Later

# Later

He always had the same answer:

**“Alright… later.”**

Early in their marriage, Zari would say:

— Shall we go up north this weekend?

Mahmoud would answer:

— Let’s wait until the mortgage payments get a little easier.

When the children were small, they would call out:

— Dad, come play with us.

And Mahmoud would say:

— I’m too busy these days. Later.

And little by little, **“later” became another member of the family.**

The house grew bigger.
The car was replaced.
The children grew up.

When his son became a teenager, he said:

— Dad, come watch my game on Friday.

Mahmoud replied:

— Next Friday. I promise.

He didn’t go the following Friday either.

The day before his daughter’s graduation, she said:

— Dad, you’re coming to the university tomorrow, right? Don’t forget.

Mahmoud said:

— I’ll do everything I can to be there.

He wasn’t.

Years passed.

On the first morning of his retirement, Mahmoud switched off the alarm and, for once, did not go back to sleep.

He sat beside the window and said to himself:

**“Well… now it’s time to live.”**

He turned to his wife.

— Let’s go on a trip. To that place you’ve always wanted to see.

Zari gave him a bittersweet smile.

— Your knees can’t handle a long drive anymore, and my legs hurt too. Let’s just go somewhere nearby.

Mahmoud said nothing.

He called his son.

— Come over this weekend. I was thinking maybe you, your mother and I could all take a trip together.

His son replied:

— Dad, I’m getting together with my friends this weekend. Maybe some other time.

Mahmoud called his daughter.

— Come stay with us for a few days.

She said:

— I wish you’d told me sooner, Dad. I really can’t make it for the next couple of months.

Mahmoud put down the phone.

For the first time, he understood that no one had abandoned him.

**They had simply learned how to live without him.**

That night, he brought out the old box of photographs.

He was missing from most of them.

On the back of one photograph, in his daughter’s childish handwriting, were the words:

**“Dad didn’t come. He had work.”**

Mahmoud stared at that sentence for a long time.

The next morning, Zari heard something fall.

When she entered the room, Mahmoud was lying beside the bed.

The paramedics came.

But it was already too late.

On a piece of paper nearby, he had written:

**“I’m not putting anything off until later anymore.”**

There was only one thing he did not know:

**Sometimes, “later” never comes.**