Dawud slumps down and does this thing where his arms swing slightly, like jiggle, actually, in front of his body and then back behind him. It’s like he’s shaking the cooties out of himself or something. “Uh. ’Kay. I’m sorry for saying stuff about you.”
“It’s all right.”
“But there aren’t any more flowers,” he clarifies, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
“Why don’t you let me and Logan and Luke get you the flowers?” I say. I turn to Haytham. “Are you busy? If not, maybe you can you help us too?”
“Sure. My duties from Sarah start in a couple of hours, so for now, I’m all yours.” He ends this with a sheepish smile. Maybe because he realizes how weird that sounds.
I hope Dawud doesn’t catch that and hoot. And I hope I’m not turning red.
Because the truth: Haytham’s super cute when he says that.
“Where is he? I brought a ton of ties for him to try on.”
I turn around to Dad entering the barn, holding a tie hanger with several ties on it.
I turn back to Dawud quickly.
“He’s upstairs,” Haytham says. “Nuah! Ties are here!”
What? Nuah?
Dad’s dressing Nuah?
I go toward the laddoos and bend down to tell them in a low voice about our adventure providing flowers for Dawud’s ceiling, making it sound super exciting. I emphasize how they need to drop everything and come with me now.
I’m trying to get out of there quickly before I have to do a double dose of glazed gazes—at Dad and Nuah.
Too late. I turn around with one laddoo in each hand ready to march out with me, Luke with a truck in his hand, and there’s Nuah in the middle of the steps coming down from the loft bedroom on the right. He walks to the middle of the Persian rug in a suit jacket that’s slightly too big for him but that some man, who came in with Dad apparently, rushes to pin at the wrist.
After taking in Nuah’s sudden entrance, hopefully not with my mouth open in surprise, I act like both of them—he and Dad—aren’t there.
“He was just going to wear a nice shirt and dress pants and your dad insisted he add a jacket,” Haytham whispers to me.
I nod and make my way past Dad, past Nuah, and out the door.
Haytham follows me out.
“I seriously thought it was Layth he was helping with clothes for the wedding,” I say to Haytham.
“He did bring stuff for him, too—you should have seen your dad’s face when he found out Layth hadn’t brought any fancy clothes with him. But Layth left before your dad got here with the suits. Maybe he saw them coming.” Haytham laughs.
“Oh.”
Oh.
He left.
Without saying anything.
Not that he had to.
But couldn’t he have?
Said one word at least?
Like just texted Leaving.
Then I would have texted Let me know when you get to Ecuador?
And he would have said Sure but why.
And I would have said—
I don’t know what I would have said.
Chapter Thirty
As we walk to the house, I explain my idea for the flowers to Haytham. It’s an idea I got from the tacky grove of plants by the Glade restaurant at the hotel. I guess when Tats and I grabbed breakfast this morning, those crafted flowers burrowed into my brain.
My idea: make a ton of flowers, yellow flowers, big ones, medium ones, whatever sizes, out of construction paper and paint. Then use these to fill in the spaces on Dawud’s floral ceiling.
“That’s an amazing idea!” Haytham’s full-on enthusiastic. “Everyone’s going to be so wowed.”
“Even your family?” I ask.
Because if it turns out tacky, I don’t think Sarah’s family will be wowed at all. They might even get upset.
“What do you mean, even my family?”
“I mean your aunts and stuff.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?” Haytham sounds truly puzzled.
Should I burst his little bubble? I think about Dad and his indignation earlier when I arrived this morning. The tone in his voice that indicated that he thought he was so right—he called his prejudiced views “old-school.”
His tone had been exactly like Sarah’s Auntie Rima’s at the henna party.
Is it time for this cultural-supremacy party to be broken up? “Um, because, at the henna party, one of your aunts came barreling to me and tried to destroy me for wearing Pakistani clothes. Which, she said, wasn’t honoring your culture properly.”
“What? You’re joking, right?” Haytham stops walking. So I stop walking too. And the laddoos stop as well and begin to play on the grass right where we stop, a few feet before the porch, Luke trying to hit Logan’s legs with the truck while Logan dodges.
“That’s what happened.” I shrug my shoulders, now weirdly afraid to elaborate even though I’d already blurted it. “So it kind of gave me the impression that some people in your family are super picky.”
“Wow, that’s rude. Sorry.” He scratches the back of his head like he’s seriously befuddled by what I’m telling him.
How could he be? Doesn’t he know his own family?
Wait, crap. For almost eighteen years, I had no idea that Dad was as prejudiced as he is.
It seems people show their prejudiced hand when family lines get crossed.
I hate it. It sucks. And I’m never going to stop fighting it.
I don’t care who I take down doing it.
Even yourself? Because family lines are getting crossed by Uncle Bilal and his family, and you’re completely battle ready.
Ugh, I’m not sure why I keep connecting Dad’s prejudice and my flare-up with Mom about Uncle Bilal.
This is not about me.
It’s about the harm of holding racist views.
Racism is not like being introverted and not wanting your mom to get remarried.
I mean, I just read about Malcolm X’s life fighting its devastating effects. About how anti-Blackness leads to whole systems of inequity and brutality and loss of life. The evidence has been in our faces all along. Some of us choose to pretend it’s not there, some of us choose to look away.
And some of us know a little about it but don’t act on what we know.
Maybe it’s because we don’t want to be uncomfortable and experience the losses that come with confrontation. Like for me, it means losing Dad’s support—including monetary support—and love and everything else that would follow breaking away from him.
But maybe I don’t need to break away. Maybe I need to start talking more about things that bother me. Talking in a steady, brave way.
And not just with Dad.
And not just about some things, but everything important to me.
I can start by telling Haytham a bit more about what happened with Auntie Rima and gain the courage to talk to Dad—after the wedding.
“Auntie Rima was the one who reamed me out,” I say. “Just ’cause the fabric on my body was cut in a certain way and the designs of the embroidery weren’t from the geographical area on earth that she approved of.”
“Man, I’m shocked, but then not shocked.” He puts his hands on his hips and frowns and shakes his head so hard, his floppy hair flops even more. “I’m sorry big-time on behalf of my family. Can I ask what you did?”