by Sabina Khan
They leave shortly after, and we rush to Abbu’s side.
“What did you tell them?” Ammi asks. “Did they say what’s going to happen?”
Abbu takes Ammi’s hand in his. “I told them exactly what happened,” he says, even in his current state more worried about Ammi than himself. “They said that the investigation was still ongoing, and they can’t tell me anything yet.”
I pull Shireen Khala aside. “What about the charges against him?” I ask in a low whisper.
She shakes her head. “They found something during their investigation,” she replies. “They haven’t confirmed yet, but I suspect it’s a witness.”
“That’s amazing,” I say. “When will we know for sure?”
“Soon, hopefully,” she says. “I know they were questioning the witness this morning. I’ve also been in touch with the prosecutor who will be putting together the case against Mr. Benson; his team is eager to talk to your father when he’s healthy enough. They said the charges against your father are just a smokescreen, part of Benson’s defense. I agree. They want to discredit your father because that’s the only chance they have of claiming it was self-defense. We just need to put together the evidence proving they’re wrong. He’s got the power here, Zara, but we have the truth.”
I nod. “Let’s not mention anything to Ammi about the witness until it’s confirmed.”
Shireen Khala agrees. “I should know something by tomorrow morning.”
* * *
The next morning, I wake up with a renewed sense of hope. It feels like forever since I’ve felt like this. I go out and get breakfast kolaches from S & J Bakery, Abbu’s favorite. He’s allowed to eat regular food now, and he’s not wasting any time. But I sense that something’s wrong as soon as I step off the elevator. I can hear Ammi’s voice, and I hurry down the hall to Abbu’s room. The officers are there. Shireen Khala is talking to them. Murshed Uncle is trying to calm Ammi down. She’s crying.
“What’s happening?” I ask Shireen Khala. I’m trying very hard to remain calm in this chaos, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to.
“He’s being placed under arrest for trespassing,” she says. “We knew this was coming, Zara.”
“So is Abbu going to jail?” I can’t believe I’m even uttering these words.
“Dr. Mehta is not releasing him until he’s fully recovered, so no. But he’s still technically under arrest.”
“So, what do we do now?” I’m fighting an overwhelming urge to laugh and cry at the same time. This whole situation is so absurd.
“My investigator has finally been able to get some information from one of the neighbors, so after I talk to him, hopefully I can clear all this up.”
Shireen Khala leaves, and I hope desperately that she’ll come back with some good news. Officer Nolte tells us that they will be checking in from time to time, and that the hospital security will be monitoring the room. Officer Hernandez seems genuinely apologetic when she tells us the situation is “complicated” and that it’s her sincere hope that when she returns, it will only be to take further testimony for the case against Mr. Benson. I try to take that as a good sign.
When the officers are gone, Ammi and Murshed Uncle leave Abbu’s side to come over to me.
“Yeh kya ho gaya?” Ammi says. Her face is wet with tears, and she clings to me.
“Ammi, nothing has happened yet,” I try to reassure her. “I know this looks bad, but obviously they won’t find anything and then they’ll have to release him.”
“But, beta, look at him,” Ammi says, dissolving in tears again. “Look at your abbu, being treated like a common criminal. How can they do that?”
“Nilufer, sab theek ho jayega,” Murshed Uncle says. “It’s going to be fine. Iqbal did nothing wrong. Let the police do their job, and the truth will come out.”
I sit her down in a chair and kneel in front of her.
“Uncle is right, Ammi. It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this. The important thing is that Abbu is out of the coma and the doctor said he’s doing well.”
Ammi looks at me with a watery smile.
“Shouldn’t I be the one telling you this, beta?” She puts her arms around me and holds me tight.
“It doesn’t matter who says it,” I say. “The important thing is that we have to believe it. We’ll get through this. Together.”
I need air, so I take the elevator down. I walk past the nurses’ station and wave to Eliza, one of the nurses who’s been taking care of Abbu.
“Zara, hold up. I think someone just dropped off flowers for you,” she says. She points to a bouquet of tiger lilies in a crystal vase on the counter. Must be from another one of Abbu’s patients. His room’s been filling up over the past week. I pull out the card and turn it over.
I’m sorry. Never meant for it to go so far.
My blood runs cold.
“When were these delivered?” I ask Eliza.
“Just now,” she says. “The guy just left. He might still be in the parking lot.”
I run down the hallway through the sliding door into the night. There aren’t too many people out here, but I don’t see anyone I know. I’m about to turn around and go back in when I see a pickup truck pulling out. It’s red with the same kind of design above the wheels as Tyler’s. In the fading light of the sun, I can’t be sure, but then I see Tyler’s head through the window. He looks at me briefly as he drives away, and I just stand there. Why was he here? And what does the card mean?
I can’t decide what to do. Should I share this information with the police? Can it help my father somehow? I’m not sure of anything anymore.
I text Nick.
He’s there fifteen minutes later, but he’s not alone.
“Oh, hey, Priya, I didn’t know you were coming too.”
“Nick and I were studying together when you texted,” she says. “I hope it’s cool that I came?”
“Of course,” I say, trying not to sound too surprised. Since when do these two study together?
I catch them up on everything, and they’re stunned.
“Are you going to tell the cops?” Priya asks.
“At least tell Shireen,” Nick adds.
“I think I should.”
“Can we go up and see him?” Nick says.
I tell them what happened and that it’s probably better if they don’t see him right now. There’s way too much going on.
Nick’s face is dark with anger. Priya looks like she’s going to be sick. They’ve both known my dad forever, so this is hard for them too.
“So while Tyler’s father is out on his million-dollar bail, you have to worry about your father going to jail? How is that fair?” Nick asks.
I shake my head. “I have no idea. But I never expected the system to be fair to people like us.”
“What do you think Tyler meant?” Priya says. “Do you think he really feels bad, or is this another one of his games?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “But I do know I can’t trust him or his dad. Who knows what the two of them are plotting?”
“I wouldn’t either,” Nick says. “Just be careful.”
“Yeah, and tell us if he tries to contact you or anything,” Priya adds.
“I’m going to take these upstairs and show Shireen Khala,” I say. “Thanks for coming, you guys.”
I hug them both and head back upstairs.
* * *
Shireen Khala is livid.
“What does this boy think he’s doing?” she fumes. “He shouldn’t even be coming near you.”
She takes the flowers and the card and walks out to find an officer.
“They’re going to take it into evidence,” she says when she returns.
“It’s almost like an admission of guilt, isn’t it?” I say.
“Except it’s not signed, and he didn’t actually say anything specific. But at least we’ll have plenty of security footage showing he was the one who dropped them off. The b
oy tried to hide himself when he defaced your locker, but he didn’t this time. That’s something. What, I have no idea. But it’s something.”
“Ugh, I hate this,” I say through gritted teeth. “I can’t believe he had the nerve to bring this here. I mean, what did he think was going to happen?”
My phone buzzes. It’s Chloe asking if she can come visit. I’m agitated and I won’t be any help to Ammi in this state, so I agree to meet her outside.
She pulls up a few minutes later, and I slide into the passenger seat. She reaches for my hand.
“How’re you holding up? Is your dad going home soon?”
I haven’t spoken to her since my dad came out of his coma. I still can’t bring myself to tell her about the arrest, but I tell her about Tyler.
“You think he really feels bad about what happened?” Chloe asks.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think,” I say. I press my head back against the seat and close my eyes.
“I mean, maybe he didn’t think his father would use a gun,” she says. “I don’t know. Sometimes parents can be so ignorant. They don’t how confusing it can be for us.”
I look at her in surprise.
“So you’re saying that Tyler is just following his father’s example? I really don’t buy that.”
“Sometimes kids try to impress their parents, and if they’ve been raised in that kind of an environment, who knows what lengths they’ll go to?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t agree with that at all. That just takes all responsibility from the shoulders of someone like Tyler. He’s not a child. He sees how the world is, and he chooses to be like that.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Zara,” she says quickly. “I’m not saying what he’s been doing isn’t horrible, just that maybe he’s realizing that blindly following his father’s example is wrong.”
“I think you’re being very generous,” I say. “I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he had no idea his father was going to shoot my father. Maybe he was standing right beside him. I don’t know. But I do know that if he had left my family alone, none of this would have happened. Period.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Zara. I’m just saying that things aren’t always black and white.”
“No, I get that,” I say. “But for me, these kinds of things are pretty black and white. You either see people of color as human beings or you don’t. And I’m not talking about the everyday small displays of racism. I’m talking about what is happening here today.”
I look at her and suddenly realize that she has little to no idea what I’m talking about. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t get followed around by staff when she’s browsing in stores. And I can bet that no one’s ever made a disgusted face when she opened her lunch box. I mean, I get that as a queer Catholic she’s dealt with stuff, but she doesn’t wear her otherness the way I do. Every day, 24/7, there’s no mistaking that I’m from somewhere else. Even if I’d been born here to third-generation South Asian Americans, it’s not as if the color of my skin would be diluted enough for me to pass as white. Chloe carries her white privilege with her wherever she goes, whether she’s aware of it or not. She can blend in completely whereas I will always be a clear target. And there are so many who’re looking to take a shot.
“Zara, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to upset you,” Chloe says. “I just came here to be with you. Should we go get something to eat?”
I shake my head. “I really need to get back up there. Thanks for coming.”
As I step out of her car, I can tell I’ve hurt her feelings, but I just need to be with my family right now.
Walking back inside, I feel spent. It’s exhausting trying to explain and defend my reactions to things that happen in my life. And I especially don’t want to have to do that with someone I’ve started to have feelings for. The worst thing is, I sort of get it. Obviously, Chloe’s not a bad person. But I doubt if she’s even aware of her unconscious biases like so many others who would never, ever consider themselves racists. How can I make her realize how differently I view the world and how it views me? We don’t experience things in the same way, and we never will. But it’s painful to realize that the way people of color react to hurtful things may appear to be an overreaction to her.
She might see Tyler’s flowers as a genuine attempt to convey how sorry he is. But to me it’s nothing but a minuscule, totally ineffectual act designed merely to make himself feel better. His flowers and card are not going to undo any of the damage he and his father have done to us. So, thanks, but no thanks.
I will continue to see the world the way I’ve always seen it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to fight like hell to make it better.
It’s two in the morning, and I’m still awake, my dark thoughts morphing into a heaviness I can’t shake. Every time I close my eyes, I see Abbu’s face and then Tyler’s, and I can taste bile. Finally, I give up and sneak quietly downstairs. I don’t really feel like talking to anyone, so instead of texting Nick or Priya, I just spend the next hour checking out pictures on Instagram. But all that does is make me feel worse. Why is this happening to us? Why is it that everyone else just gets to go on with their lives while ours is crumbling around us? It’s so unfair. This is supposed to be the best year. It’s supposed to be a year of new and exciting beginnings. Instead it’s turned into my worst nightmare. Although that’s not even true. I’ve never had this nightmare because something this awful isn’t supposed to happen. But it is, and I remind myself that it’s not just happening to me. My father is accused of something he didn’t do, and my mother is upstairs barely hanging on. I know I need to stop whining and get ahold of myself. When all this is over, and I have to believe that it will be over, I don’t want to look back at this and wish I’d been stronger. I have to be there for Ammi, the way she’s always been there for me. Abbu will be so disappointed if he finds out that I’ve been sitting here feeling sorry for myself when there’s work to be done.
I’m about to go back to bed, when I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. It’s Murshed Uncle. Ammi insisted that he come home with us and get a proper night’s rest.
“You couldn’t sleep either, eh?” he says when he sees me on the couch.
I smile at him. “I feel like I’ll never sleep through the night again.”
He sits next to me and puts his arm around me. “When you and your parents first moved here, you’d wake up in the middle of the night like this.”
“Really? I don’t remember.” I lean my head back in the crook of his arm, and it feels good. The way it does when Abbu is here.
“Well, you were only three, so I’m not surprised,” he says. “I came down here to help you all get settled in.”
“It must have been so hard for Ammi and Abbu back then,” I say, trying to imagine them so many years ago, coming to a new country with all their hopes and dreams wrapped up with their belongings in a few suitcases. I don’t know if I possess that kind of courage.
“I begged your abbu to come and stay with me in Vancouver,” Murshed Uncle says. “But he insisted that he wanted to come here.”
I don’t say anything for a while, content to sit like this in the dark with only a few slivers of moonlight streaming in through the blinds.
“I wonder if things would have been different if he’d listened to you,” I say.
Murshed Uncle shrugs. “You can never know,” he says. “Who knows if it would have been better or worse?”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “It couldn’t have been worse than this.”
“At least Iqbal is recovering well, so we should be thankful for that.”
I nod slowly. “I am grateful. But at the same time, what’s going to happen to us? He’s been arrested, and this will go on his permanent record. It’s going to look bad for our green cards.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he says. “You do have other options, but I really
don’t think you’ll need them. Your father is not a criminal. Anyone who knows him can see that. And Shireen is doing her best to make sure everyone else knows that as well.”
We sit like this for little while longer, each of us lost in our own thoughts. But it’s almost morning and we both want to get a little more sleep before we go back to Abbu. As I walk up to my room, I’m grateful that Murshed Uncle is here. He makes us all feel safe, and that’s something we really need right now.
A couple of days later, we’re still waiting to hear whether Abbu will be charged with trespassing or not. Dr. Alter, the president and chief medical officer of the hospital, has come by to say that he knows the police chief and will see what he can do—but we’re not really sure what that means.
In the meantime, Abbu is doing a lot better, so I decide it’s time for me to go back to school. I’m already quite behind despite all my teachers being incredibly flexible and generous with their time. I’m feeling more positive than I have in the past few weeks. That is, until Priya and I run into Jordyn and Alexandra by our lockers. They’re in my chemistry class, but we’re not friends or anything.
“Zara, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad,” Alexandra says as I’m taking out my lab journal for class.
“Thank you,” I say, a little surprised because I didn’t really think I’d ever been on her radar.
“It must have been awful finding out that he’s involved in stuff like that,” Jordyn says. She’s smirking, and I realize that I’m an idiot.
“What do you mean? Stuff like what?” I say.
“You know,” Jordyn says. “Do you really want us to spell it out? TER-ROR-ISM.” She enunciates each syllable, her voice rising as people walk by. They slow down and throw curious glances our way.
My face is burning. I’m so angry, it takes every ounce of self-control not to slap her face. Jordyn and Alexandra are part of the group Tyler hangs with. I can only imagine the kind of bullshit they’ve been spreading about my family.
