Love from a to Z

by S. K. Ali

  Zayneb stood stock-still, mouth agape. “You’re falling for Fencer’s tricks, and you’re not even sitting there in his class?”

  “It’s still an injustice, isn’t it? A girl getting buried for talking to boys? Or for anything at all? Maybe that’s what made your teacher upset.”

  “Of course it’s an injustice. That’s not what’s going on here, though. I’m talking about Fencer’s behavior here.” She bent to get her phone from where she’d left it on the bench. “Okay, time for me to exit.”

  He watched her scrolling and typing and, for some reason, couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Why do you get to decide what injustices to call out and what not to call out?”

  “Oh my God, you’re the one who should get a D for false equivalence!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Adam, it’s been good knowing you for a week, but I guess we don’t make sense in any way. We’re too different, and . . .”

  It was Adam’s turn to stay still, sure he was holding his breath as he waited for her to finish.

  “We’re from two different worlds. You and your friends don’t make sense to me.” She glanced down at her phone. “You don’t get my deal, and I don’t get yours. Like you being chicken to tell your dad about your MS. My Uber is here, so I’m out of here.”

  She walked off.

  And Adam?

  He sat down.

  Put his head in his hands and refused to look up at the visitors milling around, glancing gingerly over at him once in a while.

  He also refused to look at that manuscript.

  The one he’d thought bound them together in some kind of out-of-this-world way.

  Ha.

  ODDITY: A RELATIONSHIP THAT ENDED BEFORE IT EVEN BEGAN.

  MARVEL: THIS TOO WILL PASS. LIFE GOES ON, EVEN IF LOVE DOESN’T.

  ADAM

  SUNDAY, MARCH 17

  ODDITY: ZAYNEB . . . AND THE TRUTH

  ZAYNEB WAS NOT WHO SHE was in my mind.

  Before, I’d thought that the more impressions you got of someone you liked, the less projecting would be happening. That you wouldn’t see them according to how you wanted to.

  I hadn’t realized that, in this case, I’d been hoodwinking myself all along, though.

  Because I’d just fallen for her so quickly.

  On the ride home, with Hanna super quiet beside me, even though she had a velvet bag full of new rocks for her collection from the museum shop, I realized I’d escaped someone who wasn’t who I thought they were.

  Zayneb was the only marvel I’d observed and recorded that turned out not to be a real one.

  Bullet dodged, Adam.

  • • •

  You don’t get my deal, and I don’t get yours. Like you being chicken to tell your dad about your MS.

  I couldn’t get Zayneb’s words out of my head as I helped Dad with dinner that evening, him chopping up vegetables for a salad, me taking the packaging off a frozen lasagna, getting it ready for the oven.

  Zayneb didn’t know anything about it, anything about me. At all.

  Just like I hadn’t known anything about her true self.

  I slid the foil tray into the preheated oven. Then closed the door and turned to Dad. “Do you have time to talk?”

  I wasn’t scared of any of it.

  “For sure.” Running the edge of his knife along the cutting board, he slid the red peppers he’d just cut into a wooden bowl already full of lettuce and cucumber. He put the board back down, lay the knife on top of it, and looked at me. “Do you want to talk here or go into the living room?”

  I didn’t want it to be monumental, this talk. The kitchen was okay, because it was just us two here in a no-fuss space.

  But then Hanna was in her room, arranging her rocks, and could enter at any moment soundlessly.

  Telling her about my MS had to be done in a special way.

  “The patio? I can put a timer for the lasagna on my phone, and we’ll know when to call Hanna for dinner.”

  Dad nodded and picked up wooden salad tongs and put them into the bowl. He carried it with him to the kitchen table and placed it in the middle of its glass surface.

  Was it my imagination, or was there some weariness to his actions after I’d asked him for a talk?

  Just follow him to the patio and speak, I coached myself.

  • • •

  After clearing an ottoman of Hanna’s skipping rope and scooting it over, Dad pulled his lawn chair closer to mine, facing the water and sky, already dark.

  “Should we turn on more lights?” he asked. When I shook my head, he adjusted his seat so that it leaned back before sitting down and putting his feet up on the ottoman.

  Then he crossed his fingers on top of his stomach and sighed. “Adam, tell me.”

  The sigh threw me off. I glanced at him. He was looking at his fingers. “I’m ready to hear it. Our committee interview for a new deputy head is at the end of the week. I didn’t need to prep for it today, the third day of spring break. I mean, I pulled the files to try to bury myself in work. But I was in fact prepping for you to talk to me.”

  He looked at me then, and the patio light was strong enough for a revelation: His face looked more tired than ever before. And aged. Like suddenly, overnight, he’d become the middle-aged dad he was, not the fit, young-looking one my friends joked was really my older brother.

  It was his mouth. The edges looked slacker, weaker.

  I almost bolted inside. “What do you know?”

  I didn’t ask how do you know. Because I knew how.

  I guess Ms. Raymond had done what an adult would do.

  Maybe what someone who loved Mom would do.

  “I know you have something to tell me, and that I have to be strong to hear it. That’s it.” Dad looked away, toward the water, but his eyes were closed. “I’m here for you in whatever way you want me to be.”

  “Even if it’s hard?” I concentrated on the tiny white triangle sails of the boats docked in the curve of a far-off shore. “Because it’s hard.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “In November, I was diagnosed.” I paused. “With MS. Like Mom.”

  Dad was silent, and so I turned to him. His eyes were open, looking straight ahead. Maybe he, too, was looking at those sails.

  “And then I stopped going to classes early this year. Because I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was going miles a minute trying to figure out next steps, what it meant, just processing it. So I just took all of it out of my mind—my diagnosis, school, everything—and made stuff.” I paused to smile, trying to make it light. “You should see the Boba Fett helmet I made for you, Dad. Ryan, that friend I told you about? He’s gonna send all my stuff back here, back home, including the helmet. Because I quit university.”

  At some point during my verbal vomit, he’d closed his eyes again.

  I stood up. “Listen, it’s going to be okay. I had an attack, my second one, the first being just the nonstop tingling that got me to the hospital in the first place to get diagnosed, and, yes, my second one was a lot worse, but it was treated. And it can be treated, Dad.”

  He spoke. “Was that the day you were sleeping all day?”

  “Yeah, then I got my treatments at the hospital and Ms. Raymond’s.”

  “Adam. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it was the anniversary of Mom’s passing. You’re always down that week.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me in November?” He was staring at me, wanting an answer, demanding one with the unflinching steadiness of his eyes on my face. “It hurts me that you had to bear this on your own. That I couldn’t help you.”

  I sat back down.

  “You and Hanna are the world to me. Every day I think about whether I’m doing right by you. That’s all I want.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “The thing you don’t know, or maybe don’t seem to believe, Adam, is that I can help you. That I want to.”

  “But it was hard for you with Mom. I thought
you’d get triggered. Just not be able to take it.”

  “Yes, okay, you’re right. Mom’s death was hard. It devastated me. But that was only because it progressed so fast at the end. It wasn’t the MS that got to me. She’d had it since she was in her twenties, when I met her, and it went into remission for so long, especially after she had you. We’d read that pregnancy does that, almost makes the disease disappear.” He shifted and sighed. “I was on a high that everything was getting better for her. And then, after Hanna, it was swift. I didn’t have time to prepare.”

  “I get it.” Dare I say it? I spoke gently so he wouldn’t think I was trying to be rude. “But, Dad, that was a while ago. A long time ago.”

  He didn’t speak. I didn’t either. The silence stretched until I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but I couldn’t bring myself to check.

  I switched from sail watching to observing the sky. It was sprinkled with hundreds of stars, and suddenly I remembered the night Zayneb was here, blowing bubbles with that secret smile.

  I couldn’t believe my mind jumped to her so fast.

  You don’t get my deal, and I don’t get yours. Like you being chicken to tell your dad about your MS.

  Beside me, Dad started heaving, pounding sobs taking over his body.

  I immediately got up, made my way to his side.

  He wiped his eyes with the bottom of his T-shirt and spoke through his tears. “What I can’t get over with Mom’s death is not her death; it’s how I wish I could have helped her more. I don’t feel like I did enough.”

  “Dad, you were there for Mom. I remember so clearly. You were unbelievable, with your support.” He really was. So much that, in my head, I couldn’t see Mom at the end of her life without seeing Dad somewhere in the background, ready to help, ready to do something. And everything.

  “You know how I like to research?” He wiped his eyes again and looked at me.

  I nodded, kneeling to put my arm around his shoulder.

  “I’ve now learned that there is so much out there that I wish we could have at least tried, instead of sitting back and watching Mom’s MS progress.”

  “But you did what you could with what you knew then.”

  “But that information was available then, too. I just never looked for it.” He let the tears fall again.

  I let him cry, and me a bit too. “But, Dad, you yourself taught me not to look back. Just forward and ask for guidance moving on, forgiveness for the past.”

  He took a breath and swallowed before putting an arm out to me. “You’re right, but I still haven’t learned to take my own advice.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Look at me, crying about the past, when you’ve got something to face in the present.” He gripped my shoulder. “But I promise you: You’ll never face it alone. As long as I’m alive.”

  “And as long as Hanna’s alive.” I swallowed and smiled. “I guess that’s why I came back home.”

  “You did right. In leaving school. And I’m so glad you have something to focus on too, with your making things and your workshop. You’re going to be okay. I’ll be here to make sure of it.”

  The timer on my phone went off, and I thought about the lasagna and the salad waiting already. And Hanna coming down, holding her newly arranged rock-collection display case, most probably. “I’m just glad to be home.”

  We both stood, and, though it was the first thing on my mind, Dad reached for a hug before I did. When we broke apart, he smiled. “I can’t wait to see my Boba Fett helmet, so tell your friend to send it over right away.”

  As I silenced the timer and we made our way to the patio doors, I had a sudden thought. Ms. Raymond is the best.

  Without her prepping Dad, I don’t know if it would have gone like it had.

  ZAYNEB

  SUNDAY, MARCH 17

  ODDITY: ADAM

  EXHIBIT A: AT THE MUSEUM, when he showed me who he was.

  Someone with zero awareness of what was going on in the world.

  • • •

  I pushed his care for Hanna out of my head.

  I pushed his struggles with his diagnosis out of my head too.

  I pushed him completely out of my head.

  • • •

  As soon as I let myself into the apartment, I texted Kavi. Talk? On FT?

  Auntie Nandy, who’d been sitting on the couch, immediately got up and walked swiftly by me to her bedroom, her phone stuck to an ear.

  She closed her door tight.

  What’s that all about?

  Walking into the living room, I undid my hijab and threw it at the big couch.

  It landed on the arm of the single chair.

  An image of Adam, hooked up to the IV machine, presented itself in my head. I calmly walked over to the chair, the Adam chair, and sat in it, to claim it back.

  Why wasn’t Kavi replying? I checked Instagram and saw I’d missed the latest story from her.

  A shot of an arrow pointing at an inbox with an e-mail from SAIC. A shot of her face overjoyed. A shot of Noemi, grinning big, beside her, then one of Nhu making a surprised O with her mouth.

  Kavi got into SAIC?

  I FaceTimed her. It rang and rang, so I hung up and tried again.

  At the third try, she picked up, but with only audio. Audio of yelling. “ZAY!”

  “CONGRATULATIONS! Oh my God!” I burst. “Your number one choice!”

  “Thanks! I’m doing a mini celebration!” she shouted again, and I suddenly noticed the noise around her. “Waiting for you to come home for the real one!”

  “I’m so proud of you! I knew you’d get in!”

  “Sorry, wait. I can’t hear you fully! Let me get to a better spot!”

  “What’re you doing? I mean, where are you?”

  “It’s a VR adventure place, MAZETOWN! So cool! We gotta take you when you get here!” It became quieter. She stopped yelling. “I just stepped outside. It’s like crazy loud in there. We finished eating, so we’re getting ready to go on the Galápagos tour. Zay, we have to get suited up and everything, so we can dive and swim with the sharks and sea turtles. I’m going to be in heaven!”

  Kavi loves marine life. Her entire portfolio to get into art school was sea creatures done in different mediums.

  “Have tons of fun.” I pulled my legs onto the couch and smiled, happy for her. “Mazetown. Must be a new place. Never heard of it before.”

  “No, it’s not in Springdale. Noemi drove us to Indianapolis. Me, Nhu, and Ayaan.”

  “Oh wow. Are you guys staying there?”

  “Yeah, we got a cheap hotel room.”

  “Cool! Have fun,” I repeated, my mind incapable of thinking up anything more exciting to say, being too busy conjuring up images of Kavi, Nhu, Ayaan, and Noemi laughing in unison—in the car, in the hotel room, at Mazetown, whatever that place looked like.

  “We miss you so much!” Kavi said. “We were doing this-is-what-Zay-would-say so often that Noemi just started saying it for you. The stuff you’d say.”

  “So she’s being me?”

  “In a fun way. She’s good at improv.”

  As I considered this, my phone pinged nonstop.

  Picture messages from HannaChen.

  “Well, you better get back. To get ready for the Galápagos,” I said. “Tell everyone hi for me.”

  “Hey, what about you? Any word from UChicago?”

  I shook my head, forgetting that it was only audio.

  I’d begun looking through the pictures Hanna sent me. “No. Talk to you later, Kav.”

  • • •

  Many were fuzzy, but even those stopped my breath.

  I’ve never seen myself so happy in photos before.

  It could have been the fact that they were impromptu pictures, and I hadn’t had time to arrange my camera-ready smile. Which was just slight turnups of the corners of my closed mouth, like a there, are you satisfied with my smile smile.

  But these were different. My mouth was open and tu
rned up naturally, and my eyes joined the smile, scrunching up with joy.

  And then Adam.

  His face could be used in a picture dictionary for the word “eager.”

  Boy, were we ever fools.

  I sent five blue heart and five blue gem emojis in reply to HannaChen. And added, Thanks. Sorry for my rude self today.

  I thought for a bit, then added, Cousin.

  She replied with a single, simple puppy emoji.

  • • •

  I’d decided not to ruin Kavi’s fun by unloading both the Adam and the D-from-Fencer situations, so that meant I was a mess inside. Full of churning emotions, mostly anger and frustration. With a lot of worried wonderings as to my next steps.

  I needed to vent. But without venting verbally.

  I went to Auntie Nandy’s room to ask her if I could soak in the Jacuzzi in her bathroom. When I’d first arrived at her place, she’d shown me the vast array of fizzy bath bombs and bottles of scented salts and collection of candles that lined the edge of the Jacuzzi. “You must help me deplete these while you’re here. You’d better be in here soaking!”

  As I drew near her door, I didn’t hear anything.

  Then: “She’ll understand! She’s eighteen, not seven!”

  I put my ear to the door.

  “Just go. I’ll talk to Zayneb. Only return when Rashaad is okay. It must be terrible for him.”

  Rashaad? Dad?

  Was Auntie Nandy talking to Mom? About Pakistan?

  I knocked.

  “Wait. I have to go. I’ll take care of it. Stay safe. Love you, Leesh.”

  Leesh was Auntie Nandy’s nickname for Alisha. Mom.

  The door opened. Auntie Nandy tried to smile, but it came off weird, with her forehead wrinkled by a frown.

  “Can I use your Jacuzzi?” I asked, wondering if I should just outright say I heard something.

  “Yes, yes you can.” She opened the door wider. “If you’re okay with me being here? That was your mom on the phone.”

  I paused my steps to her bathroom. “Is her flight okay?”