––––––––
Berkeley, California
Most new couples get to enjoy a honeymoon period where cohabitation is new, exciting, and the other person’s shortcomings and foibles have yet to be noticed: The triumph of glands over cognition. Not so for these two. The “coupledom” of Todd Adams and Leyla Hufnawi took an unforeseen turn for the worse two weeks after Leyla moved in with her paramour.
Neither Mr. Adams nor Ms. Hufnawi led active social lives let alone experienced physical intimacy with the other gender. The topic of contraception had always been so far down their collective road; they’d never given the matter serious thought or study. They began with condoms and quickly moved to the pill. Unfortunately, Leyla was late for the first time since puberty. She knew enough to visit the University Health Center. The news was either good, or bad, depending on one’s point of view.
Ms. Leyla Hufnawi and Mr. Todd Adams were pregnant.
––––––––
§ § §
––––––––
Todd Adams was an only child. A good thing for his parents. Raising a child prodigy, gifted in mathematics and science, a high school graduate at fourteen, a university graduate by eighteen, presented unusual parenting pressures and challenges they faced on their own. There were no support groups for parents with child prodigies. Family members—even from the extended family—were of no help. They knew their son was blessed with a gift and they owed it to him to make the most of it.
Children with significant athletic prowess had parents who made access to after school athletic opportunities possible. Special coaching, selective summer camps, competitive contests in-state, out-of-state, and in some circumstances, out-of-the-country, were the order of the day. Making it possible for a child to capitalize on his athletic gifts could, and often did, involve significant sacrifices by one or both parents.
Parents of the academically gifted faced a comparable set of circumstances. Before Todd was five, he’d been tested, and tested yet again, to determine the strength of his academic promise. From that point forward, both parents faced his special education needs with complete dedication. Everything else—anything else—took a distant second place. Todd’s education became their identity.
High school graduation was an afternoon’s detour as they prepared Todd to begin his undergraduate education. Chauffeuring Todd to and from his university classes, purchasing the never-ending list of expensive textbooks, the succession of ever more powerful personal computers—initially desktops, then desktops and laptops—the late nights at the university library, attending every semester without a summer off transformed his parents into “Team Todd.”
Enrollment in his doctoral program came with financial assistance from the university. By then Todd could make use of public transportation providing relief from chauffeuring and rising gas prices. However, doctoral study entailed the purchase of even more textbooks and reprints of scholarly articles. The cost of photocopying at the university library became a major monthly expense just as his parents were beginning to see some relief from a decade of the financial drain his special gift entailed. For the first time since Todd was a young child, his parents had time for one another and the opportunity to enjoy it.
They believed the payoff for their sacrifices arrived when Todd successfully defended his doctoral thesis. Only then did his parents understand the goal post moved farther into the distance. Becoming a Professor was the reward. That entailed just one more step. A postdoctoral appointment to one of the most prestigious departments and universities in the world. His appointment included a barely living wage. They supplemented the monthly sum so he could afford better housing. His frequent reports to his parents, who continued to hover over his academic career like a surveillance drone, were good, even if they didn’t comprehend his field and the high-octane competition in which he was involved.
Yet they knew absolutely nothing about Leyla Hufnawi. Girls, socials, and dating were topics their contemporaries faced and accepted as their children stumbled into their teenage years. They’d never had “the talk,” or any discussion about sex and reproduction. It simply wasn’t congruent with Todd’s academic development.
Had they known, they wouldn’t have approved. Not because a romantic entanglement could endanger his eventual appointment to a junior faculty position at a first-rate school. The Adamses descended from generations of patriots and ultraconservative Republicans. Anything emanating from the Middle East was simply unacceptable. The prospect of a daughter-in-law from that part of the world, and especially the mother of their grandchildren, was abhorrent.
They had sacrificed too much for their son. This was not what they wanted for him. It certainly wasn’t what they envisioned for themselves.
Todd called to share the good news. He was no longer a high school or university student for whom a new wife and child served as an impediment to success and a possible social embarrassment for the family. He was Dr. Todd Adams. He was a bright young star in the physical science constellation at the point where young men and women sought out a spouse and started a family.
His parents behaved abominably. They wanted nothing to do with this “Leyla” person. They clearly wanted nothing to do with the child of this union.
––––––––
§ § §
––––––––
Leyla’s parents were even less forgiving, if such a state was even possible. Her mother refused to speak with her. She could be heard, not crying, but wailing, in the background when Leyla called her parents to share the news.
Her father was apoplectic.
And he was flying to San Francisco to put an end to this affront to his family and bring his disappointment as a daughter home. She would bring the child to term, but following its birth, the child would be placed with an adopted family.
End of discussion.
––––––––
§ § §
––––––––
All of Todd’s education failed to prepare him for any of this. He couldn’t guarantee Leyla that his parents might eventually relent and welcome her and their child into the Adams family. He hadn’t the slightest idea of how to go about winning their support for something they so quickly and unequivocally rejected. His success had always been their sole priority. They did whatever was required to get him to the point at which he was today—less one pregnant middle eastern girlfriend. This woman and her baby represented one bridge too far to cross.
And if Todd didn’t comprehend his parents’ attitude, there was absolutely nothing he could process about Leyla’s parents. He was, in fact, at a complete loss to understand how the parents of his wonderful Leyla could not be as wonderful and welcoming.
––––––––
§ § §
––––––––
Leyla was not exactly forthcoming to Todd about her father’s occupation and the wealth it produced. No girl wanted to tell her serious boyfriend her father was an arms dealer. There was especially no social guidance on the topic to break the news to her boyfriend’s parents.
Leyla’s father was rich. Having his own Gulfstream G650 twin-engine business jet rich. It was the kind of wealth where an unhappy father tells his wayward daughter he would be there to pick her up and then do so from a point half-way across the world in under a day.
Leyla also failed to mention her father’s temper.
She had always been the faithful, devoted youngest daughter who never provided her father with a reason to react to her with anger. Her older siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins were another matter. She witnessed his fury and the lack of judgment that too often accompanied his very public displays of exasperation.
Flying to San Francisco was not a good plan for Leyla’s father. He trafficked in weapons and armaments to whomever was willing to pay the price. Most recently, the CIA traced the sale of stolen U.S. Stinger missiles through his firm to the Taliban. His unauthorized retail successes in the Middle East were known to the CIA. They were most eager to have a chat with him.
Upon landing in San Francisco, Leyla’s father was met by representatives of a firm in the employ of the CIA. Rather than a perfunctory passage through immigration and customs in the general aviation terminal, he found himself on another private jet with an FAA flight plan to Seattle. The true destination, however, was a village in Poland, Stare Kiejkuty.
It would take years for Leyla’s mother to learn her father’s destination that day. Under the Patriot Act, U.S. authorities had the right to identify terrorists and persons of interest and carry out extraordinary renditions. That’s how Leyla’s father found himself in a secret detention center in Poland run by the CIA.
Leyla, who feared her father’s impending arrival, grew more fearful when he failed to show up. It took several days, but Leyla eventually summoned the courage to contact her family in Amman. The unexplained disappearance of her father, his plane still parked at the general aviation terminal in San Francisco, pushed the family’s focus on Leyla’s pregnancy into the background. In a state of high panic, her mother began calling the apartment several times each day and at all hours.
Several weeks later, a representative of the U.S. Department of State visited Leyla and Todd presenting them with an urn containing her father’s cremated remains. They did not know, nor would they learn until later, he suffered a heart attack under the enhanced interrogation techniques for which the Poland facility subsequently became known.
He was cremated to avoid the results of any post-mortem analysis.
––––––––
§ § §
––––––––
Once the death of Leyla’s father was confirmed, her pregnancy returned to the forefront with a vengeance. Todd’s parents, who abhorred all people and things from the Middle East, wielded an even larger weapon, when they learned Todd’s late ersatz father-in-law was an arms dealer. This was a world entirely unknown and unclean as far as they were concerned. Their instructions to Todd: Leave “that woman” immediately. Disavow the parentage of her child. To underscore their power in this matter, they ceased the monthly support checks enabling him to live in his current apartment. Housing himself, Leyla, and their future child became an immediate concern.
Leyla’s family dispatched an emissary from Amman in the form of Leyla’s uncle, her father’s oldest sibling. He ordered Leyla to return with him to Jordan immediately under the pain of being disowned by her family forever. She was faced with the choice of remaining with Todd, now estranged from his own family, or returning to Amman where she would give up her baby and live the remainder of her life as a family outcast.
All this family drama played out in the close confines of their apartment complex. No one officially knew the circumstances. On the other hand, everyone was well versed. Living in a small community with no secrets exerts its own pressures. Neighbors limited their contact. When contact was unavoidable, Todd and Leyla were asked for “family updates.” They both entered a state of deep depression.
Leyla Hufnawi died, hit by a car, as she crossed the street in front of their apartment. She was on her way to a prenatal checkup with her OBY-GYN. The driver of the car insisted Leyla crossed in the middle of the street, stepping out between two parked cars. He could not avoid hitting her. No charges were filed by the police.
––––––––
§ § §
––––––––
Todd was bereft and angry. He carried an anger burning so hot, so malevolent it affected all aspects of his life. He was furious at his parents. He loathed Leyla’s family. And he developed a deep and irrational hatred for his own government.
His postdoc no longer mattered. The department chair and senior faculty of the physics department understood his circumstances. They were prepared to extend his appointment, and permit him a leave of absence. Unfortunately, he couldn’t construct bridges fast enough to keep pace with those he burned.
His character and demeanor changed overnight. The usually docile, go-along-to-get-along Todd became demanding, often unreasonably so. He was given to sudden, disruptive outbursts throughout Le Conte Hall.
He was forced to share Achmed Al Hami’s apartment, since he could no longer afford his own.
He was drowning in an immense tidal wave of his own making.
Making sense of this tragedy required emotional maturity and skills Todd simply did not possess. Not only was he furious with his parents and Leyla’s entire extended family, his love for Leyla was transformed as well. He now held her accountable for the pregnancy. It was the seminal event that tore the fabric of their new relationship. His change in attitude and regard for Leyla made no sense.
Prior to meeting Leyla, Todd never encountered adversity in his young life. His parents made everything possible in the pursuit of his academic journey. They both created and seized on the opportunities to enable his continuing academic development. The only support group he’d ever known was permanently lost to him because of Leyla.
Only Achmed Al Hami understood his grief. In a way, Achmed felt responsible.