Here, little child growing up on an alien world, here is some information about your culture, your ethnic group. Or rather, the culture, the ethnic group that is attached to your genetic heritage. Your culture, your ethnic group, are extinct. You have no context for any of this, or why it matters, because you were raised on an alien world by people from a culture that no longer exists. So go, build your own culture, and feel free to learn about the old ones, but it won’t mean anything. Your ancestors are nothing but a genome, and your culture is nothing but a string of binary code on a hard drive.

Kaveh turned toward the bay window that looked into the kitchen. Leila was talking with her hands as she was wont to do, engaged in what looked like a reenactment of some social absurdity, and his mother and aunt looked absolutely scandalized. They’d long moved on from the dark happenings of the previous night, and now Nasser was laughing to his uncle and Ramin about some YouTube clip of the Wolfgang Petersen movie Troy with a hilarious Persian dub.

And in the backyard, he could hear Cora in conversation with Ava on the other side of the wall, probably by the weeping willow down by the stream at the bottom of the hill.

If we leave, what exactly are we saving? he wondered. Are we really saving anything by sneaking out some embryos? What are we, if not our culture, our social groups, our civilization?

Just strings of DNA and RNA.

He couldn’t do this.

Kaveh followed their voices and found them gingerly fingering the willow’s branches. Cora’s eyes brightened when she saw him. “Ava was telling me how much water this tree needs.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a flex,” he said. He winked at his niece. “Daie, could you give us a minute?”

Ava smiled at him in a way that made him think they might have been “girl talking” about him before he’d arrived. “Sure thing,” she said, and she skipped back toward the house.

“Do you like my tree?” he asked, approaching Cora. “Not as majestic as if it had been planted on the banks of the Mississippi, but at least it’s really expensive to keep alive.”

“Is this your tree?” she asked with a laugh.

“Yeah,” he said, reaching up to touch one of the drooping branches. “I remember countless childhood summers frolicking under this tree.”

She backed away, a smile playing at her lips, until her back was against the trunk of the tree and his feet were an inch away from hers.

“I’m just kidding. They bought this house in 1997.” He kissed her, a long, soft, gentle kiss, and she melted into it. He pulled away, looked at her sleepy expression, and said, “Come to New York with me.”

She went on alert like she’d been doused with cold water. “What?”