The streets were dark.
Her eyes were wide, unblinking in the pitch of the night air. The humidity seeped in through the closed car windows, as they barreled down the empty road.
Leila glanced anxiously at her parents, her mother’s head lolling on her father’s shoulder next to her. She was afraid in the dark, and her hands shook terribly in the eerie stillness. Her father too, slept blissfully unaware, slumped against the window, with dust and debris swirling outside and separated from his face by only a thin sheet of cheap glass.
The roads were embraced by dilapidated buildings; the bricks crumbling and the corners rounded. The shabby windows distorted the view, the moon seeming a pale smudge on the inky sky. Leila needed the dull glow to keep herself sane, squinting to make it out behind layers of dirt. The air conditioner buzzed in her ears, the skin on her arms prickling with the collision of temperatures in the small space. Her uncle drove on, calmly. The silence was heavy with her parents’ slumber.
Leila’s mother and father were of the breed to whom sleep came with ease, long car rides and days leaving them close lidded children, curled into a realm of dreams and gentle breathing.  They had slept for the entire airplane ride, leaving their young daughter to converse animatedly with stewardesses and aisle-mates.   
Sleep always seemed to evade Leila. She could never quite unlock the door to that mystical land of comforts, floating away from worldly nuisance.  However, she was not a rambunctious child; the long nights did not make her nervous or cranky.  She loved to be awake in the pin silence of late hours; feeling pure and holy as the world slept on. She was too young still to understand the secrets and spirits that live in the night, but the clean beauty of moon-washed air left her feeling a strange and wonderful ache in her little heart.  It was not healthy for a child to spend her nights in the company of phantoms and fantasies. Leila had a peaked, tired look about her; the angelic quality of youth often blurred in the lines of her face, the tiredness taking residence beneath her eyelashes. The darkness of exhaustion gave her a wisdom rarely seen in a world of playgrounds and picture books.
Leila stayed silent as the car swerved to a residential neighborhood, the screeching of the tires disconcerting in desolate quiet. Her eyes remained owlishly open, bright and curious in the flickering glow of a street light. She felt afraid to speak, afraid to break the spell that had settled itself over her and her parents, covering them like a blanket.
He brought the car to a stop in front of a white iron gate. The sides where dirty, the dust leaving its mark on the hinges and locks. The arches were swirled, elaborate, dressed in ivy and flowering things. Leila’s throat ached, it was so beautiful.
The house was quiet, its residents fallen victim to the clutches of sleep. Leila’s uncle grunted his “Good night,” stumbling inside to try and rest a few hours before the sun was to rise. Her parents half-crawled up the steps, unlocking a second gate to a windswept balcony before they too collapsed onto a bed prepared for their arrival.
Leila did not attempt to sleep. She wasn’t tired, and it was so lovely, the humid evening air giving way to a brisk coolness; she had always loved the night for its cleanliness. She felt a happiness that she would not for years be able to describe.
There were palm trees outside the terrace, their leaves tickling her bare legs when she stood close to the railing. City lights glinted far off in the distance, but all she heard was silence. 
She was home. Miles away from where she was born, from where her friends lived and she had been raised. This was where she belonged.
Leila was not an overly insightful or brilliant child. The gods had not gifted her with any great intuition. However, her long nights had given her much time for contemplation. She would be ten years old before hearing the word insomnia, and fourteen before hearing it from a doctor. But there were some things that Leila instinctively knew.  She could sense anger or disappointment in someone from the creases on their forehead. She knew how long to wait before waking her parents early the next morning, her own eyes unrested. She knew that she was home.
But Leila would not know until she was eleven years old why her family had flown to a foreign land in the middle of the night. She would not know that the house was not sleeping but struck dumb in grief. The next day, she would sit, blissfully ignorant in a sea of white linens and sobbing women.  The whites of her eyes were still clean, unmarred by the burden of understanding as they followed the heavy box outside. Leila held her mother’s hand and bit a fingernail watching the men lower her grandfather into the ground. Her grandmother stood to her left, but Leila did not know who she was.
Leila was five years old the first time she saw her father cry. He walked bravely, his mouth set in a line and his brow wrinkled, shouldering her grandfather’s casket and saying his farewells with dry eyes. It was only after, as the people walked in tearstained droves to their cars, that his strained reserve was broken. He crumpled, discarded paper onto the parched grass, soundless and blind in his mourning. Leila was afraid, confused as her father crushed her to him, his tears falling like rain onto her curly hair. Her parents enveloped her, her mother raising her hand to wipe dampness from her father’s cheek and the two of them kissing their daughter’s head and not ever telling her where she was. 
Leila was twenty seven the next time she came home. Her eyes were almond and dark lined, the tired shadows still immobile on her face. Only, this time her parents were meeting her in a week.  The flight was still lengthy and sleepless, and she had drunk coffee with the stewardesses, above the Atlantic at four in the morning. She had hired a driver, the expensive air conditioner giving her a chill.  She cracked open the window, relishing the warmth on her face. The atmosphere was like a damp sponge, frizzing her hair, making it spiral wildly into a halo around her head.
Her memories had not faded. The streets flooding past her, behind the tinted windows, and the dust swirling in their wake, felt as familiar to her as any place ever had. She chatted intermittently with the driver, asking him about the area and the picture of his children on the dashboard. She leaned back in her seat and felt that she was home.
Leila stared out the window, trying to burn the whitewashed sky and the street corners into her mind. She lifted her hand, resting it against the window, at times catching herself admiring the small flashes of light as sun beams danced off of diamond.
  The terrace was still her favorite place in the house. Leila had ran her fingers along the white iron gate, its intricate swirls and patterns vivid in her memory. Her family had surrounded her immediately, her aunt reaching her first, pressing Leila to her, the scent of kitchen spices and sweat woven into the linen of her scarf. Leila’s grandmother watched on from her chair in the corner, stately even in her weathered age. Her face was mapped with a myriad of lines, her hair painted different shades of gray. Leila had bowed her head respectfully, kissing her grandmother on the cheek, the smell of old Chanel and coconut oil clinging to the woman’s clothes. But she had escaped outside as soon as she could.
Leila inhaled deeply. This was a different world by daylight, but it still brought a smile to her face, her eyes smarting with joyful tears. There was no place in the world that she would have rather been.  The palm trees were browning, the leaves kissing her hands when she ran her fingers over them, the ring glinting in the setting sun. Leila’s bare feet curled on the dusty tile floor; she leaned over the edge of the railing and wished she could become a part of the air around her.
Leila had always been a pretty child, her wildly curly hair and brown eyes endearing her to the people around her. But it was only here, on the terrace that she had ever felt beautiful. The weather was destroying her hair, and the dust was clogging her pores, but she had never been more radiant. She was going shopping for a wedding dress in exactly one week.
“This one is fine.” Leila was wearing her third dress and already she was tired of the whole ordeal. She wanted to be outside, getting acquainted with the city that had held her heart for two decades.
Her mother was disapproving. “Try another one,” she said. “You have to be sure.” Her aunts and cousins nodded in agreement. This was one of the most important decisions of her life.
“I’m already sure about him,” Leila muttered, trying to navigate her way around heavy brocade that dug into her shoulders. “The rest is supposed to be easy.”
She was dressed in a deep navy, with silver beading at her ankles and along her waist. Her beautiful hair was hidden beneath a dark purple veil, the jewelry heavy on her hands and shoulders and head. Her neck would be bruised after this, the disfigured skin matching the dress.
“Really,” her mother asked impatiently, “What do you really think?”
Leila took a closer look at herself in the tiny mirror that took up half the wall. They were in a boutique, the small space stifling in the heat of the summer afternoon. The shopkeeper, a small man with a mustache and kind eyes, watch contentedly from the counter, occasionally interjecting with an opinion.
The skirt hugged her hips and flared out behind her, the train daunting. The fabric was heavy and unflattering. She did like the color though. The deepness of blue and purple, the way the light reflected off her shoulders and glistened like an ocean next to the golden brown of her skin entranced her. It reminded her of the night sky she loved so dearly.
Leila turned to the shopkeeper. “Could I see something else in this color?”
Leila was the first one to walk out of the store, after thanking the man and waiting patiently for him to take her measurements. She tilted her face to the sun above, deaf to the chatter of her family around her. She was quiet. In one month she would be a married woman.
Leila’s wedding took place on the hottest day of the year. The sun had bleached the life out of the streets, the dust rising up around footsteps with less enthusiasm than usual. The sky was scorched, the vegetation limp, on the brink of existence.
The makeup artist was amused by Leila’s grimace. Her mother and relatives watched on as she had her face brushed and painted, transformed to statuesque. At the end of the hours-long process, a beautiful woman, an emblem of perfection, stared back at her from the mirror. Her mother sobbed openly in the arms of an aunt. Tears fell freely throughout the room as the beautiful little girl placed a golden chain in those uncontrollable curls.
Her grandmother was different from the rest. She did not let go of her composure, sitting forever still in the corner. She exuded elegance, draped in lilac, yards of fabric resting perfectly across her nobly sloping shoulders. Her earrings and necklace were pearl, the golden bangles heavy against the blue veins tracing the creases on her left wrist. She studied her granddaughter with a controlled sort of curiosity. 
Leila could scarcely hide her shock when the woman rose out of her chair-with some difficulty- her hands gnarled against the armrests as she struggled into a standing position. She approached her granddaughter.
At first, the two did not speak. Leila felt overgrown and awkward, towering over her grandmother. The old woman was the first to break the silence. She pried open her arthritic fingers to reveal a slim gold ring with a diamond set in ruby. Her voice was warbled, blending with the ever present hum of air conditioners.
“You look so beautiful.” Her eyes were gray and stormy blue, glassy with age and perhaps even a tear.  Leila could not thank her before she found that the ring was on her finger.
“Your grandfather gave that ring to me the day we were married. When you were born, he asked me to save it for you on your own wedding day.” She took a shaky breath, “I just wasn’t sure if I could bear to part with it.”
Leila choked back a small sob. “Thank you so much.” The ring was at home on her hand, not competing with the one on her left. She felt a sudden tenderness towards the man she had never known. 
Leila had fallen in love with the land of her parents’ blood when she was five years old. When she had gotten engaged, it was not even a question as to where to hold the ceremony.  Over the years, she had spent many stolen moments remembering the way the wind had caressed her face, the way that night air had washed over her in waves. When she had first arrived, she was unsure if any place could live to such strong nostalgia. But it did. It was as beautiful and pure and sweet as she had left it, and it hadn’t occurred to her to thank the man who introduced her to all of this.
Leila had never known her grandfather.  But for as long as she lived she would keep that ring on her right hand, never forgetting his soul in her prayers. He was home now, in the same way the night sky would always be a part of her. She would never again look to the moon and stars without wondering if he was watching over her.
At the end of a red-carpeted aisle, a man awaited the love of his life. Golden lamps hung low from the ceiling, tossing shadows across the room, the faces of guests expectant. The room fairly shone with excitement. It was as close to perfect as anyone could have dreamed of. All that remained was to await the bride.
Leila stood outside the gilt door, her hands shaking slightly. A cousin fussed with her skirt, draping folds of fabric across the marble floor. Her parents stood on either side of her.
Leila looked askance at her father. He stood tall, proud and strong. He had hardly seen his daughter since the day he arrived, the entire family caught up in the whirlwind of shopping and decorating and last minute things. He too, had not come home in more than twenty years. The streets and buildings that once held his childhood were almost foreign to him now, the ageing man close to forgetting the young boy.  Her father’s once dark hair was now more gray than not, and thinning ever so slightly in the front. He did not smile, did not congratulate her on this, the most special day. Instead, he held her bag, ever dignified with the beaded purse tiny in his hands. Leila felt a tug of affection for her father, remembering the way he had broken in the graveyard, holding onto her little hand as if it the only thing tethering him to reality.
The music began to play, gently. The lights in the hall dimmed. It was time.
The doors opened. Leila stood across the aisle from the love of her life.
He would not ever admit to crying on his wedding day, but she knew that there was something glistening at the corner of his jaw, his smile at seeing her tremulous.
She was wearing chiffon, layers of sheer fabric floating round her graceful form, giving her the angelic look that she had as a child. The beading was burnished, rose gold, tracing patterns across her bodice and to the floor. The midnight blues and violets blended over her, the silver thread turning her into the night sky, the skirt and train looking like home.
But the veil was the showstopper. Almost completely sheer, a layer of indigo floated behind her. Lifted off her head by hair, she seemed to be flying across the room. The chains in her hair were gold, the rings and bangles on either hand catching the lamplight and glimmering fantastically across the room.  She was breathtaking, gliding across the floor until her hand was in his. Leila kissed her parents, and embraced her grandmother one last time before taking the stage next to her husband. She could not remember ever being so happy.
Leila was twenty seven the second time she saw her father cry. They were outside, guests leaving around them. Leila’s face ached from smiling, her veil was askew and her hair a disaster. She had never been more beautiful.
Her parents hugged her goodbye. Her mother kissed her cheek, and struggled to maintain her composure. Her father kissed her head absently, turning away before she got into the car. Leila turned to leave, catching something flashing as her head turned. His face was still immobile, hands folded behind his back, the portrait of collection. But his brow was scrunched furiously, a giveaway tear sliding down his cheek.  Leila could almost see him crumpled on the dying grass, head to the earth, shoulders shaking. She rushed to embrace her father one more time, childlike in his arms. For a moment, they were nothing more than the little girl and the still-young man in the beating summer sun.  When Leila turned to leave, her own eyes were damp, the makeup sliding away to reveal the darkness, the shadows that were a part of her like her family, her father not drying his eyes as she walked away.
Leila held her husband’s hand as the car pulled away. She asked the driver if he would not mind turning the air conditioner off, and then opened the windows. Her head fell onto his shoulder, the city lights painting her skin. She looked outside with a small smile. The moon was full, hanging low over the horizon. Her grandfather’s ring glinted softly in the dark car. Night had fallen.