1.
After about twelve years together, I finally agreed to visit my husband Will’s family down south— the ones on his mother’s side, the Syrians. Like with most things involving his mother, I hadn’t been warned she’d be coming too. That was part of my reluctance, but by the time I found out, it was too late to back out without causing offense.
His two sisters couldn’t come, so it was just the three of us. They were older than Will, and had pretty much moved on with life by the time he was born. He was the last chance for a son to carry on the family name — or at least, that’s what Dolores expected.
She’d never cared for me, not from the first. Maybe if I’d been cautioned about some of her ways — and, to put it most kindly, antiquated views — I could have done a better job. But Will never gave me a clue. He just smiled the whole time, and even afterwards when I asked what the hell that was, he just kept smiling like it was the most normal thing in the world
That was his solution to ninety-nine percent of our problems: just smile.
Sometimes I didn’t know how we’d make it.
I wasn’t always the easiest person to like, but I could turn it on. I worked as the deputy director for a legal aid organization for immigrants and refugees. Most of my job was talking with major donors and partners, and sometimes unruffling feathers. That took some skill. But somehow none of my tricks worked on Dolores. If anything, every attempt seemed to inflame her.
I thought that as a first-generation American she’d value my work. Instead, the things she said about immigrants just appalled me.
I’d never figure out how such a hard case had such a sweet son as Will. Maybe it was his father showing up in him — a descendant of a Mayflower family — which you’d think would make him the more uptight of the two. But for the brief time I knew him before he passed, he was mild and gentle as milk. His wife was more WASP than the WASP.
Will wasn’t without his moments. He had a temper, though it showed only rarely. He’d kicked a trash can so hard once it was nearly useless from being bent. Another time, he even took a swing at our cat, but missed. I told him if he did that again, I’d do the same to something he cared about, and he never did. I learned he’d gotten in a lot of trouble for fighting — actual physical fights — with other little kids.
Sometimes I thought I needed to get out, that I was wasting my one and only life, and wasting his too. He’d never communicate the way I wanted. I’d always have to live with uncertainty. At other times I thought he was the most handsome and kind man in the world and I didn’t deserve him. I’d ask him at those times why he even liked me, and he’d say he just did. As if that told me anything.
All the back and forth of feelings, between adoration and exhaustion. I wondered if that was what marriage was.
2.
We landed in Atlanta and went to Will’s Aunt Ruth’s house in Decatur. I was shocked at how unlike her sister Dolores she was — just a tiny, gnome-like thing with a shock of puffy white hair, like a cotton boll. I asked, politely, what I should call her and she said, “Oh, well, Aunt Ruth! That’s what everyone else does!”
Like Dolores, she was a widow. She’d only had one son — couldn’t have more. Her house was tiny, but the yard was a lot and a half, and over time she’d turned it into a kind of wildlife habitat. There were trees she’d planted before I was born that now formed canopies, home to birds and squirrels; tiny flowers and huge shrubs of every kind. Gurgling water features and rocky spots dotted the landscape, and a little swing hung under a tree in the dappled shade. Every morning she’d refill her feeders, and spend her afternoons tending to the green growing things.
Unlike Dolores, who was always dressed and groomed impeccably—even I had to admit—Aunt Ruth’s style was pure happenstance. Her pants and flowery shirts looked like she’d pulled them on at random, and she wore stubby, boyish sneakers to amble around her garden. Her home was full of mismatched pieces, and there were half-finished projects everywhere: puzzles she meant to get back to, needlepoint barely begun.
Aunt Ruth set us up in a room in the basement that had been her husband’s study. He’d been a history professor at Emory, and there were still stacks of his books and papers in the room and on his desk, as if he’d meant to get back to them all but never had the chance. She set up an air mattress for us — apologized for it — but there were only two real beds.
As we settled in, I saw something scurry against the wall near our mattress and went after it. It was the biggest bug I’d ever seen — a cockroach several times the size of any I’d encountered.
“Will! WILL!” I called, blocking its way with some handy books, cornering it, then adding a final book on top to trap it.
“There’s no way I’m sleeping with that in this room.”
I devised a plan to get rid of it.
I went upstairs, thinking Ruth and Dolores would be in their own beds, to get a glass in which to capture it. But Ruth caught me, asking what I needed.
“Oh, I was just looking for a glass,” I mumbled.
“Are you thirsty?” Ruth asked. “There’s cold water in the fridge.”
I realized, after the fact, I could have just taken the water, drunk it, and then used the glass for my own purposes. But I didn’t have my wits about me.
“Well, no,” I mumbled, “there’s a… kind of bug downstairs. I was going to catch it and put it outside.”
“A BUG?” Aunt Ruth exclaimed. She grabbed her old kitchen broom — almost as tall as she was — and we went downstairs.
She took one look at the insect and told Will to lift one of the books that was trapping it. When he did, she jabbed the broom at the bug, hard—harder than I’d have guessed she had in her. She kept at it until it was beaten senseless, then turned the broom around and jabbed at it with the handle until it crunched.
“That’s what you do with a bug in the South,” Ruth announced, wrapping an arm around me and giggling like a girl.
Will just smiled, not saying a word. Another thing I hadn’t been prepared for.
3.
The next morning, coffee, eggs, donuts, pita, and hummus were laid out. Aunt Ruth had a favorite Middle Eastern place for her pita and other goods. She, Dolores, and their brothers had all been born in the US — more American than American — but there were certain foods they held onto. Good pita was one, even if it was just store-bought, and kibbeh was another.
“It’s a ground meat and bulgur wheat thing,” Will explained. “Syria’s national dish.”
Honestly, it was easy to forget Will was Syrian at all — with his pale, creamy complexion, his Mayflower family name, and that suburban upbringing. His mother was lighter-skinned than her sister, and his father was blond, so I guess that’s how that happens.
I mentioned it offhandedly to Aunt Ruth — that sometimes I forgot Will was Syrian. She said that when he was born, his hair was so dark and curly the Black nurse at the hospital said he looked more like one of hers.
Dolores tightened her face as the story was told, but eased up a bit. “She said you could really tell by the fingernails,” she added. “But I don’t know.”
For the family reunion the next day, there’d be kibbeh, mujaddara, hummus, baba ganoush, and mountains of tabbouleh. Also on the menu: deviled eggs, potato salad, ham, and sliced tomatoes. Will said he’d make biscuits, and Dolores wanted to make her green pea salad.
Aunt Ruth put us to work, prepping the house — bringing up folding chairs from the basement, cleaning the carpeting. Honestly, I never knew there could be so much to do just for having family over. My own parents split when I was young and neither was suited to parenting. I grew up on the fly, shuffled between family members, never knowing how long I’d be with one, or why one day or night I’d be moved to another.
Maybe that was part of what Dolores didn’t like about me. She’d made a prize of a son: smart, kind, hardworking, and, to be honest, pretty gorgeous. She ought to have gotten a pretty, demure daughter-in-law out of it — one to domineer and train up in her image. Instead, she had me: a tall, lanky man, with divorced, lower-class parents, at turns too clever, too sarcastic, and sometimes too easily hurt for my own good.
Given my start, I thought I’d done well, professionally and personally. When I became deputy director, Will bought me a cowboy-style deputy badge to mark the occasion. I was often happy, liked at work, and could navigate moneyed donors with surprising ease. But I never met Dolores’s standards. Sometimes I thought she could see right through me, to the darker seams twined in my pride and accomplishment.
I liked the look of Will working — not for the sake of the work, but because he was so capable. He was always so fit, and I liked to see the play of muscle in his arms and back. When he got sweaty and stripped off his t-shirt, tucking it into the rear of his shorts, the swell of his chest and the taut line of his belly drew my attention.
When his mother and aunt weren’t looking, I took chances to grope him, winking when he turned at me in surprise. He had reason; we hadn’t been very physical for a while.
“That’s what you get for going shirtless,” I whispered, leaning in.
That night in bed, the memory of his glistening body lingered. I could barely keep my hands off him.
I loved his dark, curly hair and the way barely visible veins traced under his skin like marble. When he got sweaty — or had a little to drink — arrow-shaped patches of red would appear on his jaw. But I had another priority.
“Tell me again who’s coming to the reunion,” I asked him. “And especially, tell me who the influencers are.”
I took his glasses off and put them on — shocked, as always, at how strong they were. I didn’t know how he could see anything without them.
“The influencers?” Will laughed.
“Who are the ones I have to make a good impression on?”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Just be yourself. Everyone will love you.”
Ugh. As if my experience with his mother hadn’t taught me that being myself with this family was the exact wrong thing to do.
Instead, I planned the get-together like a work event with VIPs, prying details from Will about who the gossips were, who held sway, who would be sweet as pie to your face and stab you in the back as soon as you turned away. For God’s sake, it was Atlanta. They specialized in coded language and passive-aggressive manners.
In the end, I had my list. And for all my faults, when it was time to show up — even into a pool full of sharks — I didn’t back down.
4.
The David family descended on Aunt Ruth’s tiny house — or the Daoud family, as they’d been before their surname was Americanized. They filled her home not only with their bodies but with their clamorous talk and bounding laughter.
There were five elder David siblings: Dolores, Aunt Ruth, and their three brothers. Each married non-Syrians, and except for Dolores, all their spouses were Southerners from various states. They had children, who had more children, plus various in-laws, exes, cousins, and hangers-on. The house was an auditory museum of Southern accents. I’d never realized quite how different they all could be.
I made sure to pay my respects to each of the elders, and more importantly, to the brothers’ wives. I was asked more questions about myself in the first hour than I had been by Dolores in over a decade plus of being with her son.
Will had nearly a dozen first cousins, but only four were boys. They all looked more Syrian than Will ever did.
The oldest, Aaron Junior, had dirty blond hair and a beard, but darker skin. He was portly but carried it handsomely. He’d made his money behind the scenes in Hollywood and then came back home. He looked to me like he’d learned a lot there: all warmth and honeyed charm, not revealing too much about himself but in dribs and drabs, and watchful. I’d want to watch out for him.
There were the twin brothers, Tom and Tim—swarthy, with glossy black hair on their muscled forearms. They were the tallest people there and always sharply dressed—ladies’ men. They spent half their time razzing each other, at least partially for everyone else’s entertainment.
And finally, Jim — Aunt Ruth’s son. In looks, he was the most like Will: about 5’8”, curly-haired, but not with Will’s muscle. He was the most amiable and dry-witted of them all. He said, “Let me know when you’ve had enough of Ruth’s overcooked green beans. I’ll take you guys out for a rescue meal.”
To my own surprise, I found myself enjoying the day. Turned out, there was almost nothing I couldn’t ask that someone — or several someones — weren’t happy to tell a story about, pulling it from what I imagined was their shared catalog of well-trodden tales, knowing exactly when to pause, which details to hold, when to drop a punchline for maximum effect.
I did regret once asking if the elders, growing up, had felt any stigma from being Syrian, the children of immigrants.
“We didn’t think about it that way,” Aaron Sr., Dolores’s eldest brother, said. “That was a different time. We just tried to fit in as best we could, to get by.”
But they knew what I did for a living, and I trusted they understood my interest.
Ruth volunteered that she was detained at an airport right after 9/11, on a trip to visit her sister. They went through her bags. “They said it was a random check, but I didn’t believe it. All I had in my carry-on was a container of tabbouleh I was bringing to Dolores.”
“Jesus, Ruth,” groaned her son Jim. “You brought tabbouleh on a plane right after 9/11? And you’re surprised you got detained? Why didn’t you just wear a bomb vest?”
He buried his face in his hands, and everyone laughed — including Aunt Ruth, who swung her legs back and forth in her seat.
I picked up bits of stories all around the house — like when Aaron Sr. graduated medical school and stayed out all night, sneaking home at dawn. His father sat up waiting, and when he spotted him, said, “Oh good, you’re up early for church,” then made him endure morning mass.
More than once, I heard Aunt Ruth recount to some new circle, “He was going to put it in a glass! To put it outside!” — followed by a round of howls. From anyone else, it might have hurt my pride, but instead, I was flattered I’d made it into family lore.
I’d never seen Dolores look so amused as she did that day, sitting with her siblings, being doted on. As the day went on, I noticed her wig had come a little askew. She’d had chemotherapy some years ago, which left her bones brittle, and her hair never really came back in a satisfying way.
I went looking for Will and found him in the kitchen with Aunt Ruth, whispering, noshing, and giggling.
“Will,” I said, “your mother’s wig is… crooked. Go help her.”
He shrugged, saying she was fine, but I insisted. “Be discreet,” I urged him.
He went to sit next to Dolores and wrapped an arm around her, then, ever so gently, at just the right moment, tugged her wig into place. I suppose if anyone was watching closely, they’d have noticed, but in the end, she looked right—which I knew she cared about.
He went to sit next to Dolores and wrapped an arm around her, then ever so gently, at the most opportune moment, tugged her wig into place. I suppose if anyone was watching closely, they’d have noticed, but in the end she looked right, which I knew she cared about.
It broke my heart a little to watch him do it so ably and tenderly that even she didn’t realize what had happened. I wondered: if we made it to that age together, would we prop each other up like that?
“I’m sorry I never met your husband,” I said to Aunt Ruth, feeling a sharp shame for having been so distant. I could be a real asshole.
“Oh, well, me too,” she said. “He was a nice man.”
We stood there in silence together for a moment, then she suddenly busied herself, moving empty trays and pulling out full ones.
“Y’all want some more kibbeh?” she called out, prompting a round of Yes ma’ams.
5.
That night, after everyone left, I was too giddy to sleep, though Will was exhausted. All that talking took it out of him, in the same way it energized me.
“I loved hearing all their Southern accents coming out of those Syrian faces,” I said.
“The elders look like they’re right out of Disney’s Aladdin,” Will joked.
“But they talk like Foghorn Leghorn,” I piled on. “I swear to God, your one uncle called me ‘son’ half a dozen times.”
I added that I actually looked more like them than he did. If you’d asked anyone to guess which of us was a David, they’d have picked me, with my olive complexion and generous nose. In fact, I looked a lot like them.
“You never told me they were so much fun,” I said. “They’re so lively.”
“When we’d visit when I was a kid,” Will said, “they’d dump me with the boy cousins. They were wild, rough. Competitive. At my house we were supposed to be quiet and behave. I was terrified half the time.”
“And the other half?”
“Turned on,” he chuckled. “They were all older than me, and at least halfway through puberty as I was just starting to get funny feelings about boys. Aaron—my cousin, not his father, Aaron Sr. — he was so handsome. He had this blond chest hair and arm hair, and he was so fit—not like now.”
“He doesn’t look bad now, either,” I said. Honestly, of all the cousins, he was the most appealing. He exuded confidence.
“Tim and Tom, the brothers — they were like testosterone machines, always trying to beat one another at anything physical — wrestling, smacking each other. It all had this sexual… frizzante about it. Or I thought it did.”
“And Jim?”
“He wasn’t like the others, but he was sweet, charming, clever—and knew how to manage the rest by being funny. Maybe because he was so small, he had to.”
I glanced at the bedsheet, saw it tented where Will had an erection.
“Look at that,” I said, grinning. “Still a little turned on?”
“Mmm, more by the memory,” he admitted. “I used to jerk off thinking of them… experimenting on me. You know. Horny teenager stuff.”
“Oh, I do,” I said, wrapping my hand around his dick, feeling him sigh at my touch. The warmth of him throbbed in my palm.
Honestly, it turned me on too — to think of those untamed, musky boys manhandling Will’s body, their darker skin and hairy bodies against his smooth, creamy flesh, and the unspoken secret that he’d wanted whatever they might do even more than they did.
“You want to do some experimenting now?” I asked, my voice dropping lower.
6.
Even though we hadn’t had sex in some time, a little travel bottle of lube still waited in our toiletry bag — miraculously not dried out, like a forgotten bottle of White-Out you find in an old desk — a relic from an earlier age.
I reached for it, squeezing cool, slick gel onto my palm — the sudden chill a delicious tease against the warmth blooming beneath my skin. The soft smack echoed faintly as I worked it between his cheeks and into his hole. Will tensed, then relaxed — a subtle invitation.
My mouth found his handsome cock — smooth and warm. I drew him deep, savoring the velvet heat slide to the back of my throat. He shifted above me, his hips beginning a slow, tentative thrust, matching the rhythm of my mouth and nudging deeper with a patient hunger.
Working his cock with my mouth, I slipped my fingers inside, feeling the tender give and take of his muscles. He reached down, guiding my wrist, pushing my fingers deeper, faster, opening him as his breath hitched.
My mind flickered to pulling his legs up onto my shoulders, but I knew he preferred the quiet surrender of being on his knees.
I turned him over and slid into him, more urgently than I should have. But he took it without a problem, the hot, full penetration engulfing me. I heard his sweet gasps, felt his body arch subtly into mine, and immediately thought: How did I ever not want to do this? All the time? Because of how good it felt, and how his response played at my heart.
Tentatively, I pulled back and thrust again — and again. I felt his insides ease around my erection, each thrust more confident, gliding smoother and easier. His face was on the air mattress, turned to the side, mouth open, glasses askew. Leaning against the wall near his head, I pounded harder into him on my knees, watching his lips part with deepening breaths. His rear met my hips as he pushed back, pulling me deeper, the rhythmic thudding against the air mattress echoing.
“Oh, keep at it,” he groaned, his voice tight with pleasure.
My thoughts drifted to the boyhood fantasies that might be running through his head: big blond cousins with summer tans and golden treasure trails running into their cutoff jeans; supple, handsome twins fighting over turns at his holes, competing to see which could make him cum just by fucking him. Or even bookish, sweet boys to cuddle with on sleepovers.
I traced the defined curves of muscle in his shoulders and back, his skin like cream, slick with sweat as he pushed against the mattress for leverage, thrusting his hips back to meet mine, skin slapping against skin as my climax built. His curls glistened with sweat, and the plane of his jaw tightened with every breath.
Then, remembering our earlier conversation, I asked, my voice low and teasing, “Who are you thinking of? Aaron Junior? Horny twins wanting to get off in you?”
He snorted, silent except for the tremor coursing through his body — a wordless confession.
I reached under him to hold his pec and grazed a nipple roughly. “I know they wanted hands on you. To get inside you. You’re so fucking irresistible — even those hot straight boys want a piece of you.”
A long, deep groan spilled from him — loud enough to fill the room — so I clapped a hand over his mouth, but didn’t stop plowing him, edging closer to the brink while he worked his own cock with a slick hand, grinding against me.
“Shhhh,” I gasped, laughing slightly, and he did too — into the palm of my hand. But the next groan came louder as he tensed and released around my cock, his muscles contracting and I knew he was there.
His face seemed to flower open as I tapped and stroked a deep, tender spot in him, long neglected — his hot breath rasped against my palm as he came in his hand, his cum hot and slick, surging over his fingers in successive waves as he shuddered.
Seeing him like that, feeling him wrapped around me, a wave of heat surged through me — sudden and overwhelming. My own orgasm hit with a powerful, unexpected tremor, drawing a loud, involuntary gasp from my throat as his insides tightened around my cock, milking me until I was drained.
I pulled out and dropped my weight next to him, the air mattress practically throwing us both off and onto the floor. For a few moments, the room spun, and I simply lay there, feeling the echoes of pleasure thrumming through my limbs, slowly returning to my own skin.
“Oh my God,” I said, breathless, kissing him and laughing. “Right in Aunt Ruth’s basement room.”
“Now how do we wash off?” he asked, face flushed and dewy.
“Oh boy,” I sighed, realizing the nearest bathroom was upstairs off the living room. I’d been caught once this trip looking for a glass to catch a bug, and I had no intention of one-upping that mistake.
“You put on shorts and go wash up,” I said. “You need it more than me. I’ll tidy up down here, then I’ll go after you.”
We did as I suggested. While Will was gone, I thought with admiration about how amazing he was. So athletic at sex, such a great cook, intuitive at anything mechanical or physical, and a voracious reader of history who could tell you what happened, where, on any given date. He did everything with a sort of fearlessness.
When I returned, he was curled up on the air mattress, and I curled up behind him.
“I missed you horribly,” he whispered, smiling just a little.
“I’m right here,” I said, snuggling against him and kissing the smooth skin of his back.
Where else would I be?
7.
The next day, we left the sisters to themselves and went on a city hike, making our way to a cemetery to poke around. These states, older than ours, had such fascinating cemeteries, and it was hard not to read the headstones, admire the glorious sculpted angels, and imagine their long-ago lives.
We walked down the paved areas, holding hands, and found a cool canopy of shade trees to sit under. We began to kiss, tenderly but then more passionately, charged by the electricity of our renewed intimacy. I cupped him through his pants, and a tremor ran through his breath. He unbuttoned, offering deeper access as our mouths clung together. My rhythmic strokes increased, and I watched the play of pleasure on his eyes and mouth. His breath hitched, lips parting as a low groan rumbled in his chest, and his body gave a soft shudder against mine. It was the carefree excitement of our early days, rediscovered.
Some might have thought it was disrespectful, but I thought it was lovely. I hoped that when we were dead and buried, some young couples would walk by our grave, wonder briefly who we were, and then forget us five minutes later as they made out.
Back at Aunt Ruth’s I offered to help her in the kitchen preparing our dinner, which was leftover from the get-together the day before, and a fresh salad. She asked if I’d had a good time and I almost fell over myself saying yes. I felt right at home, and I thanked her for everything.
“Dolores has her ways,” she said, treading carefully. “You should try not to mind them.”
“I will,” I promised. It had been twelve years, and we seemed at a balance, if not peace.
“I remember when she was born, I was barely more than a baby myself,” Ruth went on. “Our mother died not long after that. The women later said it was a bad abortion — that she’d had enough babies. That was hard for her, growing up without her mother, and our stepmother wasn’t kind. She wanted her own babies — our youngest brothers — and didn’t care for raising someone else’s. I think Dolores always felt she never got her share of what she deserved, that she was cheated.”
“I never knew that,” I said. “Will never told me.”
“Well, she wouldn’t like him to talk about it. You know how she likes her appearances — not like some of us!”
Aunt Ruth waved her hands at her chaotic kitchen and mismatched outfit.
“And when she married Will’s father, that didn’t go so well. They didn’t like him marrying a Syrian. She was so pretty too; she looked like Lena Horne. That’s why they moved across the country, I always thought – to be away from everyone.” She bunched up her face a little. “I was sorry I couldn’t be there more, to help out.”
Will had intimated that she’d been more than just a hard mother. He never said exactly what had gone on in their home, and maybe he couldn’t. But it seemed keeping the peace was the most important thing he could do. And I thought that was what Aunt Ruth meant by ‘help out’: to take the pressure off Will, to be a buffer between him and Dolores.
I felt like such a heel. Not so much for anything I’d said or thought about Dolores, but for all my bad faith in Will. Maybe there was a reason he just smiled when I needed him to speak. Maybe he’d learned that saying the wrong thing – saying anything – could bring a rain of wrath down on him. Maybe it was his way to get by.
“But I saw what you did,” Ruth whispered. She pulled up next to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “About her wig. You didn’t have to, but you did. That was real nice of you, watching out for her like that.”
I felt a little choked up. “Sometimes I think I’m just the worst, and I don’t know why Will even likes me. But I love your nephew, Aunt Ruth. I truly do.”
“I know you do,” she said, patting the small of my back. She stood full upright — all five feet or so of her. “Let’s get that leftover tabbouleh out.”
We had a flight home the next morning. I took one last sit by myself to enjoy the consonant songs of the birds and the play of dappled light and shade in her garden. Then it was time to go.
I took the aisle seat, Will the middle, and Dolores the window.
The whole plane trip, I drifted in and out of sleep, and every time I woke, I’d turn to Will. I’d tap his arm lightly with my knuckle, just to say hi. The warmth of his skin under my touch was a quiet comfort. There was nothing more to say than that. Just hi.
Sometimes it seemed we were only just meeting — again and again, every time — even though we’d been beside each other the whole time.
Hi. Hi. Hi.
And every time I said it, he’d smile back.
END