Hadi, did you hear what I said?”
The silence that follows seems to last forever, like that split second, midfall, infinitely liminal, when ground and sky are equidistant, gravity and lift are equal, pulling in opposite directions.
“I am not leaving the US,” I say, lower, slower, to you and to me. “Not without Naseem, not with him. My son is not an alien. He was born here, and it is his right to stay. And I, I earned mine, Hadi.”
The air swells over the ocean between us. My words seem to be taking longer and longer to travel through the airwaves.
“My life is here, and I earned it. All these years away from my family, all those winters… Everything I did, everything we did, Hadi. We gave up everything for this.”
I hear nothing, not even breath.
“I am not leaving.”
There are as many different silences as there are moments and feelings. This one sucks the air out of my lungs. In the vacuum, heartbeats.
This is not the silence of a church or mosque, of a library. Of fog. Not the silence before a yes or a no. I’m not waiting for either. I’m not waiting for anything. I’m not waiting anymore. I can’t live like this, Hadi, waiting to live.
Some silences speak. This one.
“How?” you ask quietly.
“What?”
“How are you going to do it? How are you going to stop them from arresting you if they start conducting raids on Syrians?”
I see the doors you are showing me, banging, broken down, hinges ripped out in the middle of the night. I see the detention centers. I see the rain glistening on runways, reflecting planes taking off. I have never felt so scared, or so clear.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, and I don’t care. I’m staying here with my son. I’m going to give him the most wonderful life. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“And if it takes breaking the law?”
“Then the law is wrong, and I’ll break the law. I’m going to give Naseem the best care in the best hospital, and then when he’s free to leave, I’m going to take him home and give him everything—”
“And his father?”
The silence of a sort of pain, and the rapid motion of wings.