The Map of Salt and Stars

by Zeyn Joukhadar

My whole life, Mama and Baba celebrated two religions’ worth of holidays—Christmas, Eid al-Fitr, Easter. It used to make me wonder whether the most important things we see in God are really in each other.

“No one sees the future,” she says. “No one knows what’s planned. But safety is not about never having bad things happen to you. It’s about knowing that the bad things can’t separate us from each other. Okay? No matter what happens.

I wonder if there is somebody out there who loves the smuggler man, if anybody loves all the mean, unlovable people in the world. I wonder if bad men are good sometimes, when we aren’t looking.