“Yes! Please come back.” Layla gives him another hug.

“It will make us very happy, son,” Mansoor adds. “I can pay for any change fees for your flight, too.”

“I can’t, Pappa. I’m sorry,” he says, irritated by the offer. As usual, his father has no concept of money. He extends his hand to his father, relieved to finally be at the end of his visit.

“Very well, Mr. Executive Sir,” Mansoor says, grasping the limp-fish fingers of his son’s hand. Was it always this weak? A strong handshake—that’s a man’s business card. A man’s power is in his body, everyone knows that.

Chapter 9

IN THE BACK OF the limousine, Ashif struggles to breathe. His father’s loan is going to wipe out his savings. He’ll have to start again. Stay at his job longer. At least another decade. He gasps for air. He tries to open his window. It’s locked. He bangs on the glass separating him from the driver. The partition rolls down. He yells at the driver to stop. The driver pulls onto the shoulder, screeches to a halt. Ashif throws open the door. Stumbles down the embankment into a field of snow. He sucks in the cold air. In and out. He can’t get enough. In and out. He’s desperate. As if he’s dying.

When Ashif was a child, he didn’t like crowds or too much noise. Not even excessive light. He found it overwhelming. And exhausting. Like an overloaded machine that shuts down. Instead, he preferred to stay in his room and read fairy tales or make up little stories. He could do it for hours on end, without ever getting bored, as if he was lost in a wonderous world that he never wanted to leave.

One day his father found his notebooks. The boxfuls of stories he kept under his bed. Ashif was sure he’d love them. But he didn’t. He wasn’t mad, he told him, but disappointed that he was wasting his time. He was old enough to know better. He was now eight. Ashif tried to explain. These were his science journals. His observations. That’s what his teacher, Ms. Clarke, called them. But his father said she was wrong. This was not science. It was fiction and it had no value.

“It’ll only distract you from important subjects like math and science. The ones that really count.” His father then told him he had no choice but to take his notebooks away.

“Please, Pappa. Don’t,” he begged, his voice cracking.

“No crying, okay?”

“But I love them, Pappa….” Ashif said, unable to stop his tears.

“This is not the kind of thing to love!” His voice was firm and strong.

A new thought pelted him like a hailstone. There must be something wrong with him. Why else did he love something he wasn’t supposed to? He was ashamed of himself.

“Trust me, son,” his father said as he pulled out the other boxes from under his bed. “One day, you’ll thank me.”