“Hopefully you won’t have to work there much longer, anyway,” Tarek remarks, triggering a nod of agreement from my sister.
“Were you planning to get a different job?”
She nods. “When I was single, my job made sense. I enjoyed traveling and I didn’t need to be tied down anywhere. But… well, Tarek and I are planning to move in together in the new year, and I think it would be hard on Amira and her sense of stability to have her mother jetting off to different places all the time. That’s just not what we want, so I’m going to look for something close to home, maybe even something part-time.” She glances at Tarek again, seeming to consider adding something else, but she must decide not to. With an unconvincing smile, she says, “What about you two? How did you meet?”
“Her car broke down on the side of the road, I stopped to help her,” I say brusquely, but I’m not about to let her change the subject so quickly, so I don’t give her a chance to respond. “And what about Amira’s mom?”
Nora’s smile melts and she starts looking a little wary. “What about her?”
“Amira’s spending Christmas with her father, she’s calling you mom—where’s her actual mom?” My gaze shifts to the boyfriend. “Is she in the picture? What happened? Why’d you break up?”
Tarek lets go of my sister and sits forward, realizing the interrogation is about to begin. “She’s not in the picture anymore, no. I realize that’s unusual. Um…” He sighs, then he says, “So, we didn’t get to this yet, but I imagine you were on your way there.”
He smiles wryly, letting me know he’s not offended, but I wouldn’t care if it offended him. If the guy wants me to trust him with my little sister, he better be willing to answer some questions.
“I work as a freelance photographer. I have an office job that pays the bills, but I take gigs every now and then to build my portfolio, get some experience, make contacts… just so I can make money doing what I enjoy. Someday I hope to make my living that way.”
“All right.”
“That’s how I met Amira’s mom. She was a model on a shoot that I worked. She flirted with me the whole way through and when the shoot was finished, I invited her to dinner. We started seeing each other and it was going pretty well… until she introduced me to her parents. They were country club people and they hated me immediately. Didn’t think I was good enough for their daughter. We kept seeing each other anyway. I think that might’ve even been part of the appeal for her.”
Barely tamping down her annoyance at the possibility of the woman before her using Tarek to annoy her parents, Nora leans her head on his shoulder and rubs his back.
Unperturbed, he goes on. “But then she got pregnant. It was definitely not planned. Her parents were livid, they didn’t want her to go through with it. We did, but… she was under their thumb a lot. Modeling was her only job and she wasn’t big-time or anything, so she mostly relied on them financially. She tried to brush off their disapproval and get into the idea of becoming a mom. In the beginning she thought it was fun, but as it got later into her pregnancy and we had to start thinking about the practicality of it, I could feel her interest waning. Her parents weren’t going to help her out anymore if she had a baby with me, so we’d have to live on a budget. She wouldn’t be able to model for a while after Amira was born, and while she had no problem with not working, she had a big problem with not living like a person with money.”
I offer a nod of acknowledgment and he continues.
“Her parents cutting her off was kind of the death knell for our relationship. She thought they’d change their mind once Amira was born, but they didn’t. They wanted nothing to do with her. They didn’t even want to meet her. When Amira was two months old, I came home from work one night and her bags were packed. Not Amira’s, just hers. She said she couldn’t do it, and… she left. I never saw her again after that night.”
My sister speaks up. “Before she starts school, we’re going to try to reach out to the birth mother about legally forfeiting her rights, that way I can officially adopt Amira and there will be no chance of any problems down the road. We don’t expect her to object. After all, Tarek could go after her for child support and he hasn’t. Giving up her rights would mean she’ll never have to worry about that. Amira won’t be her responsibility anymore, she’ll be ours.”