Page 13 of What Hurts Us

“Layla joon,” my grandmother—maman bozorg—said with a wrinkled smile as she held the front door open.

I bent and kissed her on the cheek. “Delam barat tang shode.” She pulled me down into a hug. My face was buried in her shoulder, where the soft cream-colored fabric of her hijab pooled. “I missed you,” I said again, tears welling up in my eyes.

“I missed you too,joonam.”

“Come in.” She wrapped gnarled fingers around my wrist and pulled me into the house. “You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks. Come—we’ll fix that.”

Before I could get my shoes off, I was dragged into the dining room. My mother was busy whipping up every food known to man. A little excessive for a weeknight family dinner, but that had never stopped them before.

Karim thundered down the stairs, yanking on a t-shirt. My mother took one look at him and clicked her tongue in a wordless scold.

“Nurse Ratched,” he teased as he stole the bakery box out of my hand and pawed through the spoils.

“Judge Judy,” I shot back, yanking the box out of his hands.

Karim had already snagged a pinch ofpashmakand popped it into his mouth. “Dude, do you know how awesome it would be to be Judge Judy? She’s worth like five hundred million.”

Our mother rolled her eyes. “Your sister is not a ‘dude,’” she said, finishing with her best American accent. “And you are not making a farce of my law practice by going on television and yelling at people. Being the smartest person in the room and keeping your mouth shut is much more effective than quippy zingers and pounding things.”

Karim and I both choked on our laughs. We were grown adults, but there were few things funnier than having a parent make a sexual innuendo and them having no idea they had done it.

“Azizam,” my dad said as he walked in the front door and dropped his messenger bag. It was chock full of papers that would be graded after dinner with the TV on in the background. He would probably watch something likeMan Vs. Wildor an ultimate survival challenge. Dad liked to live vicariously from the comfort of the couch.

“Baba joon,” I threw my arms around his willowy shoulders and squeezed.

“Ah!” my aunt said as she sashayed into the house. “Layla joon! You have some explaining to do!” Sepideh Nazari—or as I called her,khale joon—was my favorite aunt.Not that I told the others that.My uncle had passed away when I was little, leaving her as a young widow. Now, she leaned into being a zany single lady and had opened a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Falls Creek years ago. “My friend, Doris, said that you airlifted her grandson! I’ve known Callum for years. He’s not married, and he’sgorgeous!”

A serving spoon fell out of my mother’s hand, clattering against the granite island. “You airlifted a single man and didn’t get his number?”

“I can’t ask an unconscious man for his number!” I shrieked in disbelief. The women in this family…

“Doris said he was onlypartiallyunconscious,”Khale joonargued.

“You could have at least asked,” my grandmother muttered under her breath as she stirred the pot on the stove. “Maybe you could have writtenyournumber on his body. You should start carrying a permanent marker with you, just in case you run into any other hot, comatose men.”

Ididkeep a permanent marker in my flight suit, but I wasn’t about to tell them that. Sharpies and medical tape were indispensable. I’d rip off a piece, slap it to the top of my thigh or the top of my forearm and scribble patient weight and medication shorthand so that I could titrate drug doses on the fly.

“Address labels!” my aunt chirped. “Print a few sheets of mailing labels with your name, phone number, and maybe your height and weight and hair and eye color. Then you can just put it on the men like stickers!”

“But then they could just peel it off. Permanent marker is a better option,” Karim said, egging them on with a grin.

I slammed my hands on the kitchen island with an exasperated huff. “I am not vandalizing anyone’s body!”

“You know,joonam,” my dad said. “There’s a teacher at the school that would be a good match for you. Perhaps we could have him over for dinner next week and introduce the two of you.”

“Baba,” I whined. I really didn’t want to get into all the reasons I wasn’t dating right now. Not while I was still feeling a little raw.

“He’s tenured!” he argued. “He makes a respectable salary and has good job security.”

My eyes narrowed. “How old is this man?”

My dad thought for a moment. “Well, let’s see. His birthday was last month, and there was a cake in the teacher’s lounge for him. If I remember correctly, the frosting said sixty-something. My guess is sixty-five, but it could have been sixty-four. That half of the frosting was gone by the time I got a slice.”

As if the difference between sixty-four and sixty-five was the problem.

“Dad, that’s older than you!” Karim laughed.

He shrugged. “It was worth a shot. Maybe my daughter likes older men.” Pausing, he shook his head. “Nevermind. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

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