A mother’s job is simple: it is to love her children, unconditionally. I am beginning to realize that from the moment my children were born, I have looked at them and loved them with certain conditions in mind.

It’s time I change the way I look at the people I love. I’ll admit that. It’s time I look at Amir not with the weight of answers, but with the comfort of questions. Perhaps more of us should look at one another in that way.

A friend of mine with older children likes to say that at the beginning of your children’s lives, you are teaching them. But there comes a point in life when they begin to teach you. I am starting to see that point. The ship is turning around. It will be a stormy ride, but we are going to make it through this journey together. All of us.

Interrogation Room 37

Amir

THAT’S ALL? YOU’RE sure there isn’t anything else you need?

Thank you for returning my phone, sir. It looks like I have a couple of messages. Oh. A few of them are from Jahan. Voicemail. I don’t think I can listen to these right now. I’ll wait until I’m alone.

Can I tell you one last thing? One time in Rome, I was supposed to meet Jahan at Piazza Testaccio. Just the two of us. There was a performer in the square that day, a man in a fedora, who was playing pop songs on his violin. Soraya and I used to love listening to this string quartet on YouTube that played pop music, and I just immediately thought of her. This was right after she had told my parents that I was gay, and I knew she still felt awful about it. So I called her. Soraya picked up and said, “How many times can I tell you I’m sorry?” And I said, “Don’t worry about it, just listen.”

I kept Soraya on the phone for a while. I just wanted to listen with her. Eventually, I saw Jahan approaching, but I kept Soraya on the line until the very last second, when Jahan came up and put his hand on my shoulder and said “ciao.” I hung up the phone a second later. But in that tiny moment, it was like my two worlds had merged.

That moment tasted sweeter than gelato.

In a perfect world, I would get two families. My Iranian family and my big, colorful gay one. I would get two communities. Two chances to be myself. My whole self. That should be the only number, the only score I have to keep. Two. It shouldn’t have to look like a scoreboard. It should be simple.

Please don’t get up, sir. I need more time. I need to put on a happy face before I see my family.

I need to breathe.

It is such a privilege, you know? To get to be yourself, all of yourself, in this great big world. To wear it like a tattoo, like all of Jahan’s tattoos: permanent and out there for the whole world to see.