Chapter Twenty-Two
Esa had left a sign outside her window: Sameera Ayla Malik, welcome to The Night Before Christmas!
She stared at the cheap white posterboard, and a flurry of emotions crowded inside her heart: amusement, happiness, and more than that—an overriding relief.
Her brother had truly come back to her. He was a teenager, but he still wanted to play with her, even if it was in the middle of the night.
Esa had taken his cue from the most famous Christmas story of all time, Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
On the back of the posterboard, she found instructions, and Esa had left a flashlight to illuminate the fluorescent stakes he had placed in the ground to mark her path.
She followed them into the woods behind the guesthouse, and a few feet into the tree line, a shadowy figure appeared.
Another flashlight clicked on and illuminated her brother’s face.
He was dressed in a long cape and hood, another borrowed costume, no doubt.
“Welcome to your past, Sameera,” he intoned.
She grinned. It had been so long since playful Esa had made an appearance in her life. “Thank you, Ghost of Christmas Past,” she said seriously. “I’m ready for your vision.”
He handed her an object—a carved marble elephant, the body displaying delicate floral designs. “Hathi!” she exclaimed. “Nana gave me this when we went to India. I was sixteen, and you were three years old.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
I’m the Ghost of Sameera Malik’s Past, and therefore timeless,” he said in a spooky voice.
“But also, yeah, I was about two years old. I don’t really remember that trip at all, except that Nana’s beard was scratchy, and a lot of old ladies kept kissing me and feeding me milky chai. ”
“I lost this elephant after we got back home. Where did you find it?” Sameera said. The marble elephant had taken pride of place on her desk, until the day it vanished. She had accused her little brother of taking it, which he had vehemently denied.
“I stole it when I was mad at you. I was six years old, and you refused to play with me. I thought maybe it would make you pay attention,” he said. “I didn’t even realize it was in my suitcase until I unpacked here.”
She tried to hug her little brother, but he put up a hand. “Please keep your hands off the ghost until the end of the show.” He handed her another envelope before melting into the woods.
She counted to one hundred, as the instructions asked, then followed the trail he had laid out for her. He was waiting in another clearing, flashlight illuminating his face again, at that same spooky angle.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Sameera Malik—This. Is. Your. Life!” With a flourish, he sent a collage of pictures to her iPhone.
There was a picture of her from her birthday a few years ago, wearing a silly hat and looking at the chocolate cake Tahsin had baked while Naveed and Esa sang.
Another picture was one Esa had snapped during a rare visit to her condo.
It was messy, her desk piled high with files, with even more files on her couch and dining table, her walls bare.
She had kept meaning to decorate, but there was never enough time.
Another series of pictures were from their parents’ home, with its familiar furniture and decor, the site of so many celebrations, and conflicts, over the years.
A picture from Esa’s tenth birthday party, the entire family gathered around cake, a pile of gift wrap on the floor.
Another from Eid prayers, Nadiya squinting into the camera as Sameera made bunny ears above her head.
She missed them. She had missed all of this so much.
The last picture was more recent, from the Eid party last week. Esa must have taken it without her noticing. Sameera was laughing at something Tom had said. For his part, Tom smiled down at her, delight and admiration clear on his face.
When she looked up, her brother had disappeared once more, and she followed the path he’d left near the tree line.
They had made a full circuit around the property now.
She spotted him near a large shed and walked faster, almost jogging now.
It was cold, and she was starting to feel tired.
Just then, another “ghost” dressed in a dark jacket popped out from the forested area.
What was going on? Everyone knew the next apparition was the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Perhaps Esa had recruited Calvin to help?
But when her brother spotted the new ghost, he started to scream. “Begone, jinn!” he yelled, flailing his arms. “I renounce thee!”
The new ghost appeared to glide toward her little brother, and instinct kicked in. With a battle cry, Sameera tackled the interloper, and they both went down hard, snow and pine needles flying as they grappled.
“Oof, get off me!” the interloper said. “What do you think you’re doing, Sameera? I expected a warmer welcome after coming all this way!”
Sameera peered down at the apparition in shock.
A very annoyed Nadiya stared back. She clambered off her sister and helped her up, a happy grin blooming on her face.
Nadiya had surprised her, had surprised her whole family.
This was the best Christmas gift ever. Next to them, Esa dropped to his knees, laughing.
“I thought you were a jinn!” he gasped, just as Sameera asked, “What are you doing here?”
Nadiya stared at her sister. “I came to rescue you, obviously. Mom told me where you were staying. I would have been here sooner, but it took forever to convince someone to drive me out to Wolf Run, and it cost a fortune, too. I’ll be sending you the receipt, Counselor.
Now, are you going to tell me what’s really going on, or do I have to sit on you like I used to do when we were kids? ”
Sameera once more tackled her sister, and they landed on the soft snow, laughing and crying. She knew somehow that everything was going to be okay, now that the three Malik siblings were reunited at last.
They ended up on three Adirondack chairs by the frozen firepit, and Sameera told Nadiya everything. Esa already knew most of it, and he smirked as their sister’s expression grew more serious with every word.
“Let me get this straight: This Andy person thinks that because he built a bubble tea empire, he can also build a ski resort, and he’s not above manipulating his best friend to do it,” Nadiya said, summarizing.
“Meanwhile, Tom doesn’t want to tell his parents that your relationship is fake because he has no intention of moving back to Alaska.
And Mom and Dad are convinced you’re lying about everything, which is why you’re in Alaska in the first place. ”
Sameera nodded at the succinct summary. Her sister sat back, thinking.
“I’m still mad at you for not telling me what was really going on,” Nadiya said.
“I called and texted, and you left me on read,” Sameera threw back.
“Which you totally deserved,” Nadiya countered. “Though maybe I should have called you back before I jumped on a plane. I guess we all made a lot of assumptions and unfair judgments.” The words were more of an admission than Sameera had ever expected from her stubborn sister.
“I believed Sameera from the start,” Esa said smugly. “I just wanted a free vacation to Alaska, and to hang out with Tom Cooke. He’s been giving me tips on how to grow my social media following, and they’re working. I got nearly five hundred subscribers in just three days.”
Nadiya ignored their little brother, focusing on Sameera. “I have one question for you, then. Why are you really here, Sameera?”
“You mean besides Mom’s emotional blackmail?” Sameera asked, stalling for time.
“Obvious,” Esa piped up. “She’s here for us.”
Both sisters stared at their little brother. “But Mom came here for me,” Sameera said slowly.
“And you’re here for us,” Esa said, as if he were talking to a very small child. “Get it?”
It did make a strange sort of sense, Sameera thought. Her parents had planned an expensive, last-minute trip to Alaska because they were worried about Sameera. And she had gone along with this mad plan so she could be with them, too.
This was what happened when family didn’t talk to each other, Sameera thought.
They each behaved in unpredictable, unreasonable ways, because they didn’t know how else to say they loved and needed each other in their lives.
Which she did. She could accept that now.
Her family meant everything to her, and she never wanted to be distanced from them again. Even if that meant flying to Alaska.
Nadiya sighed deeply. “He’s right. Not to mention that you are a relentless people pleaser, and it has landed you in more trouble than it’s worth. Even now, you’re worried we will reject you.”
Sameera didn’t respond. She didn’t have to—they all knew it was true. Nadiya took her sister’s mittened hands in her own. “No matter what you do, no matter who you are or whom you love, I will never abandon you,” she said.
Tears sprang to Sameera’s eyes at these words—she hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear them, or how long she had assumed that her family’s love for her was conditional. It might have felt that way, but the truth was more complicated, she was starting to realize.
“My love for you does not depend on what you do or who you are,” Nadiya continued. “You’re my sister, and I’m here for you—always. Even if you do have questionable taste in men.”
Sameera’s tears were falling freely now, but she laughed at Nadiya’s final shot.
Esa, clearly uncomfortable with seeing his sister cry, patted her on the shoulder.
“What she said,” he grumbled. “Also, it’s freezing out here.
We should go back inside, or . . .” He trailed off, eyes gleaming in the dark.
Sameera looked up, wiping her eyes. “Or?”