ON BAD DAYS, MOSTLY IN
the summer—when the thermometer hit 115 and it was too hot to go outside, too hot to run an errand, too hot to distract oneself with anything at all—I used to try to figure out if it would be better that I didn’t have any other children. If Nate died, I would be childless. I wouldn’t be a mother. Which was unimaginable. And yet, at least, I wouldn’t be a mother. I wouldn’t have to carry on. It was almost solace, that I would not have to live with Nate’s death in the way I’d had to live with Emily’s. I wanted more children, but at least if I didn’t have any, I had that option.
I LOOK AT JIM ACROSS
the table, and I see Nate in thirty years. They are more alike than I ever thought they would be: the way their eyes tip slightly at the corners, the flat plane of the cheek into the neck, the wide, square hands.
“I thought . . . I think . . . I don’t know . . . Jim, could we try talking to someone? Could we go to a counselor or something?”
I hadn’t meant to say this aloud. Not true. I have been trying to think how I could bring this into a conversation for weeks now. There just hasn’t been any opening. Arguably, this isn’t much of an opening now.
“Avis.”
He stops. Looks down. I wait for a long time, but he doesn’t go on. He doesn’t reply.
I KEEP CIRCLING BACK TO
these horrible ideas. If a man rapes a child, we are horrified. If a rapist murders a young woman, we are horrified. If a mother kills her baby, we are horrified. These are horrible experiences for the child, the young woman, the baby. They are horrible experiences for anyone who loved them, maybe anyone who knew them, maybe even anyone who heard that they happened. I get that.
What I can’t get to is why it makes any difference that a mussel or a blade of grass or a human being feels horror.
There’s a gun upstairs. I could kill myself. I could kill Jim. I could kill Darcy. I could kill a busload of children. Would it matter?
I CAN JUST IMAGINE MAKING
that argument to Jill and Margo and Julie.
“Avis, do you hear yourself? These are not normal thoughts. These are not healthy thoughts. These are thoughts that say ‘Get some Prozac.’”
“But I don’t want a drug. I don’t want to be drugged. I want to understand these things. I want to know the truth.”
“Avis, you’re not thinking about this right. It’s like hormones. Your brain is not creating a chemical that you need. Like insulin for a diabetic.”
“I don’t see it that way. It’s not that I don’t believe you. But I think there’s more to it. I’m not just a machine that needs oil or something.”
“Give it up. Avis is not going to take a drug. We’re going to have to use alcohol in her case. We’re just going to have to drink our way through Avis’s crisis.”
“Right. Nothing drug-like about that.”
And then, we would laugh.
I DON’T LET JIM OFF
the hook. I let the silence stretch out, long. We have been married for three decades, and he is not willing to try one session with a counselor? How could he care so little for me? How could Darcy matter this much?
“I’ve made promises, Avis. To Darcy. I can’t go back on those.”
He can’t go back on promises to Darcy.
“Then get out, Jim. Get out. You fucking asshole. Get out of this house.”
I’ve spent most of my life making sure I could not be mistaken for my mother, and Jim looks physically repulsed when I say this, but I think that my language is perfectly appropriate and that I am not like Sharlene at all.
For one thing, I wasn’t smart enough to leave first.
IF OUR LIVES REALLY DID
mean something, would an Emily be dead? Would a child get raped? Would three toddlers drown slowly in a car rolled into the river by their mother?
How can both worlds exist? The one where a life is meaningful and the one where it means nothing? Does not the presence of one negate the other? Emily is dead. Children are raped. Mothers have killed.
Isn’t it obvious that what is happening to me does not matter?
9
* * *
Bashkim
TODAY I AM DOING my writing project with Nene. Tirana is sleeping, and Baba is on the ice-cream truck by himself. Baba doesn’t like to work on the truck without Nene, because he does not sell as much ice cream. That’s because Baba scares some of the kids.
“What you want? I no got all day for you decide. Point at picture!”
There are pictures of all the ice creams we sell on the side of the truck. Well, not exactly all. There are some ice creams that we never have, even though we have pictures, because the pictures have been on the truck a long time, and our supplier doesn’t make those ice creams anymore. Also, we have some ice creams with no pictures, because they are new, and we never got pictures to put on the truck for them. This is a problem, because nobody asks for those. So Baba always waves those ice creams around, and says, “Special deal. Two ice creams for twenty cents less.” But that doesn’t always work out, because Baba doesn’t explain that you have to get two of those no-picture ice creams to get the twenty cents less, and then sometimes people get mad. Usually Baba gets mad too. Which isn’t that good for the ice-cream business.
Nene sells the ice cream differently, and she can sell all the no-picture ones. When somebody points to a picture that we don’t have the ice cream for, Nene says, “This is your lucky day. We have a brand-new kind of ice cream, and you are going to be the first one to get to try it.” Which works almost every time. That’s just how Nene and Baba are different. Baba worries about money a lot, but he can’t make money as well as Nene can. Nene worries about money too, but between her good ice-cream selling skills and her job at Kohl’s, she makes more money than Baba. I don’t think Baba likes that.
Anyway, Baba agreed to be on the truck by himself because I have to do this project, and I need Nene’s help. Baba doesn’t want to have anything to do with my school anymore, even if this project is going to be about Albania. This year our school’s theme is origins, and every student has to do an origins project. I got Albania.
The first part of my project is a questionnaire. I have to ask someone in my family some questions, and write down what they say. I read the questions to my nene.
“Question one: Where was your mother born?”
“I was born in Tirana, in a hospital, which was somewhat unusual for my family, because my older brother and sister were born at home. But my nene, your gjyshe, had a hard time delivering my brother, your daja Edon, and she was afraid to be home again. So she went to the hospital to have me. She didn’t like being at the hospital, so she had your daja Burim, who is younger than me, at home again.”
I write down: In Tirana, at a hospital.
“Question two: Where did your mother grow up?”
“I grew up on our family farm about fifty kilometers from Tirana. I loved the farm. My baba made me wooden skis, and in the winter, I would ski down the hill behind our house. Baba made a toboggan too, and all of us would get on that and go down the hill very fast. We had goats and sheep and chickens on our farm, and it was my job to collect the eggs each morning. You had to be fast to get the eggs out from our chickens, or they would peck your fingers, and it hurt. My nene would make torta from our eggs, and when Blerta and Edon and Burim and I got home from school, she would serve us a piece before we started our afternoon chores.”
I write down: On a farm with goats near a hill.
“Question three: How did your mother get to Las Vegas?”
“When I married your baba, he had already applied for political asylum with the United States. This was a very hard process, because he had to prove that he was in prison for protesting an act of the government and not for being a criminal. It’s hard to get a paper that says that in Albania. But my family and your baba’s famil
y had known each other for generations, and my babagjysh had gone to school with someone in the government. After we got married, my babagjysh knew that your baba would always be in danger in Albania, so he got the government to provide the right papers. Even then, it took a long time for the United States to say yes. That’s why you were born in Albania. We didn’t get to choose where we came in the United States. Catholic Charities in Las Vegas had space for three refugees, so we came here.”
I think awhile. Then I write down: My grandfather liked the United States, and he told my parents to move here.
“Question four: What does your mother like best about living in America?”
“That is a hard question, because I miss my family and I miss how beautiful Albania is. I miss our mountains, and the ocean, and all the green fields. I miss the market, and I miss eating food fresh from our garden. In Albania, life is sometimes hard, and the government has a lot of problems, but the women are happier. In Albania, I would never spend a day without talking to my friends and my nene. In Las Vegas, there are no women for me to talk to at all. I miss my baba and my nene, and I wish that you and Tirana could have all your cousins to play with. I don’t like living in America. It’s lonely, and if we run out of money, I don’t think anyone will help us.”
My nene finally stops. Maybe she forgot she was talking to me. Though sometimes I am the only person she has to talk to.
“I’m sorry, shpirt. What is the question again?”
“It’s okay, Nene. I have the answer.”
I write down: My mother likes that the government is better in America, and that she can make money here.
I am getting tired of writing, and I can see that my nene is getting a little sad, so I decide to ask just one more question. I can put something in the other spaces later, because I pretty much know the answers.
“Question seven: How is your origin country similar to the United States?”
“People in America always ask what religion I am. I don’t like to say Muslim, because Americans don’t like Muslims. But I don’t want to say I am not Muslim, because that is disrespectful to my baba. In America, people think that they are the only ones who have many religions together. But in Albania, half the people are Muslim and half the people are Christian. And nobody is worried about this. We don’t care if someone Christian marries someone Muslim. I think people in America worry about that more.”
I write down: Half the people in Albania are Christians. Albanians accept many religions, like Americans do.
Nene wants to read what I have written, but I tell her it is a surprise, and that Mrs. Monaghan is making a portfolio of our writing to give to our parents at the end of the year. That last part is sort of true, because the art teacher is making a portfolio of everything we are making in art, and some teachers do make portfolios of what their students write. In any case, Nene won’t understand that my answers are good for her.
EVER SINCE THE RPC THAT
wasn’t an RPC, I have been getting headaches at school. It isn’t that anything bad is happening. Mrs. Monaghan has been real nice, and the principal was nice too. She wanted me to come to her office, but instead of sending a note with another student, which would really have made me sick, she just mentioned that she wanted me to come with her one day when she was already visiting my class. We had most of our conversation just walking in the hallway, so by the time I got to her office, all she needed to do was give me some goldfish crackers (that’s what they give at my school, since we have a marine lab), and she also showed me that she has her own aquarium in her office. She said I could come by any day and feed the fish for her. Which I might do.
It’s not Mrs. Monaghan or the principal who are making me sick. It’s just that I don’t feel as comfortable anymore. Sometimes I think about what Specialist Luis Rodriguez-Reyes wrote to me—even though Mrs. Monaghan took the letter, and I never got to see it again—and it makes me feel like someone is going to hit me. Like I want to crawl under my desk table or put a sweater over my head or something. Mrs. Monaghan hasn’t said very much about our letter-writing project. Some of the kids ask her, because everybody was so excited about adopting a soldier, but I think maybe my letter messed that project up. Nobody knows it’s my fault, but they might be figuring it out, and that makes my stomach hurt too.
I think Specialist Luis Rodriguez-Reyes might be like my baba. Maybe he can’t forget anything, and killing that boy is always in his mind, like prison is in Baba’s mind. I feel sorry for the specialist and for Baba, and I feel sorry for the specialist’s wife too. It’s not very good when a man has a bad thing in his mind.
10
* * *
Luis
I SHOT ME.
I shot myself with a .22. A toy gun.
Didn’t achieve the mission. Not dead. Three years in hell, three years of killing people, but somehow, I shot myself in the head, and I am still going to walk out of this hospital some day. Walk out. That’s the goal.
I guess there was a lot of loose space in my head.
So now I’m here. Which isn’t Iraq. It’s DC. My abuela was always going to take a trip here.
I’ve messed myself up pretty good. My physical therapy goal is to walk five hundred feet unaided. My occupational therapy goal is to return to the military. That’s what I said I wanted. It’s not what I want. I don’t want anything. So I might as well tell them what they want to hear. Especially since I’m stuck in their hospital, and they’ve got all the cards.
I suppose Dr. Ghosh is for the mental part. Sam said the Army didn’t care a damn about us, but if you really fuck up and try to kill yourself, they care all over.
Must be in the paper.
So many of us grunts offing ourselves that they have to do something about it. It makes them look bad. How are they going to get more money for the war if their own soldiers are killing themselves?
That’s my theory. That would have been Sam’s theory. Maybe that’s why I hold it.
DR. GHOSH IS NOT SO
bad. He’s persistent, anyway. He comes every damn day. It’s not like I can do much about it. I can’t even get out of this bed. And I sure as hell can’t get agitated, because even though I didn’t do enough damage to lose whatever they mean by “executive function,” I did give myself a world-class headache. And it never goes away.
It’s okay. I don’t care if I have it forever. I don’t know how I’ll stand it, but it’s not like I’m looking forward to something else. It’s not like Sam wouldn’t trade this headache for what happened to him.
Sam.
Damn fucking war.
“LUIS. GOOD AFTERNOON. HOW ARE
you today?”
That’s how Dr. Ghosh greets me every day. He says I can call him Arjun, but I prefer Dr. Ghosh. I don’t care if he calls me Luis or not. I don’t care what anyone calls me.
“Luis, it says in this report that you were talking in your sleep again last night. Talking about the kid. Have you remembered anything?”
Have I remembered anything?
I remember everything. But I’m not telling Dr. Ghosh about it. I’ll take that day to my grave.
“No, Dr. Ghosh. I don’t know why I talk about a kid in my sleep. Maybe I’m saying something else, and the nurses just hear kid.”
“I don’t think so, Luis.”
“Well, maybe I’m thinking about someone back home. There’s a lot of kids in my family.”
This last isn’t exactly true. I just thought he might buy it since I’m Mexican-American, and everybody seems to think we have a lot of kids. I grew up an only child. My abuela raised me, and her children were all grown by then.
“Is that right, Luis? Do you want to tell me about your family?”
I like Dr. Ghosh. I like him because I like people who stick to things. That’s a big thing for me. Reliability. And one thing about Dr. Ghosh, I can count on him
being here every day. But I hate these shrink-stink questions he asks.
“Sure, Dr. Ghosh. My dad was a guy named Marco Rodriguez. But he died before I was born. He was probably a gang member. Or he died in a gang fight, anyway. My mom was Maricela Reyes. Real beautiful. So I must look like my dad.”
“Are you close to your mom?”
“No. I am not close to her. And she’s not real beautiful anymore. She’s an addict. Has been for years. My grandma raised me. My mom left me at her house when I was a year old, and she didn’t come back. I mean she came back a few times, to get money, or sleep on the couch. One time she came back so messed up, she thought I was my dad. I was about eight years old, and she thought I was her twenty-year-old Latin lover.”
“Sounds tough.”
I smile then. Because sometimes Dr. Ghosh is just funny. People think they know everything about me when they hear my dad was a gang member and my mom was a drug addict, but they don’t. They don’t know anything. Because my abuela is a saint, and she loved me, and the real true story is that I am just like any other pampered kid. My abuela had a home, and a good job, and she fed me well, and read stories with me every night. Her family came to America four generations ago. So she’s American. She speaks Spanish, she likes Mexican food, but she’s American. And she raised me nice. She raised my uncles and my mom that way too. It’s just my mom got messed up real young. Probably because she was so beautiful. It’s not that great for a girl, at least not for a Mexican-American girl. You end up with some asshole gang member like my dad.
“Do you want to talk about your mother, Luis?”
“No, Dr. Ghosh. My head’s real bad. Could we just talk tomorrow?”
We Are Called to Rise Page 7
