Innis harbor, p.21
Innis Harbor, page 21
She knocked lightly on the door but didn’t go in when he turned around in his chair to face her.
“Amira, what are you doing here?” He paused, confused. “Were we supposed to look at a house or something?”
He turned the page in his datebook, then looked back to Amir.
“Dad.” Amir ignored the tear she felt drop onto her cheek. “I know.”
Mr. Farzaneh leaned back in his chair, covering his face with his hands for a moment before he looked back at Amir, his jaw set, his face expressionless.
“Amira,” he said. “What I did for you, I did out of love.” He looked her in the eyes. “I don’t want you to waste your life. You should be thinking about your future.”
“So you thought it would be better if I spent the next twenty years in jail?”
He shook his head, and his face fell for just an instant. “I never intended it to get that far. I never told her to report it to the police, I only wanted her to start a rumor in town.”
“Dad, why would you do that to me?” Amir sank into the tweed chair beside her father’s leather-topped desk. “What good could possibly come of that?”
“I’ve tried to steer you in the right direction, Amira,” he said, his knuckles white as he gripped the arms of his desk chair. “But you are so stubborn. You don’t know what you’re giving up to be…” His voice faltered, and he looked down.
“Be what, Dad?” Amir tried to control the anger starting to simmer in her mind like a distant tornado. “To be gay?”
Her father said nothing, just looked down.
“So, that was the point of all this?” she asked. “To punish me for being who I am?” He looked up at her finally, and Amir saw the emotion in his eyes.
“I knew people would hear about it, and I thought if your business slowed down, you might finally think about getting married and starting a family.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Amir struggled to keep her voice at a respectful level. “You wanted to shame me into marrying some man I’d never love?”
Mr. Farzaneh slammed his fist on the desktop. “You don’t know you’d never love him!” Tears shimmered in his eyes. “I didn’t even know your mother when I married her, and we have a wonderful life and two beautiful children. I want that for you.”
A few long seconds passed before he spoke again, his voice tinged with a softness Amir hadn’t heard since before she came out. “I want you to be happy, to have someone who loves you in this world when your mother and I are gone.”
“Dad, is that really what you think? That I’ll be alone?”
Mr. Farzaneh turned and wiped his eyes with his arm.
“I’m in love with someone now that I hope to be with the rest of my life. She’s amazing, and frankly, I don’t deserve her.”
“Is that Samia’s niece?”
Amir nodded.
“I’m…” His voice faltered, and he stopped and started twice before he got the words out. “I am sorry I brought that boy over to meet you. Your mother is still angry at me.” He paused. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
Amira leaned forward. “I’m not angry anymore. I didn’t know what was happening then, but I think I’m starting to understand.” She hesitated. “But I need you to tell me the truth. Do you hate me because I’m gay, or were you just worried I’d never have what you and Mom have?”
“Amira.” This time, he didn’t bother to wipe the tears falling down his cheeks. “I’ve loved you from the moment I first held you in my arms. I could never hate you. I just wanted to be sure you’ll be happy in life, and I didn’t know how that would happen with”—his words faltered—“the gayness.”
Amir smiled, then laughed, and finally even her father’s face cracked into a smile.
“Really?” She tried to stop laughing, but it was just too good to pass up without a comment. “The gayness? Really?”
They laughed together until Mr. Farzaneh got up and poured Amir a short glass from his secret stash of bourbon, then one for himself.
“Does Mom know you drink?”
“I don’t drink. I’m a Muslim,” he said with a straight face. “There are certain things wives never need to know. Like the fact that your mother has also always been too good for me.”
Father and daughter clinked glasses and took the first sip just as Amir’s mother rounded the corner and stood in the doorway.
“I thought you were at the library,” Mr. Farzaneh said, sliding the bottle back into his desk drawer.
“Don’t bother hiding it, darling. I’ve known about your little stash for thirty years.” She rolled her eyes, then looked at Amir. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“I can’t, I have somewhere I need to be, but I’ll come down and hug you before I leave.”
“Fair enough.” She paused, her voice suddenly soft. “It’s good to see you two getting into trouble together again.”
She left, and Amir waited until she heard her go down the stairs before she pulled a tiny metal square out of her pocket and put it in her dad’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“That’s the SIM card from Charlotte’s phone. The only proof that you ever had anything to do with this.”
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because this secret stays with us.” She squeezed his hand. “No one else needs to know.”
Later that evening, Loch was hunting for her lighter. Again. She’d looked in every drawer twice and had started to think about walking downtown to the hardware store before it closed. She picked up her phone to check the time, and it rang in her hand.
“Want to come over?” Amir asked. Loch heard the evening sounds of gulls flying over the water in the background. “I have a fire.”
Loch smiled. “You know I can’t resist a fire.”
“Get ready, I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”
Loch clicked the phone off and jumped in the shower, then into the only pair of jeans she packed in her carry-on bag before the mad rush to the Manhattan airport. She pulled on a long-sleeved T-shirt and her down vest, grabbed her toothbrush, and dropped it into her bag on the way out to the porch.
A few minutes later she hopped in the passenger’s side of the truck just as Amir was taking the keys out of the ignition.
“What?” Loch said. “I thought we were going to your house.”
“We are.” Amir wrapped her hand around the back of Loch’s neck and pulled her into a kiss, letting her go reluctantly with a soft bite on her lower lip. “But we’re taking your truck.”
Loch looked confused for a second until she remembered Samia’s antique Chevy that was hers as soon as she learned to drive it.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, ma’am.” Amir’s gaze dropped to Loch’s lips. “But you’re going to need to be far less hot if I’m going to concentrate on backing that thing out of your garage.”
In the end, Amir did manage to get the bright yellow Chevy out of the garage and onto the road, then pulled up behind her own truck and shifted the Chevy into neutral.
“Ready?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to do this.” Loch’s lower lip made an appearance, and she looked up at Amir for a long second. “Will you drive it for me and let me watch you shift?”
Amir slid her hand up Loch’s leg and raised an eyebrow. “I’m actually dying to drive this thing,” she said. “But you’re going to have to learn to drive it eventually, okay?” She looked around the white leather interior. “I know you can do it, and everything about it just looks like you.”
“Deal.”
Loch settled back as Amir put the truck into gear and pulled out onto the road to her cabin. The sun was setting quickly as they drove, and Loch rolled down her window to let the wind slide over her palm in the soft evening light. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life from that point, and just that single thought made her feel lighter than she had in years. An idea had started to take shape in the back of her mind, pieced together from her past and whispering to her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know yet.
As they pulled into the long, winding driveway of Amir’s house, the path from her cabin to the dock was illuminated by candles flickering in iron lanterns. There were dozens of them, lining the length of the dock, illuminating the hardwood and the shimmering dark water on either side. The stars beginning to show in the night sky glittered above, as if reflecting the candlelight in the lanterns, but it was something ten yards or so out from the end of Amir’s dock that caught Loch’s eye. Mostly because it was on fire.
“Amir?” Loch got out of the truck and peered past the dock. “I think there’s something burning out there.”
Amir laughed and slipped the truck keys in Loch’s pocket, taking her hand and leading her down to the dock. “I told you I had a fire.”
They walked down to the end of the dock, and Amir pushed a button on one of the support beams at the outer edge. As the fire drew closer, Loch realized it was actually a copper firepit on a large square of hardwood dock.
“How is it getting closer?” She squealed, grabbing Amir’s arm. “That’s so beautiful. I love it!”
“I love that you’re so easy to impress.” Amir laughed, putting out a hand to stop the large square of floating dock and hook it onto the end of the main dock. “It’s not magic, it’s actually attached to the side of this dock by a steel wire that winds itself onto a motorized pulley when I press this button. That way, you don’t drift out to sea or have to swim back.”
Big pillows in bright prints lined the sitting space around the firepit, which had split logs stacked underneath. Dripping candles glowed at all four corners, and a stack of soft wool blankets waited at the edge.
“This is gorgeous,” Loch said as she took off her shoes and let Amir help her onto the dock, which seemed surprisingly stable given that it was only attached to the main dock by two silver hooks. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
Amir stepped onto the square after her and unhooked it, pushing out from the dock into open water. Gentle currents moved them away from shore, and night sky draped the floating square in navy velvet from every side. Loch closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of the cold seawater as a flock of white birds glided low over the surface, their chatter growing more and more distant as the last of the light faded.
When she opened her eyes, Loch noticed the scarred chrome toolbox on the other side of the firepit. “What’s in that?”
Amir smiled. “I realize it’s not the most romantic container,” she said, lifting the lid. “But I didn’t have anything else to put the chili dog stuff in.”
“Are you serious?” she said. “That sounds amazing. I feel like I’m always starving now.”
“I love that you eat now.” Amir slid a hot dog on a metal stick and handed it over to her. “I worried about you all the time.”
“I did, too, to be honest,” Loch said. “I’m just going to eat like a normal person now and see where my body wants to settle. I think I’ll end up similar to my sister. She weighs about twenty pounds more than me.”
“What did the doc say you should weigh?”
“I’m just over five ten, so about a hundred thirty-five pounds at the lowest.” Loch turned the stick so the flames started to bronze the other sides of her veggie dog. “I don’t know if I’ll quite get there, but I’ll give it a shot.”
Amir leaned over and handed her a bun. “Well, I have three aunts at a Persian restaurant in Bar Harbor that will be delighted to fix that little problem for you in an hour or less.”
Loch laughed and opened the veggie chili container she found in the toolbox that was still surprisingly warm, and they ate under the stars, drifting in the seawater that lapped at the side of the dock. Loch decided to pile several logs on the fire at once while Amir was distracted, insisting as they roared to life that it must be safe since they were surrounded by water. Amir laughed and pulled her closer, handing her the hot dog stick to poke it with.
“I don’t think I’ve said this yet.” Loch leaned back against Amir’s chest as they both watched the fire flare against the inky backdrop of the water. “But no one has ever done something for me like you did while I was gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house.” She settled back into Amir’s arms as she wrapped them around Loch’s shoulders. “I can’t believe you finished everything. I got tears in my eyes the second I opened the door. It’s perfect for me.”
“Actually,” Amir said, “you can thank Chris for that. When I got to your house the morning after Hamid bailed my sorry ass out of jail, Chris had already been there for four hours and had the kitchen painted in that warm yellow you picked out.”
“He just showed up on his own and got to work?”
“He did.” Amir smiled. “I tried to tell him that you’d gone back to Manhattan, but he just looked at me like I was stupid and handed me a paintbrush.”
“That sounds like him,” Loch said, smiling at the thought of Chris patiently teaching Graham how to two-step for his wedding. “What did he say?”
“To pull my head out of my ass.”
“Is that a quote?”
Amir laughed, the sound echoing off the glass like surface of the water. “Yes, ma’am.”
She pulled a blanket over Loch’s legs and wrapped her arms around her shoulders as Loch poked the fire with the metal stick, sending blue and gold sparks swirling into the night sky.
“He said I had two choices,” Amir said. “I could mope around like a chump or make you a home to come back to. Then he just stood there staring at me until I took the paintbrush, and we got on with it. It took us two solid weeks. He never even let me pay him.”
Loch sat silent, looking into the fire for a few moments before she turned to Amir.
“I love you for making the house so beautiful for me.” She watched the fire in the backlit amber of Amir’s eyes. “But you’re my home.”
Epilogue
One year later
Skye edged through the door laughing, carrying a flat wooden box piled with rustic bouquets of French lavender, fresh rosemary, and delicate purple and yellow freesia, each tied with a butter yellow strip of raw edged silk.
“I swear,” Skye said. “If one more person mistakes me for the bride, I’m going to wear a name tag walking down the aisle.”
Cara looked up from across the room where she was attempting to get some last-minute practice walking in heels. When Loch had asked her to be a bridesmaid, she’d neglected to mention that she’d be walking on stilts.
“Is it Amir’s family?”
“No.” Skye laughed. “This time, it was our great-aunt Jordy on Mom’s side. You’d think she’d recognize her own family, but that pre-wedding cocktail hour was a huge hit with the over-seventy crowd. When I walked past just now, she was being seated by Hamid, holding her enormous purse in one hand and a martini glass in the other.”
Anna laughed around the makeup brush in her mouth as she leaned in to do a last-minute touch-up on Loch’s brows. “I know who I’m sitting by at the reception. She sounds like my kind of lady.”
“She only sloshed on a couple of the guests as she went down the row,” Skye said, handing Amy the last of the bridesmaid’s bouquets. “And she made Hamid promise to bring her a refill before she let him go back up the aisle. Twice.”
Loch smiled and laid a hand on her chest, realizing suddenly she was more nervous than she’d ever been in her life.
“Hey,” Cara said, managing to totter over to Loch without falling over. “Are you okay?”
“I’m so nervous,” Loch said. “I know this is silly, but what if Amir changes her mind? Do we know if she’s even here?” She paused, closing her eyes against the thought. “Wait, don’t tell me if she isn’t.”
Skye smiled at Loch and looked down into the garden from where she stood at the second-story window. The house belonged to one of Amir’s aunts in Bar Harbor, and she’d invited them to use it for the wedding. It was a classic Maine home converted in the fifties from a rambling barn overlooking the sea, and dozens of white wood folding chairs dotted the vivid green lawn below. At the end of the aisle, there was a white wooden altar platform with two antique cathedral doors at the center, partially open to frame the view of the blue sea beyond.
“Hey, Loch,” Skye said, looking down at the lawn below. “Come here.”
Loch stood beside her, following her gaze below the window to the lawn. Amir looked up at her with soft eyes, touched her heart with her hand, then blew her a kiss before walking over to join Hamid, Chris, and Kiran at the altar.
Loch turned back toward her bridesmaids, nerves replaced by a beautiful smile. Anna put the finishing touches on Loch’s makeup, then walked downstairs with the other girls to take their places and make sure the flower girl was ready for her trip down the aisle.
Loch took a final look in the mirror. Beautiful mehndi henna covered the back of her hands and extended past her wrists. Amir’s mother applied the designs herself and included some of the same intricate patterns she’d worn when she married Amir’s father. Her dress was antique ivory silk with clean, simple lines that fit her new healthier frame beautifully, and her sapphire engagement ring sparkled in the light from the window. It had belonged to Loch’s great-great-grandmother, and Loch’s mother had given it to Amir when she’d asked her permission to marry her. Amir had proposed with it a week later, and now it was her something blue.
“How do I look?” Loch turned to Skye.
“Happy,” Skye said, tears shimmering in her eyes as she hugged Loch. “You look happy.”
Minutes later, Loch and her bridesmaids watched from a hidden window as Yasmin started down the aisle with her basket of rose petals. Anna had practiced with her the night before on how to scatter them as she walked down the aisle, but Yasmin was so delighted by all the attention that she just passed out the rose petals to the guests in the aisle seats, giving a tiny handful to each, then paused for a moment at the front as she considered what to do with the rest. In the end, she dumped them all in a pile on the altar and handed Amir the sparkly white basket before she did a little bow and took her seat.
