I looked for Amir in the crowd of students. I looked for his face in the ocean of red caps and gowns. Nothing.
I texted Amir. Many times. Outside the auditorium, we were surrounded by caps and gowns, all the families snapping photos like paparazzi. It hadn’t hit me yet that we wouldn’t get to take photos like that with our son.
During the ceremony, a tall, wiry boy kept looking our way. He would approach us and then back away, almost like he wanted to talk to us. He had very messy hair. I remember thinking, This boy’s mother needs to get him to a barber. He had looked quite nervous.
Maybe you should talk to him, Officer?
Interrogation Room 38
Soraya
FU—FREAKING JAKE. I’m sorry. I don’t usually cuss. But if I’d known who he was that day, I would have kicked him right in the balls. Yes, Mom, that was Jake. And I hate him even more now, knowing that he almost talked to us on graduation day.
Amir didn’t have any friends at his new school, as far as we knew, so we called Lexa and Arun, his best friends from Maryland, to see if they’d heard from him. They told us Amir hadn’t contacted them. In fact, they said he’d gone kind of radio silent on them after Thanksgiving, right when Amir started—well, I’ll get to that. Apparently, they had tried reaching out to Amir a few weeks before graduation. They hadn’t heard anything from him about college, and they remembered how much he always wanted to go to college in New York. They said it was an awkward FaceTime call. Amir was moody. They said he didn’t really want to talk about his future at all.
That really worried my parents. We checked his room and there was nothing. No note. But then Mom went and checked his drawers, and she noticed a bunch of underwear and shirts were missing. He’d gone somewhere. We called his cell phone, but it kept going straight to voicemail. That really worried my parents. Where had he gone?
When he finally called us back, my parents were so freaking relieved. It was like someone told them they had won a million dollars. I’m not kidding: my mom actually jumped and clapped her hands when she heard the caller ID. But then they found out Amir was at the airport, and he just weirdly hung up on us. My dad got really quiet. I could tell he was thinking about the last time Amir had run away from home—two years ago. “Damn it,” he said abruptly. “What did I say this time?” Then he looked at me and smiled. “Don’t worry, joonam. Your brother will come home.”
The house was so quiet that first night without Amir. It was dark, empty, dead. When I was little, I always imagined death like walking in the dark. I know, I was so dramatic back then. I was such a baby. You remember, Mom? When I would run into your bedroom and sleep between you and Dad because I was scared? For the record, I don’t do that anymore, Officer.
The next morning, I asked my parents if they were going to call the police so they could look for Amir. We had all gotten up early, when it was barely light outside. My mom and dad were standing against the stovetop with their crystal tea glasses. They looked at me with these fake smiles and told me not to worry.
No, Mom, that’s exactly what you said. In your fantasy world, Amir was going to come home on his own, just like the last time. And then, in your fantasy world, you would bury whatever issue he had under the Persian rug. Again.
But I know my brother. He hadn’t been happy for a while. And this time was different.
The house felt dead at night and broken during the day. I would eat my Cheerios at the breakfast table, and Amir wasn’t there to tell me to hurry up before they got soggy. My friend Madison would come over, and I couldn’t laugh at her jokes. One time, I had to run into the bathroom just to breathe. It was the third or fourth day after Amir left. I just leaned my head against the medicine cabinet and—please don’t be mad, Mom, but I thought maybe I would run away myself. Home just didn’t feel like home without Amir.
I thought about my favorite book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. You’ve read it with your daughter, ma’am? That’s so cool. It made me wonder: if Amir really did run away, why didn’t he take me with him—like Claudia and Jamie? We had always been pretty close. I couldn’t imagine the Amir I knew leaving his little sister without saying goodbye. Unless he had a really good reason to leave.
I needed to figure out that reason. That’s when I put on my detective hat. Step one: I started talking to the people in his life.
Interrogation Room 37
Amir
ALL RIGHT: I’VE given you all the details you asked for—flight number, time, the address where I stayed in Rome. I’ve shown you the Expedia flight confirmation, the Airbnb receipt, the receipt for the euros I took out at currency exchange, even the picture of the New York City skyline I took from my plane seat. But I’m serious: this trip happened because of gelato. It came together at the last minute, at JFK, and the sole reason I decided on Rome is because I happened upon the sweetest form of ice cream. There were no terrorists. No friends. Just ice cream.
Thirty Days Ago
THE NEXT THING I knew, I was sitting in the middle of a tiny attic apartment I had booked at the last minute. A literal closet. (The irony was not lost on me.) That was when the sum total of my last twenty-four hours of traveling finally started thudding against my head.
It started lightly and then knocked harder and harder as I stared outside my tiny window at the slant of the rooftop. I let my eyes follow the red tile, down the white building walls, the clay windowsills, all the way to the courtyard, where there was a sexy red Vespa sitting on a bed of cracked brick.
And then, a full-on thwack: Holy shit. I was in Rome. They say stress makes you do crazy things. And I mean, I basically blacked out and booked an international trip. That’s like the time I fell asleep on the NYC subway and ended up in Harlem, but on a plane. I don’t remember going to the international departures gate; I don’t remember the flight; I don’t remember the bus ride into Rome or fitting the key in the hole or taking off my shoes.
I rushed outside, onto the street. There I was: Via della Gensola. Moss-covered walls. Cobble. A couple whizzed by on a Vespa, and my gaze turned with them as they stopped at the end of the street and made out for a few seconds before disappearing into the restaurant. It was the most Italian thing ever.
I ran back to my apartment. I burst into the tiny bathroom, nearly bulldozing the ancient water heating system, and stared at my face in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes. Dark bags underneath them.
Looking at myself, there, I knew: You’ve gone too far this time, Amir.
Through my tiny window, I watched it get dark outside. I listened to the clanging of pots and pans from somewhere down below. I heard bells chiming. I smelled fried onion and garlic rising up. There was something freeing about being thousands of miles away from my problems. It didn’t erase them completely, but the distance helped. It always does.