The Brevity of Roses (15 page)

Since the moment she turned toward the porch with Jalal, Meredith had stood transfixed. The moderate resemblance between the three brothers did not surprise her, but standing in front of Jalal’s father, she felt she was gazing thirty years or so into the future. Except for the older man’s trim beard and mustache, a father and son had never looked more alike. Finally, she came to her senses and respectfully lowered her eyes.

“Baba,” said Jalal, “this is Meredith. Meredith, this is my father, Korush Vaziri.”

She said, “
Salam, Agha Vaziri
.
Az molaghat e sham khosh vaghtam
.”

Jalal’s father cried, “Ha!” and clapped his hands in delight. Smiling broadly, he grasped her hand with both his. “
Salam,
Meredith.
Khosh ’umadi.
Welcome to our home. Please, you may call me Korush. Come.” He laid a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the door. Inside, he led her toward the fireplace, and motioned for her to take the chair beside his massive leather recliner.

Within seconds, she had a glass in one hand and a small plate balanced on her knees. Muted conversation swirled around the room, and she sensed Jalal standing behind her, but she kept her eyes on Korush, who spoke in a steady stream of Farsi that required all her concentration to translate. He leaned toward her with interest as she responded to his questions and made appropriate comments, stumbling only once or twice. After awhile, they spoke as much in English as Farsi, and she relaxed.

Korush asked her a few more questions about her work and the travel involved and then, he sat back and grasped the arms of his chair. He smiled and declared, “Our meal should be ready soon, Meredith.”

Jalal laid a hand on her shoulder, and she realized his father had just dismissed her. She rose. “Thank you, Korush. I’ll see if I can do something to help Nasrin now.” Jalal stepped forward to take her seat, and pointed her toward the kitchen. Now that she was free to look around the room, she realized she was the only woman there. It seemed the women in this family gravitated to the kitchen by preference rather than decree. Before she passed from the living room, she glanced back. Korush, jabbering away again, leaned in toward his youngest son, but Jalal sat as grim and rigid as any monolith on Rapa Nui.

Jalal’s mother and sisters along with what she assumed were his sisters-in-law and three of his nieces were busy preparing the meal. She slipped in and stood quietly just inside the kitchen door, hoping no one would ask her to do anything complicated.

Azadeh was the first to spot her. “Meredith, come in, come in,” she said, motioning her forward.

Meredith glanced at the sink full of pans and cooking utensils. “Would you like me to start washing up?”

Two of the teens said “Yes!” so quickly she laughed. She had evidently volunteered to do their job.

“Oh, no. You are our guest.” Nasrin patted a stool beside her. “Come sit and talk.” She gestured through introductions. “This is Jamileh, Navid’s wife, and over there is Farhad’s wife Tala with their two oldest girls Souri and Rasa, who now call themselves Brianna and Megan. This one here is Shadi’s daughter Jessica. And underfoot inside and out are all the rest of my grandchildren.” Nasrin’s smile spoke to the pride she took in her large family.

As though on cue, two more little girls ran through the kitchen and out the door to join the group of children playing in the yard. A playpen sat in the corner to keep the toddlers in sight, yet out of harm. It was hard to tell whose children they were since at one time or another each of the women picked up a tossed toy or cup, or offered morsels of food. When the distant sound of a crying baby grew closer, Goli dropped her spoon on the stove top and pressed her forearms against her ample breasts. A pre-teen girl entered the kitchen carrying the newborn and handed him to Goli who pulled up a stool to the stove and sat. In seconds, she had lifted her shirt, offered a nipple, and picked up her spoon to continue stirring. The chatter among the women never missed a beat.

The women worked as a team, their movements automatic. The real action in the room came in conversation. The topics ranged from cooking to shopping to children to men. She marveled at their candor, noting they made no concession to the young girls in the room, indicating an intimacy, an honesty she had not shared with her own mother. And when the talk eventually worked around to sex, she was surprised to hear Nasrin hold her own. Once again, Meredith found the contrast with her mother striking. More than once, she had wondered if the night her parents conceived her had been the only time they had ever indulged in intercourse—and that was the word her mother used when she attempted to give her the ‘facts of life speech.’ By then, of course, she had already discovered most of those facts in the backseats of her boyfriends’ cars.

In the Vaziri’s kitchen, the familiar dialogue of the mother and daughters often extended a hand to the sisters-in-law, and after only a few minutes, Meredith discovered herself counted as one of them. Yet, when Goli surprised her by laying her sleeping baby in Meredith’s arms, her first thought was to protest like a spinster aunt. Then, the sweet milk smell of the baby’s skin wafted up and she cradled him close while gazing at his face through suddenly moist eyes. In the comfort of these women, she was free to imagine herself a mother, an aunt, or, at her age, even a grandmother.

Too soon, the meal was ready. The dishes were set out buffet style in the dining room. The mothers called their children in to wash their hands and take seats at the kitchen table and counters. The men did indeed line up first to fill their plates. Meredith held back. Jalal caught her eye and gave her a wink, then grinned and motioned for her to come join him. The adults sat around the living room. The women grew quieter, especially Farhad’s and Navid’s wives. Meredith glanced around the room and saw no overt animosity between the men and women. Yet the contrast between those two couples and the others was clear.

Azadeh’s husband Sam was a bit of a loud mouth in general, but spoke respectfully to her. Shadi seemed to overshadow her husband, not the other way around. Goli and her husband appeared to be equals. Meredith suspected Ziba’s young husband, a non-Persian, neither thought nor hoped to keep her under his thumb. But most of the time, Tala and Jamileh kept their eyes lowered, and when either of them spoke it was always with a little sideways flick of their eyes to gauge their husband’s reaction. She understood the culture; Farhad and Navid had likely married
old country
women, taught to assume a place of subservience to their husbands. Her understanding did nothing to quell her fury. She set her fork on her plate and pressed her fist against her thigh to still its shaking. Jamileh responded to someone’s question and Meredith looked across the room at this woman, so lively and bold in the kitchen, now timid in her husband’s shadow. With a shock, she recognized herself. After she married Stephen, she had given him complete control of her life.

Each of the four days they spent in Seattle, pushed Jalal deeper into gloom. Meredith found herself observing him trying to understand why. It was his relationship to the other men in the family that most intrigued her. Though Farhad and Navid teased him about his aversion to air travel, she deemed it good-natured, and they tried often to draw Jalal into their business discussions with questions and comments she thought only indicated they respected Jalal’s opinion. Yet when she and Jalal were alone, he grumbled about their attempts to alternately “use” and “dispute” his financial savvy. On a far different level was Jalal’s give and take with his father.

She had warmed to Korush immediately, and though Jalal had warned her of his father’s charm, she felt he was genuine. His demeanor was authoritative, but not dictatorial. He seemed a loving patriarch. Nothing she saw in his attention and attitude toward Jalal indicated anything else, but the flow the other way was a study in contradictions. Jalal spoke as little as possible to his father, yet sat next to him at every opportunity. He professed himself to be nothing like the man, yet from a vantage point across the room, she noted how many identical gestures and facial expressions enhanced their physical resemblance. Even Jalal’s speech pattern echoed his father’s, though less accented. Sudden understanding pierced her heart and she excused herself to the solitude of a bathroom. In silence, she wept for Jalal’s longing.

Paris was Jalal’s city. He spun into a whirlwind of activity focused on food, wine, poetry, music, art, and some of the most fascinating people Meredith had ever met, leaving her breathless and giddy. She had visited the city many times, but never before seen it through the eyes of a man she loved.

When they had been home only five weeks from their first Paris trip, wanderlust struck again, and they set off to spend the last ten days of February in the Greek islands. Jalal delighted her by turning out to be every bit as adventurous a traveler as she was, trying on the culture like a colorful shirt. Then, late in March, after celebrating
Nowruz
and Nasrin’s birthday with his family, Jalal and Meredith returned to the Mediterranean, visiting Sicily and the Italian and French Rivieras before returning to Paris. April in Paris, only a poet could have planned it so perfectly.

No doubt, there would be more travel in their future. Jalal brought home another travel magazine nearly every day:
Caribbean Travel & Life, Ireland of the Welcomes, South American Explorer.
For the first time in at least twenty years—maybe the first time ever, when she thought about it—she enjoyed her life. Her new life. With all the traveling, she had lost touch with a lot of her old life, especially her gardening. Since she had been nearly six thousand miles away and missed the spring bloom, today she was pruning the spent roses to encourage another round in June. Though it was a good bet she wouldn’t see that bloom either. This morning, over a fresh strawberry tart, they discovered neither of them had ever visited Australia. Could an issue of
Australian Traveler
be long in coming?

Finished with the breakfast clean up, Jalal came into the garden and sat down on the bench next to where she was working. “This is a paradise you have created around you,” he said.

Meredith paused to admire it herself. “I’m glad it pleases you, but it wasn’t hard to do. If you start with good soil and healthy plants, then it’s just a matter of feeding and watering and pruning … and pest control.”

He laughed. “No, that certainly sounds like no work at all.”

She turned to him, hands on hips. “You’re mocking me again.”

He pulled her into his lap. “I never mock you. I only try to make you see how often you underestimate yourself.”

“You think too much of me, and not enough of yourself.” She brushed aside his hair and kissed his forehead. “Now, let me up so I can finish the pruning.”

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist. He took a breath. “Meredith …”

His face was blank. She couldn’t even read his eyes. “Jalal?”

He took a deeper breath this time. “Will you marry me?”

Oh, god!
His question slammed her like a fist to the chest leaving her heart beating so wildly her breath puffed back out before reaching her lungs. She froze. The idea—the what if—of marrying Jalal had flittered through her mind more than once, but she had never allowed it to light. She had never quite believed they would reach that point.

After Stephen’s death, when she felt she could not bear another day alone, she would wake at the first glow of dawn and lie there willing the sun back down below the horizon. Now, again, she wanted to turn back time, to yesterday, to last week, or better yet, to August, before she knew Jalal existed. Back to when her heart had turned cold and hard and unbreakable. She wished Jalal’s question to be unasked.

Desperate to say the right thing, she said nothing at all. When she felt his arms loosen their hold, she jumped up and stepped away. For a moment, there was only silence. When Jalal finally spoke, his voice sounded so flat, so controlled, she took another step backward.

“It seems your answer is no,” he said.

Her eyes stung. She bit down on her lip, willing herself not to cry.

“I deserve to know why,” he said.

Meredith gave way to desperation. There was no way out, no way back to the easy relationship they had developed, no way to pretend he hadn’t asked for more than she could give. She pleaded with him. “Why aren’t you happy just to be with me?”

“I
am
happy to be with you,” he said, “but I would be happier to be with you as your husband.”

“Why? What difference would that make? How would that better our relationship?” Hardly had she asked the questions before anger surged forward, shoving all other feeling aside.
His ego has ruined everything. Everything.
“Why do you feel some need to own me, Jalal?”

“What the—” He leapt to his feet, coming face to face with her, eyes flashing. “Where the hell did that come from?” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe she had asked the question. “I only want to
marry
you.”