“Maryam Aziz,” she had said, blushing.
The next day, Yusuf showed up for their morning Medicinal Chemistry class with a Ziploc bag full of roasted, saltedmoong dal—whole lentils—and offered them to her. After that, they were friends. When he confessed he had feelings for her in second year, it was the natural progression of their relationship. She was twenty-four years old, and it had felt like the right time for this to happen.
Her parents hadn’t approved of the match. They thought they were both too young; that Yusuf, in particular, was not ready. In hindsight, their objections likely made the relationship feel more romantic, the stakes even higher. When Yusuf told her he loved her, she hadn’t stopped to ask herself if she felt the same, too swept up in the moment.
In the end, her parents had reluctantly given the couple their blessing and paid for a lavish wedding. By then, the cracks in their relationship were obvious: Yusuf wanted to move out of state while Maryam was content to live in Denver; he wasn’t especially close with his family and didn’t understand why Maryam wanted to spend so much time with hers; he was dismissive of her dream to pursue writing and subtly put her down in front of their friends. She made excuses for him, andthought things would improve once they married and moved in together. They didn’t.
“You spent all that money on my wedding, even though you didn’t approve, and we ended up divorced in the end. Aren’t you angry at me? Everyone still talks about what happened as if it were my fault Yusuf left,” Maryam said in a small voice.
The first few months after her divorce, when she moved back in with her parents, she had felt too raw and in shock to discuss any of this. Later, after friends urged her to go to therapy, she had talked it all through with an insightful Chinese woman who understood the complexities of first- and second-generation immigrant identity. But she had never had this conversation with her parents.
“You have always been so mature. You want to take on all our burdens because you have a good heart,” Ghulam started. “When you brought Yusuf for us to meet, we knew he was wrong for you, but what could we do? We made our opinions clear, but we love you,beta, and even if you make decisions we don’t agree with, we will never abandon you. You are our child, no matter what you do or who you choose to love. Even if he is a selfishullu.”
Maryam laughed at the epitaph. Yusuf did look a bit like an owl, actually. “How did you know he wasn’t right for me?” she asked through her tears.
“You laughed at his jokes with your mouth closed,” Ghulam said, shrugging.
“We thought: better you should love, better you should try, rather than do nothing at all. You have to fight for your future, even if it doesn’t turn out exactly as planned,” Azizah said.
Divorce was still relatively rare in their mostly immigrantcommunity. For years, Maryam had felt like she wore a scarlet letterDon her chest whenever she went to a party or event. She knew she was held up as a cautionary tale among young single girls:See what happens when you don’t keep your husband happy? You get left behind, and your family is shamed.
Except her family had never made her feel like that, or blamed her for any of it. She had done the blaming all by herself. It was beyond time for her to forgive herself, to accept what had happened, and to move on. Impulsively, she hugged her parents, squeezing hard. They hugged her back; they weren’t normally a very physically affectionate family, preferring to show their love through kind acts, but the embrace was appreciated, and returned. Her mother had tears in her eyes when Maryam let her go, and she wiped them away with a smile.
“You know, Saif said that maybe we don’t give our parents enough credit,” Maryam said. “You came to a new country and ran after your own dreams. He said that if I had insisted on pursuing writing when I was younger, you would have supported me. Is that true?”
Her parents looked at each other, conducting one of those lightning-fast, entirely silent conversations that only people who have lived together for decades can do. “Don’t be ridiculous, Maryam,” Azizah said. “Writing won’t pay your bills. What would people say?” But she smiled as she said it.
“Perhaps this Saif boy is not as bad as we had been led to believe,” Ghulam added.
As she cuddled into the blanket on her bed, Maryam felt lighter than she had in years. No matter what tomorrow brought, she knew that her family would face it together.
FIFTEEN
Anna
December 24
Christmas Eve
The 3rd night of Hanukkah
The 29th day of Ramadan
Anna opened the window to let some fresh air into her room and clear her head as she gathered her things, making a little pile of the items she needed to return or planned to give as gifts, and a pile of the things she was taking with her. The Happy Holiday Missive, still unopened, sat near her handbag. She placed it on the windowsill and turned away. Then she took one last look around her room. Even with the funny smell and the stained ceiling, she felt an ache at leaving it behind. But, she told herself, she was making the right choice. She had to give things a last chance with Nick. Because he was her shot at the life she had always wanted. The life sheneeded.
Anna had written notes to Maryam, Saima, and Dadu, and chosen little gifts for each of them: she was giving her loud Christmas sweater to Mr. Dadu, her love potion to Maryam,and her double-pom hat to Saima, hoping it would cheer her up. She was also leaving the menorah for Deb and Kath, in case they ever had guests who wanted to light the menorah during the holidays. It had been a hard decision, to leave all this stuff behind rather than taking mementos with her, but Anna had decided it felt right to seal her new friendships with gifts, and it was definitely in keeping with the spirit of the holiday season. She had decided against saying goodbye in person, however. It would just be too painful—and potentially impossible. It had been an intense few days, emotions were heightened—and Anna didn’t want anything to stop her from walking out the door of the inn, toward Nick. Shehadto do this. She had faith that this would not be the last she saw of the Aziz family, and that had to be enough.
After distributing her gifts at various hotel room doors, Anna ducked out the back exit of the inn, avoiding being seen by anyone, and went around front to wait for the taxi she had called. The snow had stopped and the world was muffled and silent, as though wrapped gently in a layer of cotton. Anna breathed in deeply; the cold air tickled her nostrils and almost made her sneeze. Then a sudden gust of wind startled her, blowing the snow around her into a little cyclone that covered her with feather-like snowflakes.
As she dusted off, she saw something in the snow at her feet.
Beth’s Happy Holiday Missive.
She looked up at the inn and realized she had left her window open—and the letter must have blown outside. Shepicked it up and stared down at it. This letter had been following her around for days. Maybe it was time to just open it and get it over with.
The first thing she saw inside the envelope was a small stack of photos. She sifted through them. They weren’t of Beth, in her current new life—instead, there was one photo from every year of their lives together, right up until the last one, two holidays previous. Anna’s breath caught in her chest, her eyes filled with tears, and she swallowed over a huge lump in her throat as she saw the photos of herself at seven, eight, nine, ten. There she was, sitting between Beth and Jack beside the Christmas tree and the Hanukkah bush. There they were, walking home from the Christmas Eve service with candles in their hands. There were Anna, Beth, and her dad, grinning over a platter of latkes. There was the disastrous time Anna and Beth had decided to make their own applesauce for the latkes, but forgotten to close the lid of the food processor properly. They found little bits of applesauce on the tops of the kitchen cupboards for years. Anna found she was deeply happy to see these photos, to sift through these memories. It wasn’t sadness she felt, but joy—and sudden gratitude.
She took a deep breath and teased the letter out of the envelope. The header across the top read, “Anna’s Personal Happy Holiday Missive.”
