100 Yellow Doors

september 7th, 2019, 8:52 p.m.

It was another week before Iman watched her father slip away, his hand going slack in hers as the line of his pulse went flat. It was sooner than the doctors had guessed, but not sooner than Iman had known. She knew her father, and knew he would sooner let go of it all than hang on to nothing.

    There, as they lifted the sheet above his head, Iman crumpled, her chest heaving in dry sobs, all her breath, all her words, stolen from her. She remembered his smell, like pine and cigarette smoke, the way his arms felt around her, how the light stubble on his chin felt against her skin. Iman, he had told her once, when she was thirteen, crying over a friend who never cared enough to cry over her. Belief—that is what your name means. Faith. I always believed in you, lovey.

    You are so much greater than this world could ever understand.

    Now, twenty-four hours since her father's death—only it still stung like it had happened only minutes before—Iman sat on the edge of her and Beck's hotel bed, staring at the wall. It was burnt orange wallpaper, plain, the color of rust. The lights were off, the room encased in shadow save for the sliver of moonlight that slid through the curtained patio door. Iman could hear Beck on the phone with someone out on the deck, though it was background noise, like the warble of voices in a concert hall before the crowd went hush.

    His funeral would be next week; Hana, seeing as she was the eldest sister and their mother was too distraught to leave her bedroom, was handling most of the proceedings. In the back of her head, Iman thought she should be helping, too. But what did it matter? What did anything matter, with her father gone to a place she could not follow? She was always the one coming and going, disappearing for hours or days. She wasn't used to being the one who was left behind.

    The patio door hissed open, and Beck stepped back into the room, placing his phone back in his pocket. There was brief moment of hesitation before he came around, kneeling in front of Iman, right in her line of vision so she could look nowhere else but his face. He was tired—exhausted, more like it: dark semicircles beneath heavy-lidded eyes, the curls of his hair left untouched, his clothes wrinkled from falling asleep without bothering to change them.

    She never should have brought him here. This was not his burden to bear—none of this, not her, not her family, not her time traveling—was his to bear. One of these days, she thought, she would have to release him from this. One of these days, she knew, she would be alone.

    "Im?" Voice a whisper, an unexpected breeze.

    Iman inhaled, exhaled. "I just can't believe he's gone. A week ago, he was here, and now—now he's not. I wish I'd visited more—"

    "Don't even go there, Iman," Beck said, shaking his head. He raised his hands, cupping either side of her face. "Don't. I've been there—all the I should have, I wish I would haves—and it's a very ugly place. Death is life, Iman. There's no predicting it, no preventing it. You were there with him when he passed. Isn't that enough?"

    She'd been doing so well—numbing herself, turning the tap of her emotions off—but now, here, with Beck's hands on her face and that ugly orange wallpaper and the faint sound of children laughing somewhere in the hall, the black void that was her father's absence swelled and broke her to pieces.

    When the tears came, Beck said nothing. He rose, wrapping her in his arms, her head pressed against his chest as his hand glided across her back, up and down again, up and down again. He did not tell her, It's okay. He did not tell her, Everything will be fine. He held her in a reverent, careful silence, and it was all Iman needed.

    Slowly her breath returned to her, and she lifted her head. Beck's sweater—heather gray, Calvin Klein—was a mess of tears and mucus, but he didn't seem to care.