The Ungrateful Refugee

by Dina Nayeri

I wish I had held back the tears; the pastor misread them. He hurried over to apologize. I was too young and inarticulate to explain that it didn’t matter. Yes, I had wanted that letter, but Baba had disappointed me before, and there would be other letters. I was moved by the image of the pastor on the bench, wringing his hands. After years of daily calibrations—one day I belonged to someone or someplace, the next day I didn’t—I knew I could eventually earn my place in America, but I never expected to register in the emotional calculus of an American adult. I didn’t have that kind of power. Was his swaying for my sake? Now, years later, I remember how much he cared, how the possibility of hurting me affected him. How, as an insecure teenager, I marveled at that and thought better of myself. Here was someone who wasn’t pretending to want me around. What a thing, to be loved by a stranger, to have a stranger bother to meddle in your life.