“Everything is such a mess. I don’t know what to do.”
He leaned down. “You know you’re doing the right thing when you’ve pissed off the bad guys,” he said in a terrible gangster accent.
I laughed shakily. He gave my shoulder a squeeze before returning to the counter, to serve the neighbourhood he had lived in all his life, even as that community grew and changed around him. And he was fine with that. “If the people are changing, that means we’re still alive. Only living things change,” he always said.
I remembered his mother. Mrs. Lewis had died the previous year.My family had attended her funeral at the Orthodox church down the street. Mom had made kheer—rice pudding with cardamom—for the wake, and there hadn’t been a single spoonful left by the end of the night. Mrs. Lewis would visit the restaurant with her church friends on Sunday, dressed in floral cotton and sensible shoes, eyes milky behind enormous pink-framed glasses. She had always smiled whenever we met.
The bells over the door chimed and I looked up. Aydin.
Was he worried about his restaurant? Maybe now he would finally move to a less exciting neighbourhood, one with a more welcoming business community and targeted by fewer Nazis. If Aydin packed up and left right away, as I had wanted all along, would that solve our problems? Could we return to the careful normality of before?
No. Three Sisters would still be in financial trouble, and there would still be hate. But maybe it wouldn’t land on us. Maybe we would be spared. Or maybe we had been spared all along. Muslims believe that when you makedu’a, or sincere prayer, for something, one of three things happens: (1) you are granted your request, (2) something bad that was headed your way is deflected, or (3) the good thing you asked for is kept for you in heaven.
I watched as Aydin chatted with Mr. Lewis, his face creased in a tired smile. He reached up to run his fingers through the dark hair over his brow, and I remembered that I still had his sunglasses in my purse. I fished them out and tried them on. Camouflage.
Mr. Lewis said something to Aydin, and he turned around and spotted me.
I took a gulp of cappuccino, burning my tongue. “Are you wishing you’d picked a different neighbourhood for your restaurant?” I asked, trying for a smile, but Aydin only shook his head and took a seat.
“If I had opened up somewhere else, I would have missed all this.” He caught my eye and grimaced. “Laugh at the hard stuff, right?”
I nodded, glad he’d remembered my words from the baseball game. That instant of levity felt far away in the face of this disaster. “What else is there to do but laugh?” I repeated. No, really, I wanted to ask him. What else could we do?
He must have understood, because he replied, “Build a dam?”
We lapsed into silence.
“Are you still going ahead with your plans to open next week?” I asked.
Aydin nodded. “I’ve arranged for extra security. Will you be there?”
“I have my protest sign ready to go.” I took off the sunglasses and handed them to him. “Are you all right?” I asked quietly.
“No,” he said. “Are you?”
I shook my head. We were being careful, each trying to appear calm in front of the other. I stood up. “I should get back to Three Sisters. My mom probably needs help cleaning off the...” I trailed off.
“I’ll walk you,” Aydin said abruptly.
“It’s fine. You’re busy.”
Aydin gripped the sunglasses until his knuckles turned white. “Please, Hana. Let me walk you back.”
I grabbed my bag, and we left Tim Hortons together.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mom wasn’t working on pre-lunch prep as she usually did in the morning. Instead I found her in one of the booths at the back of Three Sisters.
“Are you all right?” I asked her, my voice gentle in the quiet of the dining room.
“I’m just taking a little break,” she said.
Mom never took breaks. Breaks were for lesser mortals and shiftless daughters with artistic proclivities. I walked to the kitchen tea urn, the first thing that was turned on at Three Sisters every morning.
“It’s empty,” Mom called. She was looking around the restaurant with distant eyes. “I didn’t bother refilling it after this morning.” She might as well have told me she had forgotten how to breathe.
I filled the tea urn with water, tossed in a few cloves, crushed cardamom, whole cinnamon, and tea bags, and set the machine to boil. Mom didn’t even look over to make sure I was doing it right.
