Decatur

After twelve years, he finally agrees to meet Will’s mother’s people, the Syrian side, in Decatur.

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Aunt Ruth’s house is all garden, leftover puzzles, and an air mattress. There's a cockroach, a loud Southern reunion, and a mother-in-law who has never forgiven him for not being the daughter-in-law she was owed.

He can handle all of that. What he can't handle is Will’s smile, the one that answers every hard question.

Over a long weekend of kibbeh and family stories no one was supposed to tell him, he starts to see what the smile is for.

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Interior art by Asterus.