It was the American Dream: the stand-alone house with the immaculate lawn. Green, because lawns were green here, because there was no shortage of water. He already knew there would be a barbecue in the back, and that in the spring, the bushes in front would bloom white flowers, and those in the pots under the windows, red.
They pulled up, and Mrs. Jeffries said, “Welcome home!” She had already become Corky, and Mr. Jeffries, “Paul, plain old Paul,” before they had even left Arrivals. They had welcomed him with a placard and broad smiles, broad open faces flushed robust pink. His first view of America. They had driven across enormous, thickly forested land, on an enormous highway. More trees, more cars on more lanes, more space than he could even have dreamed. They had done all the talking, fortunately; he was too flabbergasted to speak. They worried, at first, that he couldn’t understand them. “No, no.” He just couldn’t… believe.
A red, white, and blue flag hung over the garage door. He could almost see the bicycles that had lain strewn across the driveway when there had been children here.
There had been children. Two, “right about your age, son”—Mr. Jeffries had started calling him “son” before they had reached the car. Children who grew up in this house while he was growing up in Douma. Who belonged to this movie set of a world by birth; to this land, de facto.
“I hope you’re hungry!”
Paul had taken his case, and Paul and Corky had taken him in. The Jeffries were Jewish. People in Syria would have been outraged. He would have been called a traitor. Khayin. But Syria was so far away. And Hadi was here, in this house in America, and would stay as long as he needed to find his feet on this land: a way to make a living, a place to live.
Paul would help him find a job. What had he done in Syria? In the spring, they could call some of the farms in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, there were heaps of restaurants all over Cambridge that always needed extra busboys, waiters… And, Corky said as she served him his first meal in America—enormous, like everything else: mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, brussels sprouts and meatloaf; when had he last had meat?—he could take night classes at the community college or the public library.
They gave him their son’s old bedroom, for now. He met their son, their daughter, and her two dogs at Thanksgiving, when all came home. They insisted he keep the room; the kids were only there a few days. They had lives and homes elsewhere now. How normal, such a notion.
Everyone helped make the meal. There was a mess and much laughter and food disappearing. Everyone blamed the dogs.
The turkey took forever, was removed, undercooked, returned to the oven, and burnt. Corky served it proudly anyway. “Just add more gravy!” They did. Corky was a terrible cook. They smothered everything in gravy: the turkey, the potatoes, the brussels sprouts. Everyone raised a glass in her honor, and Paul kissed her on the lips. Hadi’s parents would have been shocked. Suddenly, he missed his parents.
Everyone ate copious amounts of everything. Hadi had his first taste of cranberry sauce. It was so tart he spit some out in surprise. Cranberry on a white tablecloth! He looked at the stain, horrified, but Corky laughed.
“Darling, relax, it’s just a tablecloth!”
Just a tablecloth. How easy it was to laugh; he had forgotten. How lightly, outspokenly, brazenly these people lived. How heavy Syria was.
After dinner, everyone cleared the dishes. Then came pie, coffee, more pie, followed by a migration to the sofas, where sated bodies stretched out. Hadi watched Paul and Corky doze off, holding hands, and his heart hurt for his parents. His baba and his trees, Mama and her birds. How far he was, that night, from them, in the stuffy rooms they had been born into and told were the world, papered with duty, sacrifice, windows and doors boarded.
Syria was not the world. He was sure of it now. Beyond it, there were lands where people kissed in public and ate turkey with jam. Where people were Jews and Arabs but more, so much more than Jews or Arabs. Lands where people were just people, listening to Sinatra after dinner.
There he was, straddling both worlds on the sofa. That night he told Paul and Corky he wanted to bring his parents to America. As soon as he said it, the nebulous idea sprouted wings and turned into a plan.
He went to bed in a time capsule of someone else’s life, one that could have been his: basketball trophies on a shelf; a shoebox filled, maybe, with squiggly drawings and sticky creations of bowtie pasta and string. In a drawer, candy wrappers and a stuffed rabbit with a frayed ear. Maybe his father could find work at one of those apple orchards. His mother could give piano lessons, make friends. He’d buy her a sturdy coat.