Page 102 of Grave Danger
Yasmin was in the back seat in her booster, looking out the window, as their car inched forward in the long line to the campus exit.
“Did you know the longest one-syllable word in the English language is ‘strengthed’?”
Zahra caught her daughter’s eye in the rearview mirror. “That doesn’t even sound like an actual word. Can you use it in a sentence?”
“I just did.”
Zahra thought about it, and then they shared a laugh. Laughing almost made her want to cry. “You’re such a clever little girl.”
The drive home was neither the time nor the place to break the bad news to Yasmin. Zahra tried her best to act as if nothing was wrong, which was impossible.
Her immediate reaction to the judge’s ruling had been shock and disbelief. Her mind and body had gone completely numb. Only in the last couple of hours had she become functional enough to process actual thoughts, none of which were pretty. She was angry at Farid, but even angrier at herself for losing to him. She was angry at the so-called justice system, but mostly angry at herself for having put her faith in it. She was angry at Iran, at the US State Department, at the judge, at Jack—but it all came back to angry at herself. The result was a car ride in complete silence and rumination, which was anything but normal.
“Are you okay, Mommy?”
“Uh—yes, sweetheart. I just have a lot on my mind.”
Zahra parked in the driveway. They went inside and dropped their shoes near the door. In a hurry to get out of her school clothes, Yasmin ran to her bedroom. Zahra went to the kitchen. It was Friday, which meant Jumu’ah, but attendance at the mosque was optional for women, especially for mothers with childcare obligations. Zahra assumed that went double for a mother planning her last meal ever with her daughter.
“Yasmin, what do you want for dinner tonight?” she asked in a voice loud enough to be heard upstairs. The patter of footsteps preceded Yasmin’s quick entry to the kitchen.
“Toot,” she said as she climbed onto the stool at the counter.
Tootwas a popular Iranian sweet made with almond powder and sugar, then shaped into colorful bite-size pieces that resembled mulberries. Yasmin had once declared it “better than cookie dough.”
“Okay, we have dessert covered. What do you want for dinner?”
“What are my choices?”
“You can have anything you want.”
“Really? Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Moretoot!”
Zahra smiled, but it pained her to think how much she was going to miss Yasmin. She sent her to the pantry to gather the ingredients while she cleared their workspace on the counter. Yasmin returned with almost everything.
“You forgot the rosewater,” said Zahra.
Yasmin crinkled her nose. “Rosewater doesn’t taste like roses.”
“How do roses taste?”
“They should definitely taste like chocolate.”
Zahra loaded the slivered almonds into the food processor. “Yes, they should. We’ll just use a little rosewater, for fragrance.”
Zahra loved cooking with Yasmin, and Yasmin loved being her helper. Zahra wasn’t ready to let go. She didn’t know how she would ever let go.
They worked side by side, getting the dough just right, enough for two dozen mulberry-shaped sweets, more than enough for dinner and dessert. Yasmin was adding the final touch, a sliver of almond that was the “stem” for each mulberry, when Zahra’s cell phone rang. The caller ID read, “Dr. Vestry.” Jack had told her to expect the call. Zahra wiped her hands clean of sugary dough, told Yasmin to carry on, and stepped outside to take the call, closing the sliding glass door behind her.
“Do you have a moment to talk?” Dr. Vestry asked.
Zahra glanced through the glass door at Yasmin in the kitchen. “A minute,” she said.
Zahra had met Dr. Vestry only once before, at Jack’s office. Dr. Vestry had laid out the pros and cons of having Yasmin testify. She’d warned Zahra that even if they decided not to put Yasmin on the witness stand, Judge Carlton might take her into his chambers and interview the child himself, using the same techniques that Dr. Vestry would use to prepare a child to testify in court—drawing pictures of her family, playing with dolls, and so on. The doctor had proven quite prophetic.