“Is something wrong with Esa?” she asked, trying to keep the alarm from her voice.
Again, her parents exchanged a glance. “He’s a teenage boy,beta,” Tahsin soothed. “It’s hard to tell what is going on in his mind. And we have learned not to push too hard. It didn’t work with you, after all.”
Stung by the backhanded comment, Sameera lapsed into silence, though it was hard not to pepper her parents with more questions.
As if sensing her disquiet, Naveed added, “Esa is quieter lately, that’s all. It happens as children grow. But he appears fine otherwise, Sameera. Perhaps a bit lost in the clouds sometimes. I think it has been good for him, this trip. He misses you.”
“I miss him, too,” Sameera said, her voice thick. The trio had walked to the main street by now, and silence descended between them, filled with unasked questions.
She should broach the subject now, while they were alone. Invite her parents to Hilda’s for hot tea and snacks, and then start their long-delayed serious conversation about their estrangement, about why she’d kept Hunter a secret from them for so long, why she had cut them off after their big fight—and why they had let her, especially why Naveed had stayed silent and distant for so long. She opened her mouth to saysomething, but what came out was, “I have a lot of work to do back at the guesthouse, so don’t take too long, okay?”
Naveed and Tahsin nodded their agreement, but she thought she spotted a fleeting expression of hurt at the words. Sameera cursed herself—she was a coward after all.
Their first stop was Cooke’s Best Gifts, where Tahsin examined glass figurines, clocks, art, and collectibles. Sameera had to talk her father out of buying Rob and Barb a three-foot-tall resin King Kong statue dyed a bright festive green.
They perused a few more stores, and Tahsin picked up a pretty flannel throw with matching cushions, crystal glasses, and a cake tin in the shape of a Christmas tree, while Naveed coaxed Sameera and Tahsin into letting him buy a set of inflatable antlers that could double as a ring toss game.
The whole shopping expedition didn’t take as long as Sameera feared, and she was mentally planning what file she would tackle first once they returned to the guesthouse when her parents suddenly bolted across the street.
Mystified, she checked for traffic (there was none—the term “sleepy village” had been coined for Wolf Run) and crossed. Her parents were already deep in conversation with someone when she joined them, though her eyes were trained on the storefront. What was a Middle Eastern restaurant doing all the way out here, and who could possibly run it?
The answer to at least one of the questions became clear when she noticed the man engaged in earnest conversation with her parents. He was tall and broad through the shoulders and belly, dressed in a black-and-red-flannel shirt with red suspenders, with a long, fluffy white beard, silver hair curled to his shoulders. His cheeks were rounded and red from the cold, and his generous mouth was fixed in a wide smile, eyes a bright, twinkling blue. The man’s entire face was wreathed in smiles.
“Sameera, guess who this is!” Naveed said, excited.
Saint Nick?she nearly asked, but stopped herself.
Naveed gestured toward the restaurant, which had a tiny placard below.
“‘Masjidul-Emaan,’” she sounded out. Like most Muslim children, she had been taught the Arabic alphabet and could phonetically pronounce some words.
“A mosque in Wolf Run!” Naveed crowed.
The man at their side seemed delighted by her father’s excitement, and his smile widened, increasing his resemblance to a beloved holiday figure who belonged on the side of a cola can. “It’s a restaurant, actually, but we host jumah prayer every week, and have some events in the basement, too. We are busiest in the summer months and during Ramadan, of course,” the man said, his voice marked by a strong Middle Eastern accent.
“This is Abu Isra,” Tahsin interjected, gesturing at the silver-haired man. “The imam of the mosque. He also owns the restaurant.”
Abu Isra nodded at her in a friendly manner, explaining that he had moved to Wolf Run with his family from Syria a few years ago.Syrian Santa,a mischievous voice that sounded a lot like Esa whispered in her mind. She wondered where her brother had disappeared to; he would love this.
Her parents were fascinated to learn about the tiny Muslim community in Wolf Run, which numbered about a dozen people in the off-season and swelled to nearly twice that during the warmer months. Abu Isra—the name meant “father of Isra,” by which Sameera understood that his eldest child’s name was Isra, an honorary naming convention many Muslim and Arab men adopted after becoming fathers—was happy to chat, and clearly overjoyed to meet the Malik family.
“You must come over for dinner!” Tahsin said. “Please, allow us to cook for you.”
Syrian Santa ...Abu Isra,Sameera corrected herself, made a mild protest, but her mother insisted.
“Mom, we can’t invite Mr. Abu Isra over for dinner,” she murmured, sending an embarrassed smile at their new friend. “I’m not sure Rob or Barb would like company this close to Christmas. We’re their guests, remember?”
But Tahsin only waved away her objections. “Nonsense,beta. The Cooke family won’t mind. Rob is all about family. And Abu Isra, his wife, and their six children are our new Muslim family!”
Sameera wanted to sink into the ground. Her parents’ enthusiasm for new acquaintances was legendary. Tahsin loved entertaining, and Naveed enjoyed finding new audiences for his stories, especially those featuring how things used to be when they had first immigrated to the United States. She was sure her parents’ present excitement was largely the result of spotting another Muslim in Wolf Run. The town was nearly uniformly white, present company excluded.
Sameera tried again. “We’re guests at Rob and Barb’s home,” she said in a discreet aside to her mother. “Please don’t do this.”
But Tahsin only ignored her concerns and doubled down, badgering poor Abu Isra until he promised to show up that night for dinner. By the time her parents waved goodbye to their new friend, Sameera was furious.
As soon as Abu Isra returned to his restaurant, she wheeled on her mother. “Why did you do that?” she demanded.
Tahsin blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
