As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (29)

His arm falls, and I’m met once again with his brilliant green eyes. “Yes,” he says. I feel a shiver run up and down my back. “Yes, I want to.”

I let out a relieved breath. “Good. We have to ask Dr. Ziad’s permission, but I doubt he’ll mind. He’s all for this war.”

“Revolution, Salama,” Kenan says. His smile is sad. “It’s a revolution.”

I purse my lips. “Be at the hospital tomorrow at nine.”





As I walk back inside, I see Layla standing right in front of the door with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on her.

“Kenan, huh?” She wiggles her eyebrows and I groan. “You sounded awfully cozy there. I was this close to opening the door and marching over there myself to see what was happening.”

I push past her, heat claiming my cheeks, but she’s fast, grabbing my arm and turning me around.

“Why are you blushing?” she asks.

“I’m not,” I stutter.

She narrows her eyes. “Do you know him?”

“Yes?”

“Oh my God, if you’re going to drag out your answers, I will hit you on your head,” she says with a fierce look.

“Fine! I—we—he was the one who was supposed to come with his mother last year for the marriage talk thing.” I say it in a rush like I’m tearing off a Band-Aid.

Silence. Then…

“Ohmygosh!”

There’s no way to get a sentence in when Layla starts gushing. Everything I thought she would say and everything I didn’t yet think of bursts right out. Kenan and I are meant to be. This is fate. This is true love. I’m going to be happy. I will get married. We will be a power couple. She’ll be the lovable aunt our children will adore. This is great. Our children will grow up together. We will survive. Her chatter follows me from the kitchen to my room where I change into a fresh sweater and back into my lab coat—because I’m already late for my hospital shift—and I head to the front door again.

“Layla, that sounds nice and everything,” I finally say when she stops to breathe. “But we have bigger things to worry about.”

I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the words that will be my undoing. “I’ve decided we’re going to leave. I’m going to talk to Am and I’m going to find a way to pay for that boat.”

Layla stops short, her mouth dropping open. “What—what changed your mind?” she whispers.

I scratch at a stain on my sleeve. “Reality set in.”

Layla reaches out, grabs me by the shoulders, and hugs me tightly. “I know how hard this decision is for you. But you’re not doing anything wrong, okay?”

I say nothing, just breathing in her daisy scent.

“Say it,” she says fiercely. “Say you’re not doing anything wrong by leaving.”

I let out a choked laugh. “I’m… not doing anything wrong by leaving.”

She pulls away and brushes my cheeks. “Good.”

Before I walk out, she grabs my hand and I look at her.

“Salama,” she says, smiling. And with the sunlight pouring from the cracked door caressing her face, she looks like she did in the old days. Rosy cheeks and ocean-blue eyes sparkling with life. “It doesn’t hurt for you to think about your future. We don’t have to stop living because we might die. Anyone might die at any given moment, anywhere in the world. We’re not an exception. We just see death more regularly than they do.”

I think about Kenan and that might life. Saturday nights marathoning Ghibli movies. Collecting potted plants and flowers so our apartment is always filled with life. Having Layla and Baby Salama over for dinner and doting on my niece. Hamza and Kenan bonding over something like soccer or video games.

I clear my throat rather loudly. “Yeah, I’ll see you tonight, Layla.”

The smile she gives me mirrors Kenan’s in its melancholy.





“NO,” AM SAYS, AND ACID POOLS IN MY STOMACH. “No exceptions.”

We’re standing in the main hallway again and my hands are sticky with the blood of the woman I helped twenty minutes ago. The wound she had sustained to her head burst open, the stitches not holding tight, and she went faint with blood loss. All the while I was mending the wound, I was preparing what I would say to Am, but he cut me off as soon as I opened my mouth.

“I don’t do charity, Salama,” he says, eyes hard. “Everyone who wants my services has problems. You’re not the only one. I’ve had a father with three children and an ill wife ask. I said no to him and I’ll say no to you as well.”

My jaw clenches and I dig my nails into my palms. I hate him and the way he’s profiting from our terror. I know I can use Layla’s gold to bargain with him, but my tongue is heavy with pride. I’ve finally made the horrible decision to leave my patients behind and honor Hamza’s wishes, only to be stopped by Am’s greed.

He bites at a nail. “Nothing to say?”

I have to tread carefully. Layla and I cannot survive on pride alone. If I offend him, he might not get me a boat, even if I offer him all the gold in the world. Just to spite me.

“I’ll find a way to get you the money,” I say in a forced-polite voice. “But I ask you to reconsider. Layla and I are young, and we don’t speak German. We’ve never left Syria. You and I are kin. We’re Syrians.”