A school is a big place; it’s easy to avoid each other. A school bus is big, too—one of you in front, the other in back, the distractions of friends and the driver’s terrible choice in radio stations. A school bus can be a stadium, and you can get lost in there, if you’re willing. If you try hard enough.
So, a day or two before Halloween, on a Sunday, I bike up to Aneesa’s for the first time in a long time. I haven’t seen her since I told her to get out of my room. I actually only said, “Get out,” never specifying. In that moment, I meant my room, my house, my heart, my life. She honored my request and vacated them all as best she could.
When I knock at the door, Mr. Fahim answers. I wonder what he knows, how much he knows. I wonder at the character of his knowledge; how did Aneesa tell the story? Was I the sick and injured prince or the outraged and out-of-control dragon?
“Ariadne,” he says with a slight quirk of his lips. “Aneesa isn’t home.”
“You’re welcome to wait for her, if you like.”
I don’t like, but I have no choice. If I leave now, I’ll never work up the courage to come back again. I need to do this now.
Reluctantly, I trudge inside. Everything has finally been unpacked. Artwork and photographs hang on the walls. The Fahims have completed the metamorphosis of the house no one wanted to buy into a home.
“We haven’t seen you around here lately,” Mr. Fahim says, gesturing for me to sit in one of the living room chairs. He takes the sofa.
“Well, school…” I let it drift and hang, smoke in the open air.
“Aneesa has been making new friends. I assume you’ve been busy with old ones.”
I let him think that.
“Do you believe in the afterlife?” he asks suddenly.
“I’m not sure.” I don’t want to offend him. And it’s a tough question for me. I’d love to see Lola again, but I also figure I probably don’t deserve that.
“Many don’t. Because it offends them to imagine all this”—he gestures around us, to the world beyond the room—“is a mere test. But it isn’t a test. It’s a trial. To determine if we are worthy. So it’s nothing we should shrug off, regardless of what follows. How we are now, to one another, dictates our eternity.”
I follow him, but I’m not sure how it’s relevant, until I realize what the whole point is: He knows. Either Aneesa told him or someone else did. He knows.
“What I mean to say,” he goes on, “is this: Life is short, but its brevity does not mean it’s meaningless. Work out your differences with Aneesa, whatever they are.”
“I’d like that.”
Mr. Fahim sighs. “I like you a great deal, Ariadne. And I understand better than most, I think. I’m very happy with Sara. I adore my wife and the life we have. So I don’t mean to insult you, when I say that… in an ideal world, I would see Aneesa with a Muslim boy. You understand?”
I shrug a noncommittal yes.
“But this is not an ideal world. You two are good together. And I would be happy if someday—in the future, you understand—if that turned into something more.”
“I don’t think that’s in the cards, sir.”
“It’s still Joe. And I’m sorry to hear that.” He takes a deep breath and glances around, as though for spies. “I am her father and I’m not supposed to say such things, but I will.” He gazes directly into my eyes. “Her loss.”