“Anyway, I came home and--” She was crying. “Excuse me.” I heard her put the phone down. Blow her nose. “Sorry,” she came back on, sounding hoarse. “When I came home, I saw my mother had had a stroke, the right side of her face was paralyzed and... I felt so guilty. She didn’t deserve that.
“Padar moved us to California shortly after.” A silence followed.
“How are you and your father now?” I said.
“We’ve always had our differences, we still do, but I’m grateful he came for me that day. I really believe he saved me.” She paused. “So, does what I told you bother you?”
“A little,” I said. I owed her the truth on this one. I couldn’t lie to her and say that my pride, my iftikhar, wasn’t stung at all that she had been with a man, whereas I had never taken a woman to bed. It did bother me a bit, but I had pondered this quite a lot in the weeks before I asked Baba to go khastegari. And in the end the question that always came back to me was this: How could I, of all people, chastise someone for their past?
“Does it bother you enough to change your mind?”
“No, Soraya. Not even close,” I said. “Nothing you said changes anything. I want us to marry.”
She broke into fresh tears.
I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her how I’d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didn’t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them.