by Tahereh Mafi
Shayda was at the house when it happened, called 911. She’d called me, too, apparently, several times, but my dying phone had connected only once. The ambulance came, drove straight to our home for the third time in as many weeks, strapped my mother to a stretcher, and wheeled her away. A lamp had been knocked over, small things had been disarranged. There was dirt on the rug from their boots, the paramedics, dirt from their boots and their equipment.
The sight had sent a cold shudder through my body.
My mother had thought she was having a heart attack, and I could see why. My father had just had two, both of them in the same month. She’d seen and heard him describe, at length, the symptoms, the possible warning signs.
The doctor ran all kinds of tests on her, but they came back negative. She had not had a heart attack, he’d said.
She’d had a panic attack.
She was going to be fine. They’d given her something, some drug she would no doubt have refused had she known exactly what was in it, but it helped calm her down. Helped steady the horrible stutter in her heart.
For some reason, the doctor had thought I was the eldest.
He didn’t even ask, he’d just assumed, and he’d motioned for me to follow him out into the hall, closed my mother’s door behind him. Shayda had gone to pull the car around. My mother was changing back into her clothes. The doctor grimaced as he turned to me, grimaced and said—
“You’re the older sister, right? Listen, there’s something I need to discuss with you about your mom.”
Perhaps I should’ve told him the truth. There was no doubt a reason he wanted to speak with the oldest child, no doubt a legal or moral or psychological reason why I was uniquely unqualified, as the youngest, to hear what he was about to say. But my terrified curiosity would not allow me to walk away from an opportunity to know more about my mother. I wanted to know what was happening to her. I needed to know.
At first, the doctor said nothing.
Finally, he sighed. “I noticed your father is here in the hospital, too.”
“Yes.”
He tried to smile. “You okay?”
Heat pushed up my throat, the backs of my eyes, seared the roof of my mouth. I swallowed. Swallowed. “Yes,” I said.
He looked down at his clipboard, looked back up. Sighed again. “Does your mother have a history of depression?”
I blinked at the doctor, at the dark scruff growing down his neck, at the surgical mask stuffed into his coat pocket. He wore a scuffed gold band on his ring finger, and in that hand he clenched a stethoscope. There was a smudge of something on his shirt, chocolate or blood, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know what his eyes looked like. I couldn’t meet them.
I did not understand.
“When your brother died,” he said, and I looked up then, took the hit to the chest, felt it shudder through my bones. “When your brother died did she”—he frowned—“has she been—has it been hard for her? Harder than what might seem normal?”
The question was so stupid it struck me hard across the face.
The doctor backpedaled, apologized, tried again. “There’s no right way to say this. I’ve never had to have this conversation with the child. Usually I have these conversations with the parent.” He took a breath. “But I feel that, considering the circumstances—with your father in a delicate state at the hospital, and with your younger sister to care for—I think you should know what’s happening here. I think you should know that I’m highly recommending your mother seek professional help.”
“I don’t understand.” I did not want to understand.
“She’s been cutting herself,” he said sharply, angrily, as if he hated me for forcing him to say it out loud, to say it to a child. “She’s self-harming. I think she needs to be in therapy.”
He gave me something, a piece of paper with something written on it, and assured me there would be more information in her file, with the nurse, or someone, somewhere. He’d recommended a doctor, a program. Grief counseling.
“She’s going to be okay,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I nearly fell to the ground. “She just needs time. And she needs support.”
I carried the tea tray into the living room with trembling hands, glass shuddering against metal, jangling against itself. My mother was smiling at something my sister was saying, her delicate hands clasped in her lap. She was a beautiful woman, lithe with big, dark eyes. Few others had the privilege of seeing her like this, her long hair curling around her shoulder in a single brown wave. She looked up as I entered. Smiled wider.
“Bea beshin, azizam.” Come sit down, my dear.
She thanked me for making tea, thanked me when I poured her the cup, thanked me again when I handed it to her. She was trying too hard, and it was making my heart pound.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said in Farsi, her eyes shining. She laughed, shook her head. “Anyway, khodaroshokr”—thank God—“everything is fine. The doctor said I just need to get more sleep. This tea is excellent, by the way.”
It was not. I’d taken too long to bring it out, and the temperature of the tea had dropped just below what was acceptable, which was a tea so boiling hot it burned your throat. If my mother were herself she would’ve sent it back.
Even my sister seemed to realize that.
“The tea is cold,” Shayda said, frowning.
This was a gross exaggeration. The tea was plenty hot, hot enough for any sane person. It just wasn’t boiling hot.
“The tea is fine,” my mother said, waving dismissively. She took a sip. She was still speaking in Farsi. “Your father is doing better, by the way. They think he might come home soon.”
“What?” I blanched. I nearly dropped my cup. “But I thought they said his situation was critical. I thought—”
“You are unbelievable, Shadi.”
I looked up, surprised, to meet my sister’s eyes.
“You can’t even hide your disappointment. What, were you hoping he’d die? What kind of a horrible person hopes for their father to die?”
I felt that familiar, stinging heat rise up my throat again, press against my teeth, sear the whites of my eyes.
The nurse found cuts on her wrists and on her legs, the doctor had said. Some were relatively fresh. Has she ever said anything to make you think she might be a danger to herself?
My mother shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said in rapid-fire Farsi. “That’s a slanderous thing to say about a person.”
“And yet, she doesn’t deny it’s true.”
My mother turned to me, eyes wide. “Shadi?”
Heat knotted together at the base of my throat. I shook my head, about to lie a perfect, beautiful lie when the doorbell rang.
I jumped to my feet.
I was happy for the interruption, but also, I was the only one among us still wearing a scarf. I touched my head absently, the wilted silk somehow still intact. I marveled at that, at how I’d forgotten to take it off. I’d forgotten to do all kinds of things. Forgotten to eat, for example. Or shower. I’d forgotten to bandage the cut on my knee, forgotten to wash the blood off my chin.
That was the first thing my mother said to me when she saw me, the first thing she did. She took my chin in her hand and yelled at me, demanded to know what I’d done to my face, as if my wound were greater than hers.
She doesn’t know I’m telling you this, the doctor had said. She begged me not to tell you or your sister.
I swallowed against the rising heat, swallowed against the stinging burn. I moved toward the front door and heard the rain howl, lash against the windows. I reached for the handle just as my mother laughed, the soft trill wrenching apart my heart.
I opened the door.
For the second time today, someone stood before me and held aloft my ugly blue backpack. Ali’s clothes were wet. His hair was soaked. His eyelashes were sooty, glittering with damp. In the warm glow of the porch light, I saw him as I hadn’t earlier: hyperreal, many-dimensional. He was
tall, even imposing, his skin a golden brown without blemish, the lines of his face sharp, beautiful. What was once a clean shave had given way to a 10 p.m. shadow, adding an unexpected depth to his appearance. He’d probably not looked in a mirror in hours. He probably had no idea what he looked like, no idea the picture he presented. A single drop of rain dripped down his forehead, slid along his nose, tucked itself between his lips. He prized them open.
“You forgot this in my car,” he said quietly.
My eyes were filling with tears again, had been threatening to fill all night. I pushed back the army with almighty force, felt their fire travel down my esophagus, set my insides aflame.
“You okay?” Over and over again, he asked me this question. He was staring at me ruthlessly, his eyes lingering on my face, the cut on my chin. I felt the friction between us as palpably as I felt the pounding in my heart. He was angry. Afraid. He stared at me with an authority I found surprising, with a concern I’d not felt in a long time. I watched him swallow as he waited. His throat was wet; the movement was mesmerizing.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please answer me.”
I didn’t lift my head.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” I said, and took the bag.
I heard his exhale; it was a tortured sound. “Shadi—”
“Who is it?” my mom asked, her voice carrying over from the living room. “Is it a package?”
“Bye,” I said softly, and closed the door in his face.
Nine
Were I a fly perched upside down, legs clinging to a fiber ceiling, I would’ve seen a sea of hairy heads bent over papers placed atop desks, human hands clenched around number two pencils, each seat showcasing a similar scene save one.
Mine.
My silk head turned in sharp, erratic movements, my mind unable to settle. I had an exam today in my AP Art History class, an exam for which I’d not had the opportunity to prepare. I fell asleep last night in molting silk, fully dressed and freezing, awoke in my own blood. The wound on my chin had ripped open as I slept and I found evidence of this fact on my pillow, in my hair, smeared across my eyelids. In my dreams my teeth rotted, fell out of my head, I screamed the screams of dreams that made no sound and sat straight up at the screech of my alarm, my chest tight with terror.
It seemed my constant companion, this feeling, this word.
Terror.
It haunted me, tormented me, terror, terrifying, terrorist, terrorism, these were my definitions in the dictionary along with my face and surname, first name, date of birth.
I’d made more of an effort than usual this morning, convinced, somehow, that eyeliner would detract from the bandage on my chin. I didn’t want the world to know my secrets, didn’t want my wounds torn open before the masses, and yet, there was no escaping notice. I’d already had to listen to someone make a joke they thought I didn’t hear, something low, a laugh, a tittering: “Looks like someone punched Osama in the face last night,” followed by an “Oh my God, Josh, shut up,” all neatly rounded out by another chorus of laughter. I was a turkey carved up every day, all manner of passersby eager for a piece. My flesh had been so thoroughly stripped I was now more bone than meat, with little left to give up but my marrow.
I stared at the printed sheet in front of me now, the ink swimming. My eyes felt perpetually hot, overheated, my heart poorly digested in my gut. I tapped my pencil on the page, stared at a block of text I was meant to analyze, a painting I was meant to recognize. For the third time in the last half hour, I felt a pair of eyes on my face.
This time, I did not pretend them away.
This time, I lifted my head, looked in their direction. The eyes quickly averted, the familiar face bowed once again over her paper, hand scribbling furiously at nonsense.
Due to the nature of the art history course—and the interminable amount of time we spent staring at slides—our class was held in the only amphitheater on campus. We were all arranged in an incomplete circle, our raised seats gradually descending toward a single podium in the middle of the room behind which was a massive screen. The teacher currently stood sentinel in the center, watching us closely as we worked. Our class didn’t have assigned seats, but I always sat toward the back, where the desks were illuminated by only dim lighting, and when Zahra glanced my way for the fourth time, I marveled that she could see me at all.
Her attention toward me did not bode well.
I glanced at my exam again. Thirty minutes in, and I’d written only four things: my name, my class, the period number, and the date. My eyes homed in on the year.
2003.
I felt my mind spiral, rewind its own tape, a pencil in the cassette reel spinning backward. Memories surfaced and dissolved, sounds streaking into flashes of light. I conjured a vague, distorted impression of my slightly younger self, marveled at her naivete. Last year I had no idea the extent of what was coming for me. No idea, even now, how I would survive it.
My breath caught.
Pain speared me without warning, a javelin through the throat. I forced myself to take a calming breath, forced myself to return to the present moment, to the pressing task at hand. We were down to twenty minutes in class and I hadn’t yet answered a single question. I reached for my pencil, compelled myself to focus.
My fingers closed around air.
I frowned. Looked around. I was about to give up on the writing instrument I thought I’d had, about to reach into my bag for a new one when someone tapped me, gently, on the shoulder.
I turned.
Wordlessly, my neighbor handed over my pencil. “You dropped it,” he mouthed.
I stared at him for just a moment too long, my mind catching up to my body as if on a delay.
My heart was pounding.
“Thank you,” I finally said, but even my whisper was too loud. I ignored a few fleeting looks from my classmates, sat back in my seat. I glanced again at my neighbor out of the corner of my eye, though not surreptitiously enough. He met my gaze, smiled.
I averted my eyes, worried I’d just made myself seem more than casually interested in this guy. Noah. His name was Noah. He was one of the only Black kids in our school, which was enough to make him memorable, but more than that—he was new. He’d transferred in about a month ago, and I didn’t think I’d ever spoken to him prior to this moment. In fact, I couldn’t presently recall ever sitting next to him. Then again, there were forty-five students in this class, and I couldn’t trust my memory; I was terrible at noticing details these days. Then again again, I didn’t think I was so checked out that I couldn’t even remember who sat next to me in class.
I slumped lower in my chair.
Concentrate.
The painting poorly printed on my exam came suddenly into sharp focus. Two women were working together to behead a man, one pinning him to the mattress as he struggled, the other sawing into his throat with a dagger. I tapped my pencil against the picture; my heart thudded nervously in my chest.
I closed my eyes for a second, two seconds, more.
Ali’s reappearance last night had dredged up feelings I hadn’t allowed myself to think about in months. I seldom allowed myself to think about last year, my junior year; I often thought it a miracle I was still alive to remember those days at all. September of last year my heart had been left for dead under an avalanche of emotion delivered in triplicate:
Love. Hate. Grief.
Three different blows delivered in quick succession. I was stunned to discover, all these months later, that hatred had been the hardest to overcome.
Artemisia Gentileschi.
Her name came to me all at once: Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most critically acclaimed and simultaneously overlooked painters of the seventeenth century. My mind parroted back to me the information I’d once memorized, names and dates I’d made into flash cards. Born in Rome, 1593. Died in Naples, 1653.
I knew the answers, but my hand would not move. I felt my lungs constrict as panic floode
d my chest. The tips of my fingers went numb, sparked back to life. I could hardly hold my pencil.
This painting can be attributed to a follower of Caravaggio based on which of the following formal qualities?
A) Monochromatic palette
B) Dramatic tenebrism
C) Pyramidal composition
D) Prominent grisaille
My relationship with Zahra had been strained for a while, but last September tensions between us reached their pinnacle, an achievement for which there seemed no obvious impetus. Still, I spent the last year of our friendship navigating a maze of passive aggression, parrying every day the thinly veiled insults she lobbed my way. It only occurred to me now that Zahra had held on to our friendship a year longer than she’d wanted. She’d not been so reprehensible a person to kick me while I was down; she had enough mercy, at least, to spare me such a blow so soon after my brother died.
I should’ve seen it coming.
I should’ve, but I’d been willfully blind. I’d been so mired in grief I could hardly survive my parents’ nightly fights, could hardly survive the rigorous demands of my junior year. I was desperate for even the scraps of the familiar, desperate to hold on to the friend who knew my history, to the escape that was her home. I’d not been able to spare the emotional expense necessary to see what was right in front of me—that my best friend had begun to hate me.
Hate me.
When the bell rang, I turned in a blank exam.
Last Year
Part III
My mom was waiting for me after school, her champagne-colored minivan wedged between two nearly identical models. I knew her minivan was a champagne color—not a variation on beige, not a sort-of-brown—but champagne, specifically, because the salesman who’d sold it to my parents had emphasized the color as a selling point.
My poor parents had been scandalized.
They’d sat the salesman down and explained to him that they did not drink alcohol, they did not want a champagne car, could they please have a different one.
