I’ve been putting it off, listening to a lot of concerned voice mails that have been responded to with brief texts just so she knows I’m alive. But this seems like as good a time as any, if for no other reason than when she scans the screen for clues to my mental well-being, she’ll notice that I’ve showered and am out of the house.

I put on my headphones and start up FaceTime. She answers on the second ring. I see her face for a second before my screen is filled up with the white and purple flowers on her shirt as she hugs the iPad to her.

“Oh, thank God. Ahmad, come here. It’s Miles.”

She sets up the iPad on the table in front of her and brings her face closer to it, as if that’ll help her peer at me better.

“At least you’re out of the house. But you look skinny,” she says, like all Jewish moms from time immemorial. “Have you been eating?”

My father comes strolling in then, wearing his standard outfit of a neat, striped button-down with two pens—one red and one black—tucked in the pocket. He is the only person I know who uses an actual pocket protector and is not a stock nerd from an eighties comic book.

“Miles. How are you?” Baba asks. He’s been in America for what will be fifty years next year, but he still has never lost his faint Egyptian accent. My mom looking at me with concern is one thing, but my dad doing the same means I should’ve called them ages ago.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“Liar,” my mom immediately responds, putting on her cat-eye reading glasses and staring me down.

“Okay,” I respond. “Not exactly fine. But I’m doing better.” Of course I had to tell them the wedding was off. And of course, this being my parents, I had to tell them why—the real reason. Though I’d let Aisha handle explaining most of the gory details.

“When are you going to come visit?” they say then, practically in unison.

See, everyone thinks that Jews and Muslims are mortal enemies, that my parentage shouldn’t even be possible, let alone harmonious. But what they don’t know is that there are so many similarities, it’s practically laughable. Starting with the parental guilt skills. Separately, they are forces to be reckoned with, but together, they are unbeatable. Like when the Power Rangers all united to make the Megazord.

“Soon,” I say.

My mom raises her eyebrows and I just know she’s about to call me a liar again.

“I promise,” I say. There are very few things that would drag me down to God’s Waiting Room, aka Florida, but seeing my parents is one of them. Especially if I’m feeling extra mopey about love, fearing that it doesn’t really exist....