Other Side

19 | History and Hindrances

"Hi, I'm Henry, and I'll be your server today. Can I get you started with some drinks?"

He passed them each a menu, and Talia already knew she would skip straight to the overpriced pasta section. Teta jumped to ordering appetizers, clearly having been there before as she rattled off three different small dishes to the sever with special substitutions.

"Teta, I've always wanted to know something." Her grandmother looked up from her lap and smiled, brushing away some of her short brown hair. "How did the relationship between you and Zaid's family evolve over time? I know you were neighbors when Baba was young, but what happened after he and Zaid's mother went off to college?"

She nodded, folding her hands and leaning over the table. "Well, Talia, we didn't live that close by. We raised your Baba and uncles just a couple miles from our current house in Newton, as you know, but Nabil—Zaid's grandfather—used to work as a researcher at a medical school about an hour away. Given the distance, we'd have our get-togethers on the weekends, but Fouad and Nabil spent most of them on their own, golfing or watching football at the nearby pubs. Your father wasn't very close with Zaid's mother, but I'm sure it's because his brothers were already a handful." Her smile grew warmer, but there was a certain distant look in her eyes, as Talia knew much of the history that followed was more heart-rending than heart-warming. "When it came time for college, ironically both Elias and Nour fled to California: one to Palo Alto, the other to Los Angeles. You could call that their official goodbye to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

"Oh, come on, Baba did come back sometimes," Talia tried, but when Teta narrowed her eyes, she topped lying. "At least your other sons live sort of close by, right?"

One of them lived about an hour away in Rhode Island with his physician wife, raising four sons each two years apart and less annoying by age. The other was childless and on his second marriage with a woman seventeen years his junior, who had convinced him to sell his Boston penthouse because urban life made her uncomfortable.

(But not marrying her father's coworker.)

Maybe that was why her father's exodus still aggrieved Teta.

"Zaid mentioned his mother met his father on a study abroad trip, but how soon after did they get married?"

She was steering the conversation where she wanted it to go, but their server interrupted them with two mouthwatering plates of arancini and bruschetta. They took the time to order their entrées, and with all this food ahead of them, they had plenty of time to get through the rest of this conversation.

"If Nour had gotten her way, she would've married on that same trip, but Nabil and Nahla needed a little convincing. She was their only little girl, after all, and Youssef was older than her. Not by enough that it was strange, but still, twelve years was not an age gap to laugh about." She paused to cut into a fried rice ball and popped a piece into her mouth. "By twenty-three, she was out of the house and as happy as could be."

Somehow, Talia didn't find Nour all that crazy after this surprise winter break experience.

"She kept in touch with her parents, right?"

Teta nodded. "Nabil and Nahla went back and forth a few times a year for several years; sometimes, it was the other way around. Then, while your father was still a miserable graduate student in California, Nour gave birth to Zaid's brother." Her eyes creased up on the sides as she smiled pensively. "Gosh, I had no doubts the two would have cute children, but Saif was an angel, just like your father as a baby. Those rare visits used to make my day."

Talia paused, thinking to herself for a moment. "Does that mean you met Zaid as a baby, too?"

God, maybe this family connection was a lot deeper than she'd once thought.