The occasion for the dinner party was simple enough: our friend Hakan Zor, a rug merchant from Turkey, was visiting. However, the implications were more momentous. “We aren’t in the market for more rugs, but we’d love to see you,” I wrote in response to the text message Zor sent letting me know he was in town. A few nights later, seven of us — two couples from the neighborhood, my husband and I, and Zor — were sitting around my dining room table, eating and talking and laughing. I noticed a foreign feeling in my chest, one I hadn’t felt for some time: joy.