my leg and I welcomed it, ignored it.

As I stood, I stalled.

I caught my breath, stared. There was no one here. There was never anyone here. I’d walked past this pool a thousand times on similar evenings, wondering always at the effort expended to maintain such a place for the mere mice and ghosts who haunted it.

The light was ethereal here, bright and glowing, the glittery depths swaying a little in the wind. I had no plan. I had no exit strategy. I had no way of knowing how I’d get home or in what state. I only knew I felt my chest heaving, my bones heavy with ice and heat. I was sweating and freezing, fully clothed, desperate for something I could not explain.

I kicked off my shoes. Tore off my jacket.

Dove into the water.

I sank. Closed my eyes and sank.

Screamed.

Silk wrapped around my head and I screamed, tore the sorrow from my lungs, water filling my mouth. I screamed and nearly choked in the effort, thought it might kill me. The water absorbed me instead, swallowed my pain, kept my secrets.

Let me drown.

I kicked up suddenly, struggled as my clothes grew heavy. I broke the surface with a gasp, drank in the cool night air, swallowed untold amounts of chlorinated water. The pool was unexpectedly warm, welcoming, like a bath. I took a deep, steadying breath. Another.

Sank back down.

I listened to the whir of silence, to the thick, distant thuds of water. I let myself fall, let my weight drag me down.

It was somehow a comfort not to breathe.

I sat at the bottom of the pool and the water compressed me, held me with its heft. Slowly, my heartbeat began to steady.

The home I’d run from tonight had been warm, hopeful—unrecognizable from what it had become in the last year. Until tonight I’d never even considered we might be happy again; I’d never dreamed we might use the broken pieces of our old life to build something new. I’d thought, for so long, that this pain I clenched every day in my fist would be my sole possession, all I ever carried for the rest of my life.

I’d forgotten I had two hands.

I felt a key click into the clockwork of my heart then, felt a terrifying turning in my chest that promised to keep me going, to buy me more time in this searing life. I felt it, felt my body restart with a climbing, aching fear. I feared that something was changing, that maybe I was changing, that my entire life was shedding a skin it had outgrown at last, at last.