Spilled Ink, page 20
I call but the phone goes to his voice mail. I call a second time. And a third.
On the third ring of the third try, Chris picks up.
Neither of us says a word. I can hear him breathing.
“I’m so sorry, Yalda,” he says quietly. His voice is raspy, scared. “I’m . . . I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about this. They said I . . . I . . .”
“Please, Chris,” I plead. “I need to know.”
Chris starts to protest but falters. Then he starts talking.
Chris tells me his stepfather was supposed to pick him up that night. He had closed Crescendo and walked down the stairs to wait for his stepfather in the parking lot. He called a couple times but his calls went unanswered. He wasn’t surprised. His stepfather had a habit of stopping by a bar for a drink or two after work and losing track of time. He thought about calling his mom but figured that would just start another fight between his mom and stepfather at home.
“And when they fight, it gets pretty bad,” Chris says. “Like real bad. So I started walking. I caught a bus, then walked some more. Went to sleep when I got home.”
Chris said he woke in the morning to messages about Yusuf being missing. On his way out of the house, he found his stepfather asleep on the couch, the smell of beer on his clothes.
“I don’t know why I didn’t put it all together. Part of me also thought I would get to school and see Yusuf was there. I was on my phone that morning, texting Yusuf. Calling him. My stepdad woke up and started in on me about being late for school. I told him he was the last person who should be talking about being late, seeing as how he totally forgot to pick me up the night before. And he sat up and told me I had it all wrong. He wasn’t ever supposed to pick me up because he had planned a night out with the guys.”
Chris walked out then and didn’t think much of it. His stepfather was a lousy person sober, and a wretched person drunk. And it wasn’t like he had been looking forward to getting picked up by his stepfather. His mom wanted her husband to be more of a dad to Chris, but it wasn’t working.
Chris didn’t have reason to think his stepfather could have been the one to push Yusuf over the railing. Sure, after he’d heard about what happened at WhereHouse, he’d gone off on Chris’s mom for letting her son hang out with a “future suicide bomber.” He’d shoved her into the wall when she tried to argue.
“He gets that way sometimes with her,” Chris says.
It doesn’t take much imagination to figure Chris isn’t telling me just how bad things are at home. He probably becomes violent with Chris, too, and has said a lot worse about Yusuf, but I get the gist. Chris didn’t tell his mother about taking the bus home either.
“I knew he was bad, but I thought . . . I thought it stayed in our house. It didn’t click until he asked me about the cameras. I’m so sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner. And I’m sorry . . . I’m . . .”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Chris. “I know this wasn’t easy for you. Thank you for . . .”
I can’t put it into words for Chris. The silence is uncomfortable for both of us. He says that he better get off the phone, so I say goodbye.
What do I even call what Chris has done? It’s like lighting a candle in a dark room. It’s saying something true but also terrifying and painful. Yusuf won’t heal any faster. I don’t feel happy. I only feel like something is a little less wrong with this world.
27
My eyes open and I fumble for my phone, finding it on my nightstand. A quick glance and I realize it’s four o’clock. My power nap somehow turned into a two-hour slumber.
“Are you hungry? There’s warm aush on the stove. I made the noodles yesterday. It’s so much better than the soup from the can.”
How long has Ama Leeda been standing in my doorway and why does she hate on everything that can be purchased in a grocery store? Also, sometimes I think she forgets that I have access to a full menu of Afghan food while I’m working at our restaurant.
“Thanks, maybe later. I’m not hungry right now,” I say, sitting up. My comforter slides off my bed and I am glad for the excuse to turn away from Ama Leeda. I pull it back up over my pillow and tug the corner to straighten it out. The heater kicks in and a gust of air blows through a ceiling vent. Did I not close my door before I slipped into bed? I should have, given that my aunt seems not to understand boundaries.
“You should put a sweater on. This cold is not good for your bones. You’ll get arthritis like me,” she says. “I can’t sleep on my left shoulder at all.”
“I’m not cold,” I mumble.
“When you’re young, you don’t know how cold your feet are,” she replies.
I consider my options. If I were to get up and put socks and a sweater on, would Ama Leeda walk away? Or would she see that as an invitation to offer me more advice? It feels important to choose carefully.
I do not reach for any warm clothing. Instead, I turn so that I’m facing her.
“If my feet were cold, I would know and I would put on socks,” I say, trying to sound firm, but by the look on Ama Leeda’s face, I think I skipped right over firm and landed on rude.
She blinks slowly, then leaves. I hear the padding of her steps down the hallway and groan because the conversation did not go the way I wanted it to.
I change into a black button-down and jeans. Dad hasn’t asked me to come back to the restaurant yet, but I know he could use my help. I’m betting he wouldn’t mind some company either. On my way to grab my bag and phone, I stop and peek into Yusuf’s room. I can see the evidence of Ama Leeda’s presence there. The bed has been made with the pillow on top of the comforter. The pillow looks perfectly smooth, like a website picture of a hotel room except for the handful of Star Wars decor pieces.
She’s messed with his shelves, too. The books are lying on their sides and his LeBron James bobblehead figure has been moved down to the corner of the second shelf. On the nightstand is an unzipped, quilted makeup bag. Beside it, lined up like orange soldiers with white caps, are three prescription bottles, a bottle of pastel antacids, and a blue tin of Nivea hand cream. Her rolling suitcase sits inside Yusuf’s closet, his belongings pushed aside to make room for hers.
I remind myself that there isn’t another guest room in this house. Ama Leeda either sleeps here or moves into my room and rearranges my belongings. Neither are good options.
And I know I’m really on edge because I visited Yusuf. We’ve been praying over his bed with the foolish idea that Yusuf would wake up and be just as he was before the fall.
It’s been a few days since they took him off the breathing machines. He’s been more awake and aware but he’s not able to respond yet. When our family spent four days in a hotel at the beach this past summer, I woke up every morning briefly confused by the lumpy mattress and the cheerful red crab on the wall.
Yusuf’s slumber has been so much deeper and longer. He’s gone so much farther from home than the beach. In the past two weeks he’s slept the number of hours a person sleeps in nearly two months. It’s a time warp, like in movies about space travel.
Yusuf’s awakening has been rough. The doctors and nurses check for signs of progress every day. When William, who quickly became our favorite nurse, tried to get Yusuf to squeeze his fingers, Yusuf pushed him away and growled. Mom was on him immediately, trying to steady him as he thrashed and apologizing to William.
Agitation is normal, William tells us. We’re all going to be patient with him.
I had a new fear to keep me up at night.
What if this is the Yusuf who’s returning to us?
I hear kitchen cabinets open and close, the clink of a spoon against a teacup.
I walk into the living room, my head sparking with frustrated energy. Ama Leeda has taken a seat on the sofa, facing the television. She’s watching a Turkish soap opera with the volume so low she would have to read lips. Steam rises from a teacup on the side table. On her knee are two pairs of my underwear. In her hands is a third pair with a cute rainbow pattern, something I bought for myself when I was feeling a little silly. I feel like she’s judging the underwear even as she folds it.
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her. “I fold my own clothes.”
“You do?”
I can fold my own clothes, rather. Whether or not I do is entirely irrelevant.
“Yalda jan, are you upset because I said something about socks? I was only telling you for your own good.”
“Yes, but I’m not a child. I can look after myself. If your feet are cold, I’ll gladly go get some socks for you.”
“No, I do not need socks,” Ama Leeda says slowly, glancing down at her fuzzy house slippers. “Yalda jan, I can see you are not happy that I’m here, but I am here to help. This is not a time for your parents to be alone. Especially your mother.”
“My mom isn’t alone,” I reply, my tone softening. “I’m here.”
“You’re still young,” she replies, and I want to throw something at the television because I’m not sure how old I have to be for my presence to count in Ama Leeda’s world. “You have your own life, too. School and your friends. This is what you should worry about. Your family and your health are important. Thank God for these things and don’t worry about other distractions. I worry about you when you’re out at night in the streets.”
“In the streets? What does that mean? Ama Leeda, I don’t go out at night. And it gets dark by five o’clock, which is not really night,” I say. She must have seen me walking in the neighborhood with Keith and Fisher, and yet she makes it sound like I’ve been lurking in sketchy alleys with Satanists.
If she considers my going for a walk or being barefoot in the house misdemeanors, I can only imagine how harshly she judged Rahim for the truth of who he was. It hurts to think about how stifled he must have felt. My heart squeezes at the thought of him and I want desperately to extract myself from this conversation before things get uglier, but Ama Leeda has more to say.
“Your father is quiet but I know him. He is under a lot of stress. As your aunt, I care for you. That’s why I said something to you directly, because at this age, I’m sure you understand—”
Is she hinting at telling my dad that I’ve been hanging out with Keith? This feels less like her being a confidante and more like blackmail.
“Ama Leeda, I know my dad is stressed out, but that doesn’t mean you can spy on me or judge me.”
She seems taken aback. The living room feels like it’s shrinking by the minute, as if the walls are closing in to get a better listen.
“I am not judging—”
“But you are. That’s what you’ve been doing since you came here. Nothing is good enough, not the way we put our dishes in the cabinet or the way we do laundry or anything that I do. You want to fix everything, but not everything can be fixed. And maybe not everything needs to be fixed.”
Dear God. If my mother were here, she would slap some duct tape across my mouth. Ama Leeda emits a strange sound, a note of bewilderment. She has every right to be bewildered. I’ve never had a sharp tongue and generally require a twenty-four-hour turnaround to think of a witty reply. Is this Ama Leeda’s doing?
“Have mercy on me, God,” she says softly. She’s slipped back into Dari. “I don’t want to fix anything. I know I can’t fix. I know. I’m only trying to . . .”
She blinks a few times to hold back tears.
There’s something different in her voice, something almost tender. Almost broken. It pokes holes in my puffed chest and makes me want to take back my harsh words.
“I shouldn’t have said . . . I’m sorry,” I say, my voice softened to match hers.
I want to touch her arm, to connect and steady her in some way. I wanted to get through to her, but I’ve clearly struck a nerve. I want to ask her about Rahim. I can see Rahim, Yusuf, and me sprawled on the living room couches late at night, laughing at the shadow puppets Rahim would make by lamplight. I remember the way he would sit with his arm around his mother’s neck and Ama Leeda squeezing his cheeks together affectionately. Where did this memory come from? Why have I not thought of how much she must miss him?
I pull my sleeves over my hands and summon the courage to say my cousin’s name.
“Yusuf and I, we think about Rahim a lot,” I tell her.
She stares out the window, at the rustling leaves. It occurs to me now, seeing her sit impossibly still, that she has been in constant motion the entire time she’s been at our house—reaching, rinsing, rearranging. A drifting cloud covers the sun and the room darkens by degrees.
“How the day passes,” she remarks. “Let me soak some rice before . . .”
She sets a pile of my dad’s folded undershirts back into the white laundry basket, then slips into the kitchen.
I want to run after her and undo what I’ve just done, but I don’t think I have the right words. I hold still in her wake, replaying our hopscotch conversation that was all about me and my mother and Yusuf and my aunt, but I know in my heart we were both hopping around with one foot up, knowing any mention of Rahim would have sent us flailing and falling like clumsy children.
28
The bell rings and I slide out of my chair and head toward my locker. I can feel my teacher’s eyes on me, but by now I’ve gotten used to it. People go out of their way to either talk to me or to avoid me. I don’t blame them.
It feels strange to be back at school, a full week after winter break ended. Everyone else went back a week ago, but my parents didn’t push. Maybe they need me around more because even though Yusuf’s out of the hospital, he’s still not at home.
Once Yusuf was able to respond to simple questions and get into a wheelchair with some assistance, the doctors decided he no longer needed the same level of medical care. His broken bones will continue to heal in the casts. He’s been able to eat more, though he needs help with that too.
The rehab facility he’s in feels like a hospital in some ways. There are nurses and therapists in monochromatic uniforms, like they were dipped in burgundy or blue on their way to work. But it’s also clearly not a hospital. People aren’t checking on Yusuf nearly as often and he’s not hooked up to monitors. This makes Mom feel better, but it also makes her nervous. She’s afraid something will go wrong, and no one will know. Yesterday, she took a thermometer from home so she could check his temperature herself.
“Hey,” Keith says. He’s already wearing his coat. His backpack hangs on one shoulder. I close my locker and give the lock a spin out of habit.
“Hi,” I say. We usually meet outside and end up walking home as two people who happen to live a couple houses away from each other. But he’s here now, standing at my locker, so we can walk out of school and into the cold together—like real friends.
Our conversation is slow on the way home, quiet. I’m not feeling very sarcastic or witty, but he doesn’t look bored. We walk at a new, unhurried pace. He asks me about Yusuf and I tell him he’s doing a little better. I decide he doesn’t need to know what “better” looks like. Keith doesn’t need to know that Yusuf walked to the bathroom with Mom holding his arm or that he’s a little calmer. He’s been complaining about his ribs hurting and really hates his cast, but before he couldn’t complain at all, so even those are signs of progress. When he’s ready, Yusuf can tell people whatever he wants.
We’re being patient, just like William told us to, and it’s just about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
When we get to Keith’s house, I wonder if his mother is watching again, and I’m tired of feeling uncomfortable around her. He starts to say goodbye but I cut him off.
“Can I ask you a question?” I blurt.
“Of course,” he says, looking a little alarmed. Only complicated questions get announced. Simple questions are just conversation. “What about?”
“Does your mom not like me?” I ask to my own surprise.
“No, wait, what?” Keith scoffs. “Why would you even think that?”
If I had been a little unsure, I would have apologized for asking and told Keith to forget I ever brought it up, but I know what I’ve felt. I am sure his mom watches me, and not with a big, cheesy smile on her face.
“Don’t do that,” I say softly. “Don’t try to convince me it’s nothing.”
Keith flushes. I can see it even as he looks toward the ground.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” he falters, but the truth is coming. I just need to be a little patient with Keith, too. “I should have explained. Here’s the thing.”
Keith tells me about Danny’s friend, a marine who also served in Afghanistan. He was so close to coming home. All he had to do was help out at the airport while they got the last people out—American citizens and some Afghans who fought against the Taliban with the Americans. It was supposed to be a few days and it was just an airport, not a combat zone.
“But then there was a bombing,” I say, remembering the pictures, the video clips, the online commentary that had made my parents go quiet.
“Yeah. Danny’s friend was one of the Americans killed that day. There were twelve others, mostly marines.”
And almost two hundred Afghans died too. Besides the dead, there were also a lot of people who were wounded, Afghans and Americans. It was a horrible attack on desperate people.
“But what does this have to do with me?” I ask.
Keith nods. “Danny had been doing better and then this came out of nowhere. He was really broken up about his friend. It hit him hard. He was talking to other vets and it was hitting a lot of them hard, too. They were so mad about the way everything went down. Danny said they felt like everything they’d done, tours over there away from their families and getting shot—all of it was for nothing if we were just letting the enemy take over,” Keith explains. “Anyway, it’s taken Danny a while to get better. He wouldn’t talk to us about it for a few months. He was just on his phone getting updates and reading and getting angrier. Mom had to call some crisis line and get him help. So, she’s been worried about anything tripping him up again. Reminding him, you know.”
