“Amir,” my mom snapped. She was growing frustrated. “Enough is enough. This is all very American of you. This whole running away thing is American. Come home.”

That’s what my parents said about gay people, the one time the topic came up at the dinner table: “It’s an American thing. It’s part of their culture. Not ours.” I remember sitting there quietly as Soraya argued with them, my heart sinking in my chest.

Sometimes I would tell myself that if I’d just been born into a nice, liberal, American family, none of this would be a problem. I wouldn’t be a double whammy. I would just be me.

The line got silent. “I have to go,” I said, ending the call.

Interrogation Room 38

Roya Azadi

I WAS TERRIFIED after that phone call. If I could have just known what was on Amir’s mind—if I could tell him he could trust me, that we could just talk about it . . . In any case, I remember I looked at my husband differently after Amir hung up. Before, he had assured me that Amir would come home, that it was just like the last time he had left home. Something had happened, and he needed to get away for a few days. But this wasn’t like the last time anymore. Or maybe it was. Because the last time Amir had run away, it had been over a comment. My husband had said—he had said something unkind about a trans . . . transgender woman on television, and he and Amir got into an argument. Amir called us backward, and he stormed out of the house and didn’t come home until the next day.

We did not call the police then. And we certainly couldn’t call them this time. Our son was eighteen. We knew well enough that they couldn’t make an eighteen-year-old come home. And we didn’t want it to look bad for Amir, that he had left home.

We told Soraya we were in touch with Amir. She asked to talk to him herself, but we said he needed space. That we were handling it.

I keep thinking back to the last time. The last time, Amir came home on his own. The last time, he didn’t pick up when we called him. The last time, he just walked back into the house the next day, saying salaam, as if he had just come home from the grocery store, and before my husband could raise his voice, I clenched his hand and said salaam back to our son. We never talked about it. It was as if Amir had never left.

Now I see the bigger picture.

Twenty-Eight Days Ago

I HAD TO check out of my Airbnb that day. Waking up was a struggle, not just because of the anvils pounding against my head, but because I had the fuzziest memory of that phone call with my parents. I knew this much: it did not go well, and they still didn’t know, and I would not be going home.