Calling them great is an understatement. No, they were far beyond great. They were extraordinary children. They were anything but ordinary. Grandma’s children were too pure, too good, too great, too ambitious, too important to die. On the surface they seemed like ordinary kids who loved to play, who walked on the sandy beach, made faces for the camera, and secretly ate their mother’s hidden pot of blackberry jam. But beneath their sparkling, killer eyes, they were fighters of freedom. They wanted independence and justice. They were too young to die under the hands of the unjust, the unworthy. They were too young to suffer what they suffered. They were too young, too beautiful to die.
I have looked at their black and white photographs. Aunt Mina’s keeps coming back to me, her angelic face, her simple, sincere half-smile in every photo, her short, silky, black hair. A tomboy. Maman says Mina wore slacks at a time when women were expected to wear skirts. At Maman’s wedding Mina had her hair done at the salon and hated it so much that she’d combed it back straight. She was different from other girls. All you have to do is look at her eyes and then you’d know. There is something about those eyes of hers. They sparkle, they talk. Mina’s eyes talk. They tell you that this girl is not ordinary, that she will do great things, that her heart is a pot of gold, big, full of love. That she is a rebel, stubborn, ready for anything.
I am trying to picture that snowy night when the Shah’s secret police-The SAVAK-shot her in the back. I am trying to see Aunt Mina running into the night, struggling to pick up her feet in the snowy field. She runs 100 meters, Grandma says, and then she falls, just 26 years old. Grandma tells me she didn’t cry because Grandpa had prepared her. She says that when they got the news, Grandpa held up his hands in prayer and thanked God that his Mina was killed for a cause, that she hadn’t died in a car accident or from something ordinary. He was proud that his daughter had died a fighter, a martyr.
I ask Grandma how she accepted the death of her children. She says God. I left it all to God and accepted his doings, she says matter-of-factly. I don’t ask her anymore because I start crying, for them, for the pain that Maman and Grandma went and still go through. And I know that I have to tell their story. Somehow, in some way, I have to tell why they were so extraordinary, why they were so invaluable, why they are so missed. I have to tell their story because they deserve to be remembered and known for what they did, for who they were, for what they could have been. Calling them extraordinary is not an overstatement, it’s not just a mother’s love, it’s not her exaggeration and pride, it’s a fact.

So I sit behind the glass window to watch the rain, to sip my hot coffee, to face an empty street on Christmas Day. And I like this setting, the rain even, the by passers who look for an open coffee shop. I am glad that I am not in New York yet, that I’m here with mom and dad and my sister and grandma. I like that it is raining and I’m drinking coffee and it’s not bitter anymore. I love the steam that rises from my cup, the foggy windows, and the cheery faces that smile. I love it Mom and you were so right to tell me that America is heaven. You were so right that it couldn’t get any better than this for us. I hated this place so much at first and I thought that you betrayed me by taking me away from a land I was just getting to know. I thought that I wouldn’t get anywhere here and I was wrong mom. I was wrong.
So I sit now, with her, and we enjoy the warmness of our cups and we watch the rain. And we both love it. I don’t have to say anything. I can just sit still and indulge the air, the aroma of Christmas, and be the happiest girl in the world. Mom, dad, thanks for bringing me here. I will write for you always, and I know that you will read and I hope that you see that it’s all because of you.

He woke up the next day in his hotel room with a hangover. He pushed his blanket aside, sat up, reached for a bottle of aspirin, then dropped his head back down on the pillow. Damn, he said out loud. He had class today and he wouldn’t make it. The sun was bothering him; the blinds were slightly open. New York was killing him; the city stank, the cab drivers were crazy, honking aggressively, and everything was too damn expensive. He couldn’t make his body move. He was tired, exhausted, and felt paralyzed. An hour passed and he finally got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed as hurriedly as he could, and walked out of the hotel with his one suitcase. As he got into a cab, he remembered the terrible funeral and felt a knot in his stomach. He asked the driver to get him to the airport as fast as he could because he couldn’t stand the sight of Manhattan anymore. Because he couldn’t breathe and everything made him sick and he wanted to throw up. The driver, a friendly, middle-aged man with a heavy Indian accent, told him not to worry; they would get there in no time.
Inside the airport, he got himself a cup of coffee and sat himself down on a chair. He had never forgotten her and had hated himself for not having that last coffee. He had thought about her a lot during those four years that she was gone, and he had read her emails over and over again. He had realized that she had given him more than he had given her, that she had cared for him too much, that she had always been there as a friend. He had denied his feelings, his growing attraction towards her. He had convinced himself that she was a student and he a professor and that nothing should happen. He had convinced himself because he had feared that those feelings could turn into a fatal attraction.
And now that he sat inside a grim airport, drinking a cold, bitter coffee, he could no longer deny those feelings, feelings that could have grown into a deeper love had they not been dismantled. He threw his empty cup away and headed for his gate. He would go back home, eat a nice meal, and he would let her go like he did four years ago.
The end

We have gathered in the living room, drinking tea again, eating Maman’s chocolate cake. And Grandma is telling us about her house in Mashad where she used to rent rooms to young college girls. Tomorrow is Christmas day and we are telling Grandma about the things people will be doing. It’s like our own new year, my sister tells her. Families gather and spend the whole day together. Somehow the conversation moves to our apartment in Tehran, the basement and the big walnut tree that grew in the garden. I suddenly miss those days. The days when I belonged to Tehran, when I was little, living in a house with a walnut tree, with a red bicycle that Daddy bought when I was seven. The days when I stood, watching the tree in awe, feeling small.
The night’s conversation ends a little after 12 and everyone goes to bed. And I stay awake to write about Tehran. Again.

I enjoyed my coffee finally; it was perfect. Not too bitter, not too sweet, but a perfect balance between the two. It was two days before Christmas. She was looking for ice-cream in the frozen aisle and I was sipping my drink, waiting. The shoppers were buying their Christmas foods and goodies, chocolates and sweets, Christmas cards and Santa hats, Champaign bottles and expensive wines. There was no line for caffeine addicts like myself; the little Starbucks inside the grocery store was practically empty. Just as I was savoring my last sip, she showed up, holding a bucket of ice-cream, and told me to get up. Outside, a woman in a Santa hat was asking for donations. I didn’t have a dollar bill.

We have talked about colors before, haven’t we? We have talked about the colors of autumn, colors that make life lovable, livable, colors that give us hope and faith. We have talked about orange and auburn and red and why they are your favorite colors, why they light up your day and make you glow. We have talked about the colors of day and night, the baby blue of the morning sky and the pitch black of the night sky. And we never forgot your mesmerizing green eyes, did we? Or your sister’s sparkling, dark brown eyes?
Tomorrow we should talk about the colors of winter. We should talk about the red sky right before a snowy day and the white snow that disguises everything. We should always talk because we always listen to each other, as good friends, as good sisters. And then you can tell me how to be a better person, a better friend, a better writer. You can tell me and I promise to take it all down, memorize every word.
A cheer to the colors of our flags, the colors of our homes, the colors of life.

She had her coffee in a red mug by the fireplace, her notebook and novel sitting next to her, the sun beaming inside through the blinds. The house needed cleaning; the tables needed dusting, so did the window sills and the kitchen cabinets. She was hosting a party that night for her girlfriends. None of the girls celebrated Christmas, and yet they had all agreed to throw a party anyway, get in the holiday spirit and enjoy each other’s company. They always had fun when they got together on Saturday nights, dancing, drinking, gossiping, discussing their future plans, their marriages and break-ups. She finished her last sip of coffee and put the mug aside. It was the first day of winter and everything seemed perfect. She was relaxed and decided to take a walk. She would do the cleaning later.

She prays by the living room table in her colorful, flowered head scarf while the Franks have tea. It’s Tuesday evening and Grandma M is getting bored of America and the mundane routines of her daughter’s family. She notices that Mr. Frank hardly speaks and when he does, she never hears him. When he doesn’t speak, he reads newspapers or falls asleep on the couch. Her youngest granddaughter spends most of her time in a room that is never neat, sitting on her unmade bed with a laptop on her legs. Grandma M wants to take walks outside, but is afraid of approaching strangers who might converse with her in English. Nothing is familiar to her, not Manchester Street, not the Safeway Grocery store or the Greek Church on the other end of Manchester Street.
Earlier in the morning, she practiced the alphabet with her youngest granddaughter, and then when her granddaughter returned to her room, she practiced writing her A’s and B’s some more. When noon came, she went off to make lunch, searching the cabinets for cooking pans and dishes. Cooking, she decided, was the one thing that required no English.
As they drink tea, she confirms that she won’t be staying for long.
“I am too much trouble for you guys,” she says and Mrs. Frank frowns, reassuring her mother that she is wanted here and that she should not think such things.
Perhaps America is too complicated at this moment and the girls aren’t always there to make her happy and listen to her stories. But Grandma M is not ready to go back yet; she is too excited to learn English, to be intermingled with American pleasures.

He left the cemetery disoriented, his eyes red, and his hands numb from the cold. A head-ache that had started in the plane was now a strong, constant banging inside his head. There was no one in the graveyard as he left, even the crows had disappeared. He decided to take a slow walk on a nearby road to clear his head. Tomorrow morning his students would be expecting him back; he had to return. Besides, staying in Manhattan where he would be constantly reminded of her would do him no good. He had to get back to his life, to Harvard. He had to work on his dissertation and finally publish his writings.
By the time he reached an almost empty bar, he had walked 10 blocks. Tired, he ordered a whiskey and settled himself on a stool, pulling out his wallet. He was there for hours, listening to strangers next to him who were deep in conversation. He listened to country songs that played over and over again on an old radio. He couldn’t remember why he never had that coffee with her before she left for New York. He couldn’t remember why he had stopped emailing her, why he pushed her away. Was it because he was afraid he would get attached? Was it because he had feelings that were different and new, ones he couldn’t figure out? Or was it because he knew she was emotional and dependent and that if he would let her, she would get too close, too involved in his life outside the Harvard walls?
The thoughts that ran in his mind became too convoluted, complicated and intangible. The alcohol wasn’t allowing him to think straight, to figure out what it was that he felt for her all those years, and whether his feelings were strong enough to be called love.
He finished his last glass and finally got up, almost tripping over a chair; he was too drunk and dizzy from the booze. He had forgotten her, had forgotten why he was in a dirty city that sickened him. And he walked out of the bar, drunk, disoriented, barely able to keep himself together. It was still snowing and he desperately wished to be back in Boston.

Grandma M is here now and the Franks are giving her a tour of the city. She seems content with walking, even if she has to carry her cane. She is content with drinking tea out of huge American mugs, with watching her granddaughters dress in colorful outfits, with learning about what her daughter does for a living. In the evenings when the Franks gather for tea, Grandma M tells them stories of the past, of those who’ve touched her life, of her trips to India and Moscow. The girls listen to their Grandma as she recounts those memories with every little detail, one story leading to another. For the Franks, it seems as if Grandma M has brought back what they all left behind, Tehran.