That aura of quiet unhappiness had returned to our house, an oppressive miasma that hung in the air like a coolant leak.
I cleared my throat and said, “Hi.”
“How’d it go today?” Oma said.
“We won.”
“Good. That makes three in a row, right?”
“Yeah. Gabe—that’s our forward—he even got a hat trick.”
Grandma whistled but kept reading.
“How about you?” Oma asked. “How’d you do?”
I shrugged. “The ball barely made it to me.”
“You should be more aggressive.”
That was something my old coach, from when I played as a kid, would say. Be aggressive.
Coach Bentley never said anything like that.
I really liked that about her.
“Where’s Laleh?” I asked.
Grandma sighed. “In her room. She’s been there most of the night.”
“How come?”
Oma folded down the page she was reading and closed her book. “She got into a fight at school today.”
First of all, I never folded pages—I always used bookmarks—and there was a moment where I wondered if Oma and I were even related to each other.
Second, Laleh had never been in a fight in her life. Not ever. What Oma said was impossible.
So I said, “What?”
And then I said, “Laleh’s never been in a fight before.”
Oma nodded. “She won’t tell us what happened.”
Grandma said, “Her teacher couldn’t get the full story either.”
So then I said, “Maybe she’ll talk to me.”
* * *
My sister never kept her door closed, not even at night. She always left it cracked open.
But when I went to see her, the door was all the way shut.
I guess I always knew there would be a point where she closed a door between us. When she would grow too tall for me to carry piggyback, or for Mom and Dad to tuck in at night.
I knocked, but there was no answer.
“Laleh? It’s me. Can I come in?”
“I guess,” she murmured.
I opened her door and poked my head into her room. The only light came from the night-light on her bedside table—this weird carousel-looking thing that played creepy tinkling music when you cranked a knob on it.
Laleh never used that feature, except on Halloween, when she would play the music and I would pretend to be terrified of it, and she would shriek with laughter at the way I cringed and flailed and hid under her blankets.
Laleh was already in bed, the lump of her facing away from me, toward the lamp.
I sat on the edge of her bed, and then kind of laughed at myself, because Mom and Dad always did that.
Standard Parental Maneuver Alpha.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Laleh mumbled.
“I’m not. Mom and Dad always sit like this when they come talk to me.”
Laleh didn’t say anything.
“You wanna tell me what happened?”
Nothing.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I got in trouble for hitting someone?”
At that, Laleh turned over, leaving her book open behind her. “You hit someone?”
“This guy named Vance Henderson.” I scrunched up my nose. “He always made fun of me, which was bad enough. But one time he started making fun of Mom. Her accent.”
Laleh scrunched up her face too.
“I know. So I gave him a kotak.”
Laleh giggled. “Kotak mekhai? Ba posta das?”
While we were in Iran, one of our cousins taught Laleh that phrase. It means “Do you want a slap? With the back of my hand?”
For months after we got home, she kept saying it to people whenever they annoyed her. And after a while she started saying it whenever she wanted to be funny. And then eventually her use kind of petered out.
But I liked that the memory of it could still make my sister smile.
“Technically I hit him with my palm. But still.”
Laleh giggled.
“Will you tell me what happened? I promise not to judge. Or get mad.”
Laleh looked at her hands for a moment, and then her shoulders loosened up a bit.
“I didn’t hit anyone,” she said. “Not even a kotak.”
I was glad to hear that, but I didn’t say it, because I promised not to judge.
“I just told Micah to shut up. We’re not allowed to tell people to shut up. Miss Hawn says it’s a bad word. But that doesn’t make any sense. It’s two words.”
I nodded.
“How come?”
“How come it’s a bad word?”
“How come you told him to shut up?”
“He was calling me Lolly again. He kept saying it.” Laleh’s voice got smaller. “And he said our family was terrorists.”
I breathed in sharply.
I was almost used to being called a terrorist.
Almost.
But I hated for someone to call my sister one.
I hated that people could look at her, look at our family, and say that.
“I’m sorry, Laleh. That hurts. People say that to me sometimes. And other stuff too. Did you tell Miss Hawn what happened?”
Laleh shook her head. “She wouldn’t let me. She gave me a demerit!”
Demerits were these little pieces of paper that basically said the teacher was disappointed in you.
They didn’t actually mean anything, not unless you got three of them in a week, and then you got sent to the principal’s office.
But I remembered being Laleh’s age, and thinking they were the worst thing that could ever happen.
“That’s not fair,” I said.
Laleh’s lip quivered.
I ran my hand through her hair. When she was a baby, it was fine and light, but now it felt a lot like mine: curly and thick and strong.
“So Miss Hawn didn’t say anything at all to Micah?”
Laleh shook her head and wiped her eyes.
“And no one will listen to me. Grandma and Oma are just disappointed. And Mom is at work.”
“And I was at soccer,” I finished for her. “I’m sorry. But I’m here now. I’m listening to you.”
She sniffed.
“Hey. It’s okay.” I held my arms open. “Do you want a hug?”
Laleh pulled herself out from her covers and wrapped her arms around me. I pulled her in close and held her against my chest and rocked her back and forth.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to Mom. We’ll figure it out.” I kissed the crown of Laleh’s head.
I would have done anything in the world to shield my sister from Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy like Micah Whatever-his-last-name-was.
I never wanted her to feel the way I felt.
Like a Target.
“I love you, Laleh.”
* * *
I put Laleh to bed and kissed her forehead and left her door cracked, the way she liked it.
I tried calling Sohrab. No answer, but he was probably in school anyway.
Oma and Grandma had already gone to bed, but I stayed in the kitchen with a cup of New Vithanakande, a tea from Ceylon that has this great round, mellow mouthfeel and notes of chocolate on the palate.
I sipped my tea and worked on my Algebra II. We’d moved on to logarithms, which I didn’t get at all. I kind of wished Chip was around to help me.
But that made me feel weird.
Ashamed of myself.
I was finishing up when the garage door rumbled.
“Hi, sweetie. How was your day?”
“Okay,” I said. “Better than Laleh’s. You heard what happened?”
Mom sighed and went to the fridge. She opened the bag of leftover bacon, pulled a piece out, and ate it cold.
My lips quirked.
“What?”
“You used to yell at me when I did that.”
“I did not.”
I grinned.
“Did I?”
“Yeah. And then Dad would ask me why I wasn’t eating a piece of fruit or a celery stick instead.”
Mom sighed. Her shoulders slumped.
I had never seen my mother look so exhausted before.
“We’ve been pretty crappy parents, haven’t we?”
I blinked.
Mom had never said something like that to me before.
“Of course not.”
Mom grabbed another piece of bacon and tossed the bag back in the fridge.
“Really,” I said.
“Thank you, sweetie.” She plopped onto the chair next to me. “I’m just tired. And now your sister’s teacher wants me to come in for a conference.”
“Did she tell you what happened?”
“She said Laleh’s been having trouble in class lately. And today she got into a fight.”
“One of Laleh’s classmates called her a terrorist,” I said. “And some of them have been calling her Lolly.”
Mom shook her head and looked toward the stairs.
I swallowed.
“She said it’s been happening ever since we went to Iran.”
Mom snapped back to me.
“What are you saying? We shouldn’t have gone?”
I didn’t know why she was so angry.
I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.
“I’m not saying that.”
Mom huffed.
“Really.” I twisted the hem of my shirt around my finger. “If we hadn’t gone to see Babou? I think we would have regretted it forever.”
I watched the anger drain from Mom’s face.