I was lying on my forearms against the couch, absently looking at the art on the living room wall. Aunt Naomi sat cross-legged on the floor with a stack of papers on her lap and her laptop open to a grading system. She looked up after seeing the time on her screen.

"Wow, I didn't know it was eight already!" she exclaimed, turning around to face me. "You want to go out for dinner?" I shook my head. Her eyes softened as they held my gaze. "Not in the mood, huh?"

"Yeah," I smiled a little. "Besides, I don't want to trouble you. Ordering in sounds easier."

"You'd have to do much more than just talk to a boy online and spend the night to trouble me," she said, shaking her head.

"Wait! Isn't today Saturday?" I shifted on the sofa. "Shouldn't you have any plans with your fiancé?"

"He happens to be out of town tonight. So, no plans. We can order Chinese. How's that sound?"

I froze, now realizing what the recurring phrase from my aunt meant. Out of town. He wasn't in New York at all if Aunt Naomi had dropped everything behind to help Mama.

"He's in Texas, you mean."

Aunt Naomi kept her gaze steady, reading my thoughts. "Don't feel bad for me, Inaya. I don't regret what I did."

"But why didn't he move with you?"

"Well," my aunt turned away partially, leaning back into the base of the sofa. "He supported my decision to move with your mom, but he had his whole life set up there. It's hard to quit ten acres of farmland."

"Oh."

"We were supposed to get married the week after it all happened, too," Aunt Naomi added. There wasn't any sadness in her voice, but the nostalgia was there. "So, we ended up going to court to have our marriage vows the morning before I left. We didn't have a wedding...I guess the word husband never stuck with me."

Before Aunt Naomi could go on, the doorbell rang. She frowned.

I threw a headscarf over my head as she stood and went to the door. I looked over the sofa and saw Mama in a navy blue abaya and a tan-colored hijab. The redness in her eyes told me all I needed to know about how my mama was doing with the news of Nanu's death.

"Hey," Mama softly greeted as she walked inside.

I steeled myself.

"I'm going to get us some food," Aunt Naomi called in the background, grabbing her wallet to make herself scarce.

"Inaya," Mama started. "I'm sorry we fought—"

"No," I cut her off and rushed forward to hug her. I couldn't imagine being in Mama's position and didn't want to turn CrusadEon Online and Valentino into another headache. "I'm the one who's sorry. You've been through a lot. I didn't know."

"That's why I'm sorry, kiddo," Mama sniffled. "I shouldn't have kept those things from you for so long. It's...like lying."

"Mama," I squeezed her.

We held each other for a few moments, eyes shut. When she finally pulled away from our embrace, Mama took a shaky breath.

"I talked with your baba." She sighed. "And you're right. We've decided that we're going to give your nanu our last respect after all, even if my siblings don't expect me there." There was a flash of determination in her eyes. "Well, even if they don't want me there, I'm still going to be there. She's still my ammu, after all." Tears rolled down her face. "And I'm sure...that's what my abbu would want, too. Oh, Inaya, he loved you so much." Mama started to sob at the end of her sentence.

My own tears streamed down my cheeks, and I pulled my mom back into an embrace. My nana had always been close to me—in life and in death.

For a while, the two of us shared a quiet embrace, with only hiccups and sniffles filling the air around us. I thought about how Valentino's dad had lost Islam when he separated from his wife. How Valentino's memories of Islam were limited only to the age when they were still together.

"Mama, is this why you always avoided talking about your childhood? And why we never dress up for your culture?"

My mom gently pulled away from the embrace. "You could say that. I wanted to distance you from the past that traumatized me so much." She sniffled away the remnants of her tears. "I'm so sorry I hid it all. I pretended they didn't exist," Mama rambled. "I kept telling you how bad it is to lie when I was doing the same thing to you. You had a family, a sister, grandparents, and the culture they raised me in. I was pretending we were ordinary Americans when we weren't. Bangladesh runs through your veins, too."

"It's okay," I whispered, more for the sake of saying it than meaning it.

"Inaya, you can stay here while we go to Texas. Please make dua to Allah to forgive your nanu. If you don't know how to make dua for the deceased, one of the books at home explains it. You can tell Aunt Naomi to get it for you or find it at the mosque."

"Okay." I sniffled. "I will, Mama."

"My beautiful girl." Mama cupped my face, brushing away a stray tear, and smiled faintly. "I love you so much."

I felt my chest swell. Mama's eyes were misty like mine.

"Y'know, your baba also confessed to hiding something, too. I think you know what I'm talking about."

I inhaled sharply. "Yeah. I was angry at Baba for what he was doing," I mumbled, looking down at her hands.

"I can only imagine. But I think I always knew...I just didn't know how badly he was struggling. It's right for me to hold anything against him for his drug habit, so I don't want you to, okay? Admitting to it is the first step to recovery." Mama paused. "He also told me you knew about it but didn't tell me. You trusted him to come clean to me on his own time and his own terms—something I should've trusted you to do as well." My mom took a deep breath. "I should've given you the time to think about what you were doing instead of forcing an ultimatum on you. I should've trusted you to do the right thing on your own time. I'm sorry."

"Mama, believe me," I confessed. "I was planning to stop playing CrusadEon Online after you found out, but then Valentino looked so sad and tired at school, and it was all because I wasn't logging in anymore. And then, there's this one girl at school who's crazy about him, and...and it made me so upset that there's a guy who really likes me, but I can't do anything about it. I wanted to keep playing for his sake and mine." I buried my face into my hands, both embarrassed and ashamed for proving Mama right about feelings getting involved and hurting Valentino.

"Oh, Inaya," Mama said, standing from her seat to kneel before me. "It's normal to go through these things as Muslims. I'm sorry I wasn't being considerate."

I finally looked up to meet my mom's dark gaze.

"I'm going to be strong about this, like how you and Baba are. I'm going to do the right thing, even if it hurts me a little."

"You will? I'm so proud of you," Mama said, squeezing my hand.

We sat on the sofa and relaxed deeply into it. Mama sniffled, and I exhaled, grateful that everything that had been between us was now talked about. My eyes wandered to one of Aunt Naomi's graded papers. On top of the essay was a 98.

I sat up, remembering what Mrs. Asaka had said the other day. Mama sat up, too.

I turned to face her. "I forgot to tell you and Baba that I'm going to be the salutatorian for this year's graduation."

"What?!" Mama blinked. "That's so amazing, Inaya! Masha'Allah!" She went in for another hug, and I grinned as she squeezed me.

"Sorry, it's not valedictorian," I said over her shoulder.

My mom pulled away. "Inaya, it's okay. Your hard work paid off. Won't you get to be on stage just like valedictorian?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "I have to give a speech, too! But I've been so distracted with everything going on."

"Don't worry. I know you'll write something honest when you have the chance."

Aunt Naomi returned with the halal Chinese food shortly after so Mama could return home and pack for the trip. The funeral would be held in a few hours, but being in New York, they would make it in time—the Eastern Time Zone was ahead by two hours. Mama promised to pick me up Sunday night and hugged me again before she left.

* * *

Aunt Naomi drove me fifteen minutes to the nearest mosque. We wore matching hijabs. The mosque used to be a pizzeria, so it sported an old stone exterior and tables. On the inside, the floor was covered in red carpet, and at the front, there was a small wooden pulpit and mic where the imam would lead prayers and then give a khutbah after.

I read up on how to pray for my late grandma and recited parts of the Qur'an for her sake while Aunt Naomi told the imam of the mosque about the passing.

After the noon prayer, the imam asked the congregation's members to stay back a little. Behind his table, he spoke about my grandparents, asking everyone to offer prayers of mercy for the deceased and strength for our family to manage it. My eyes welled up with tears at the sight of several strangers doing exactly that, praying for my grandfather, who was the reason I was alive today, and for my broken with grief grandmother, whom I'd never met. Aunt Naomi stayed and sat with me the entire time.

My mind was no longer tangled with thoughts, and my heart wasn't hurting as much. Life would always be a roller coaster of emotion, and I was grateful to know Allah placed people in my life to be there for me when things got too painful. For the strangers who would do the same.

Mama's smile looked different when she and Baba came to pick me up that night. I could also hear it in my mom and dad's voices and see it in their faces, too, that they radiated a sense of peace because they'd finally let go. It gave me hope that my parents' struggles would get easier for them someday, better than where they had been for nearly the past decade and a half.

Before I went to bed, I went to use the bathroom, shuffling in the partial darkness of the house to get there. I overheard my parents speaking in the living room on my way back. The light was off, but the living room lamp was on, casting a sunset hue over them. I tip-toed closer to listen in.

"God, we're so messed up," my mom said. Her head was thrown back onto Baba's chest, and she stared at her hands as she spun the golden band on her finger. "I'm surprised Inaya came out normal."

"Yeah," Baba said with his eyes closed, "because she's a product of our love, not our depression."

Mama smiled at that. I smiled, too.

"Good point."

"You think...?" He let the question hang.

"I don't know. Inaya's a little old for a younger sibling."

I threw a hand over my mouth to hide my gasp.

"I think she's always wanted one. Remember her elefanta phase?"

"Yeah." Mama's voice went soft. "She remembered being a big sister even when Ruqaya was gone."

I tip-toed back to my room and picked up my cell phone. Using its flashlight, I dug through my closet to retrieve the purple, elephant-shaped plush I'd picked up at a Muslim novelty store in Denmark. It had followed me on most of my scrapbook journey. Hugging it, I closed my eyes.

One problem solved. Now, I needed to come clean to Valentino.