1.
The plane was lifting off the runway. The engine’s hum, steady and heavy, filled the cabin. The vibration of metal beneath her feet, like a living creature breathing. Negar sat by the window. She was neither anxious nor emotional. She just stared at the glass, waiting for the ground to fall away beneath her.
Her fingers pressed unconsciously against the edge of the seat. A habit. Every time the plane took off, her fingers turned white. Not from fear, from habit. Or maybe from something else she didn’t want to name. Once, one of her students had asked why she gripped her hands so tightly during flights. Negar had answered: “A habit.” But she knew it wasn’t a habit. It was something that, every time she lifted off the ground, reminded her of something she didn’t want to remember.
Her laptop was open. The last page of the article she was writing. Title: “Social Isolation among Immigrant Women.” Page twenty-three. Corrective notes scribbled in the margins. One paragraph remained that she wanted to rewrite. Because the last sentence, to her, had come out shallow. “Social isolation is not only a result of migration, but also a result of the inability to redefine identity.” She didn’t like this sentence. Not because it was wrong, but because it was too easy. As if it explained everything in one sentence. But life wasn’t that simple. She knew that well.
She checked her emails. Fourteen new messages. Three from her students asking about their theses. One of them, a final-year student, had asked whether “life satisfaction” among second-generation immigrants might be higher than among the first. Negar had thought about this question. She knew the answer, but she didn’t want to give it right now. Because she didn’t know the answer. Because she didn’t know the answer to her own question either. An email from a colleague at the University of Toronto, inviting her to collaborate on a research project. One from the secretariat of an international conference in London. Everything was normal. Everything was on schedule. But something on her laptop screen, in the word “immigrant,” in the student’s question, in all of this—something was off. Somewhere she didn’t want to look.
She closed the screen. As she shut the laptop, her finger lingered on the power button, a few seconds longer than necessary. Then she let go. Put it aside.
A flight attendant passed by and said with a professional smile: “Ma’am, please turn off your laptop. We are taking off.” Negar looked up. She looked at the screen. She read the title again. “Social Isolation among Immigrant Women.” A word she had used to introduce herself for twenty years, but had never gotten used to. She introduced herself with words: university professor, researcher, sociologist. But she had never said: “I am an immigrant woman.” Because that word changed something in her. Something she didn’t want to change. She smiled briefly. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She closed the laptop.
2.
The plane was passing through clouds when her phone rang. Negar looked at the screen. Unknown number. Iranian country code. She stared at it for a few seconds. As if trying to guess the number. But she didn’t recognise it. She picked up the phone. Paused for a few seconds. Answered.
A woman’s voice, calm and without extra emotion, came through: “Dr. Mohsenian?” Negar held her breath. “Yes.” “I’m a nurse at the hospital. It’s about your mother… if you can, please come.” No further explanation. No emotion. Just that. The call ended. Negar stared at the dark screen. Her expression didn’t change. She just placed the phone quietly in her bag. But a few seconds later, she took it out again. Looked at the number. The date and time of the call. No text. Just an unregistered number. She stared at it. As if trying to read something hidden behind the digits. Then she put the phone aside. But she kept her hand on the bag. As if she didn’t want to let go. As if she was afraid it would ring again.
She picked up the glass of water from the tray in front of her. Brought it to her lips, but didn’t drink. Just looked at it. For a few seconds. The water in the glass, under the dim cabin light, shimmered. Like a small, insignificant thing that could change everything. She set it back down.
She looked out the window. Her own reflection. A forty-year-old woman who, from the outside, had everything. But something in the reflection, just behind the eyes, was missing. Something she didn’t know the name of. Maybe emptier. Maybe heavier. Maybe both. She placed her hand on her chest. Beneath her jacket, she felt her heart. It wasn’t beating fast. Normal. Too normal. Maybe that’s what scared her. That after this call, her heart was still beating normally. That she could receive a call meaning “your mother is dying” and then pick up a glass of water and not drink. What does that mean? What kind of person is she? She asked herself this question and had no answer.
She repeated the phrase “twenty years” in her mind several times. Twenty years. Two decades. More than half her life. Days she could have returned, but didn’t. Nights she could have called, but didn’t. A lifetime of missed chances. And now, a simple call was bringing all those years before her eyes. Not as memories, but as questions. Questions she had never asked: “Why didn’t I go back?”
3.
The city lights below the plane were growing smaller. Yellow and orange dots slowly fading, giving way to darkness. Negar watched them. For the first time in twenty years, she let herself just watch. No article, no book, no music. Just the window. The engine’s hum. And the darkness. Beneath the darkness lay a city she no longer recognised. A city she had been born in, but was now a stranger to. A city that once, long ago, before she left, had been her home. What was it now? A temporary destination? A place to return to? Something she didn’t know.
A few minutes later, the plane jolted. A sudden, light, but perceptible tremor. A few passengers glanced around nervously. The flight attendant calmly said: “It’s temporary, don’t worry.” A passenger a few rows ahead said something angrily to the attendant. The flight attendant smiled and continued on her way. A few rows back, a child started crying. The mother tried to soothe him, but the child was restless. The sound of crying, in the cabin’s silence, like a small, persistent bell. Negar looked at them. Then turned back to the window. She thought: what makes a child so restless? Maybe the same thing that adults forget how to say. Maybe the same thing Negar had not said for years.
Without meaning to, something drifted through her mind. A fragment of an old night. Her mother’s hand. A suitcase by the door. A father who had fallen silent. The sound of the door closing. Rain. Then… nothing. Not a full flashback. Just a fragment. An image. A feeling. Negar’s fingers pressed again against the seat edge. Turned white. She took a deep breath. Let go.
She remembered that night, her mother had said something. Something Negar didn’t want to hear. “Will you come back?” And Negar hadn’t answered. She’d just left. Now she was coming back, but her mother could no longer ask. This thought pressed something in her throat. Something she didn’t want to name. Maybe a lump. Maybe something else. She swallowed it.
4.
After a long silence, the middle‑aged man sitting next to Negar turned and glanced at her. A man with glasses and a book open on the tray in front of him. An old book. Negar didn’t catch the title. But something on the cover caught her attention. An image of a bird in flight. Negar looked at it, then at the man.
The man asked: “Are you traveling to or returning?” Negar thought for a moment. Stared at the window for a few seconds. Then turned back to the man. She said: “I don’t know.” The man smiled and said: “Strange… Usually everyone knows whether they’re going or coming back.” Negar said nothing. Turned back to the window. But in her mind, his words lingered. “Everyone knows.” But she didn’t know. Maybe she never had. Maybe that was why she had left twenty years ago. Not to find something, but to run from something she didn’t know what was.
A few minutes later, the man spoke again, without looking up: “I myself returned twenty‑three years ago. I thought I was leaving, but I was coming back.” Negar looked back at him. The man smiled and said: “It just took me twenty‑three years to figure it out.” Negar said nothing. But this time, something in her gaze shifted. A question. Perhaps an answer. She didn’t know. But something inside told her that this man might know more than he showed. Maybe he too had once, somewhere, lost something, and now had found it.
A few minutes later, the cabin lights dimmed. Most passengers had fallen asleep. Negar closed her eyes. But she didn’t sleep. She just stared into the darkness. Behind her eyelids, she saw that fragment of memory again. Her mother’s hand. The suitcase. The closed door. Rain. For the first time, she asked herself: “If I hadn’t left that night…” She left the sentence unfinished. Because she didn’t know the answer. Because she never had. And now that she was returning, she still didn’t know. But one thing she did know: asking the question itself meant something. That she was finally ready to hear the answer. Even if the answer was something she didn’t want to hear.
5.
Midnight. The plane hit turbulence again. This time stronger. The cabin lights came on. Flight attendants hurried between the aisles. A passenger a few rows ahead felt ill. The attendant guided him toward the restroom. Another child started crying. Suddenly, everything became chaotic. Negar watched it all, but saw nothing. She just stared out the window. The darkness outside, uniform and infinite, as if nothing existed beyond it. No city, no country, no past. Just a vast emptiness. An emptiness that might have been what she had been searching for all these years, without knowing it.
A few minutes later, everything calmed. The cabin darkened again. Negar was still awake. She looked at her reflection. And for the first time, she felt something. Not sadness, not fear. A vague feeling she didn’t know the name of. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe something else. Maybe the same thing she had avoided thinking about for years. And now it was emerging through the darkness.
She picked up the glass of water. This time, she took a sip. The water was cold. Not bitter, but tasteless. She set it aside. She twisted her ring a few times. A simple silver ring her mother had given her years ago. She was wearing it and now unconsciously played with it. Up and down. Left and right. Until the plane began its descent. As she twisted the ring, something sparked in her mind. An old memory. Her mother, that same night, had put the ring on her finger and said: “Wear this to remember.” Negar had asked: “Remember what?” Her mother hadn’t answered. She’d just looked at her. Now, as she twisted the ring, she still didn’t know the answer. But she knew there was something she was supposed to remember. And she didn’t remember it.
6.
The plane entered Tehran’s sky. Through the clouds, the city’s lights appeared. Bright dots stretching beneath her. Negar stared through the window. The city beneath her, like a living creature breathing. Every light, a home. Every home, a life. Every life, a story. And she was one of those stories, but she didn’t know which. She didn’t know if her story had ended or just begun.
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom: “Dear passengers of flight 712… welcome to Imam Khomeini International Airport. The temperature in Tehran…” Negar didn’t hear the pilot’s words. She just watched the city lights. And the fact that twenty years ago, she had left this same city, and now she was returning. With the same black suitcase. With the same unanswered question. With that same thing she had lost without knowing what it was.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t cry. She only whispered, so quietly that even she wasn’t sure she’d said it: “Home…” A word she hadn’t uttered in twenty years. Because she wasn’t sure she still had a home. Because she wasn’t sure whether home meant a place you returned to, or a place you fled from. Or maybe both. Maybe home was where you ran from and returned to, without knowing which was right.
The plane descended. The wheels hit the runway. A short, dry sound. Then the slow movement of the plane on the ground. The vibration Negar felt from the seat was like a soft applause. As if the ground was welcoming her. Or perhaps reminding her that she had finally come back. Finally returned to a place she didn’t know why she had left and didn’t know why she had come back.
Negar placed her hand on the seatbelt. Fastened it. Sat up straight. Looked out the window. It was Tehran. And she still didn’t know that this journey would be the last short journey of her life. She still didn’t know that someone, before her landing, was waiting for her arrival.
7.
Imam Khomeini Airport.
The air was warm. A warmth Negar had forgotten. Heavy, humid heat that clung to the skin and made breathing hard. The smell of dust, of tea, of disinfectant. The smell of Tehran. The smell of something she hadn’t felt in years. The smell of memories she didn’t want to recall, but now were attacking her from every direction.
She walked through the terminal with her suitcase. No one was waiting for her. Her uncle had said he couldn’t come. Negar hadn’t insisted. Maybe she was relieved no one was there. Or maybe not. She didn’t know. As always, she didn’t know.
She stopped at the exit. Looked at the sky. Cloudy. The smell of rain was in the air, but it wasn’t raining. The air was heavy, like distant years. Like days she had forgotten. She stood there for a few minutes. Listened to the sounds. Drivers calling for passengers. A woman crying on the phone. A child laughing. Everything was familiar, but strange. Like a film she had seen years ago and was now watching again. Like a dream you couldn’t tell if it was waking or nightmare.
She took a taxi. The driver, in a familiar accent, asked: “Where to, ma’am?” Negar paused for a few seconds. She didn’t know the hospital’s name. Her uncle’s message had only the address. “Street…” The driver nodded and pulled away. Negar looked outside. Tehran was still asleep. Empty streets. Closed shops. A few police cars and a fruit cart were the only signs of the city’s wakefulness.
The driver talked. About rising prices, traffic, life. Negar listened but didn’t hear. She looked at streets she hadn’t seen in twenty years. Some she recognised, some she didn’t. Everything had changed. Or maybe she had changed. Maybe both. And now, after twenty years, she was wondering whether this city still had a place for her. Or whether she was just a temporary guest, come to say goodbye and leave again.
8.
The hospital.
The corridors were white. Fluorescent light, cold and soulless. Everything was like the place in her memories, but now with more detail. The smell of disinfectant, the beeping of machines, the hurried footsteps of nurses. Everything familiar, yet strange. Like herself.
Sarah was about to leave a room when she saw an old man. He was coming from the end of the corridor. His steps slow and heavy. He held a bunch of flowers. Three stems of anemones. No wrapping, no ribbon. He placed them on the nurses’ desk. The nurse behind the desk, without looking up, said: “Did you bring the letter today too?” The old man just smiled. A brief smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Then he walked toward room 12.
Sarah knew him. He came every week. He never said hello. He would just go to his daughter’s bedside, sit down, take her hand, and look at her. Sometimes ten minutes, sometimes half an hour. Without a word. Without a movement. Like someone who knows words are no longer useful, but being there still matters. Being there means hope. That you still believe that maybe one day that daughter will wake up. Maybe one day those eyes will open. Maybe one day those hands will hold yours again.
Today was like every other day. But today something was different. A man in a black coat stood behind one of the pillars in the corridor. Not too close, not too far. He was talking on the phone, but his eyes were fixed on the old man. Not staring, not hiding. Just in a way that if someone looked, they would notice. Sarah watched for a few seconds. Looked at the man, at the old man, back at the man. Then she turned and walked to the break room. She hadn’t seen anything. She hadn’t seen anyone. But something stayed in her mind. A feeling she didn’t recognise. A feeling that told her this old man knew a little more than he showed. And the man in the black coat was someone she shouldn’t have seen.
9.
Negar stood in front of her mother’s room.
The door was half open. Through the gap, she saw her mother’s hands. Thin. Veins visible. Resting on the white sheet. Hands that once cooked for her, brushed her hair, lay on her forehead at night to help her sleep. Those same hands, now motionless on the sheet. Like an old, worn thing that no longer worked.
She took a deep breath. Entered.
Her mother was asleep. A machine measured her breaths. The monotonous, quiet sound, like an artificial heartbeat. Negar pulled a chair and sat down. She took her mother’s hand. Warm. But motionless. Just like the day she had left. The same warmth, the same stillness. As if time had changed nothing. Only she had changed. Only she had wasted twenty years of chances, and now she was wondering if there was still time.
She sat like that for a few minutes. Looking at her mother’s face. The same face, but older. Deep wrinkles. White hair. Skin no longer as it used to be. The same eyes, but closed. The same lips, but silent. As if she had said everything and now had nothing left to say. But Negar still had things to say. Things she hadn’t said for years. Things she now didn’t know how to say. Maybe that was why she held her mother’s hand and said nothing. Because she didn’t know where to start. Because she didn’t know if there was still time.
On the bedside table was a small wooden frame. Inside was a black‑and‑white photo Negar didn’t recognise. A young woman in a wedding dress, in an old photograph. Maybe her mother herself, maybe someone else. She didn’t know. Behind the frame, a dried flower had fallen. No, not a flower. A dried stem of an anemone. Negar looked at it. Someone had placed it there. Someone who knew her mother was here. Someone who came every week.
As she left the room, she met Sarah in the corridor. Sarah looked at her. Not with surprise, not with a question. Just looked. Like someone who knew something but wasn’t saying. Sarah’s gaze lasted a few seconds longer. No judgment, no sympathy. Just an empty look full of meaning. Negar passed by her. But behind her, Sarah’s voice didn’t come. Just the look. A look Negar felt all the way to the hospital exit. A look she didn’t know why, but it was heavier than any word. A look that said: “You don’t know what’s happening in this hospital.”
10.
Negar walked out of the hospital. It had grown dark. Streetlights were on. A few people hurried past. Normal life, ordinary day. But for her, this was no ordinary day. A day when a simple call, a simple night, a simple breath, had changed everything. A day she decided to come back. A day she realised she should never have left. A day she understood that twenty years of running might have taught her only one thing: that running away answers no questions.
She stopped at the entrance. Looked at the sky. The clouds had cleared. A few stars were visible. Faint. Like herself. Like the remnants of a life she no longer recognised.
Her phone rang. Her uncle. “Did you arrive, my dear?” Negar said: “Yes.” “Did you see your mother?” Negar said: “I saw her.” “Well… how is she?” Negar was silent for a few seconds. She looked at the hospital’s closed door. At the lights of the room where her mother lay. At everything she didn’t know. She said: “Just as you said.” Her uncle said nothing. Just breathed. Then he said: “Well… the house is where I told you. The key is with the neighbour. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Negar said: “Okay.” The call ended.
Negar took out her phone, looked at the street. The city lights, the cars, the people. Everything was familiar, but strange. Like a film you’d seen many times, but this time you were in it and didn’t know your role. She took a taxi toward a house she hadn’t been to in twenty years. The house where her mother had lived for years. Now empty. Waiting for someone to come, or to look and leave. She didn’t know which. She only knew that here, in this city, on this street, in this hospital, something was waiting for her. Something she didn’t recognise. Something that might be herself. Something she had been running from for twenty years and now didn’t want to run from anymore.
