I had never had a friend like Jess before. I guess I never have had since. Someone who knew immediately what Sharlene must have been like, who could guess where I had grown up, who teared up and didn’t stop the first time he heard about Emily. Of course, we couldn’t stay friends. But for one year, I had a friend who didn’t belong to my life before or my life after, who bridged my worlds, who seemed to understand that all of it was me: the rent-by-the-week motel rooms and the big suburban house, the string of men with Sharlene and the conventional marriage with Jim, the things I did to get out of one life and the things I did to stay in another.
Jess and I kissed once. A real kiss. Knee buckling, gut wrenching, soul releasing.
I thought about that kiss for years.
Played it out in my mind. Played it forward.
Just once.
So when Jim explained about how he and Darcy had gotten closer, working together every day, when he told me that he could talk to her and that she helped him think about things, when he said that being with Darcy made him a better man, I just kept wondering: what does that have to do with ending our marriage? Did you think you couldn’t have a friend?
THE GIRLS KEEP TALKING ABOUT
dating.
“Oooh, Avis, you are on the loose again!”
“Bar dates, hot countertop sex, romance!”
Are they kidding? I don’t want hot countertop sex.
What I want is for the life I lived to matter still.
I have already been young. I have lost a child. I have reared another one. I was in love. I married. I worked. I made friends. I cooked twelve thousand meals. Made eight thousand beds. Kissed a child awake and kissed a child asleep, encouraged and discouraged and recouraged, over and over. And now, am I supposed to start anew?
I don’t think I’m interested.
I had my good shot at this life. I cared, and I knew it was precious, and I dove in, full all of me, straining to feel all of it, and, still, now it is gone, just like that.
I worked so hard to imagine a life I had never seen. And I made that life. I did it. The baby who arrived in Las Vegas with a couple of hitchhikers. She made an unimaginable life come true.
IT’S NOT THAT I CAN’T
see the path before me. I’m Sharlene’s daughter. I know how to pick myself up and move on.
I just don’t know if I am willing.
And really, after this much life, why am I looking for more?
I thought it would go on longer. I thought Jim and I were going to grow old together. I thought we would bounce our grandchildren between us. But I expected Emily to live too. And she did not.
It comes down to this: Do I want a new life? And if I don’t, isn’t that my choice too?
I’m sure there’s something wrong with being able to think these thoughts in this matter-of-fact way, I’m sure this is why I should have asked someone to help me out today, but it just seems like one of the options.
I am fifty-three years old. I have a gun in a drawer upstairs. I no longer have a husband. I have a child who is not sentimental and who has his own life. I could simply choose not to live.
Which, of course, is not actually a suicidal thought.
I’m mad. And I want my life back. But I don’t want to die. Not even a little. I want to live.
SO, DAMN, I DO HAVE
to pack up this stuff. I do have to sort it all out: the precious from the unneeded from the still useful. What am I going to do with Nate’s baseball uniform from the seventh grade? Or the box of cards his first-grade class made for him when he broke his elbow? Or the plastic bracelet the hospital attached to Emily’s newborn wrist?
If I don’t save these things, I have lost something. It’s not just that objects release memories, it’s also that they keep them in check. As long as I have Emily’s plastic band, I know the actual diameter of her wrist, not the one I’ve come to imagine. Which doesn’t matter, except that somehow it does. If I just have this one life—if I made all these mistakes in it, felt all this joy and all this pain—I want to know what it was. I want to know what it really meant.
THE LIGHT HAS SHIFTED NOW.
It is no longer streaming into the kitchen. I pull out a box, label it “Precious,” and begin again: opening cupboards, looking at walls, deciding what the box should hold.
Upstairs, the gun still gleams in the drawer, silent, unmoved, waiting for me to get to it. Me and my boxes and my choices. What is precious. What isn’t needed. What is simply the next phase of this life.
What do they say—if you weren’t crying, you’d laugh? Or is it, if you weren’t laughing, you’d cry?
20
* * *
Bashkim
TODAY I AM HELPING Baba and Nene at a baseball tournament. Tirana is sleeping in the backseat, so one of my jobs is to listen for her. Nene is afraid that Tirana will get out of the truck by herself, and something will happen to her before she walks back to us. Since Nene has said this, I am nervous about it too. I am also trying to pay attention to the game, though we are parked behind a tree, and it is hard to see what is happening. I am going to tell Luis about the baseball games. I might not say I am on a team, since he already knows about being on soccer, but I might say that I used to play baseball. I know some of the boys on the teams, and even one girl, because it is a tournament for eight- to twelve-year-olds, and that is how old I am.
What I like about baseball uniforms is you know exactly what sport the person is playing. I would like to hold one of the bats and wear a glove, but I don’t think I can. My baba, who doesn’t know anything about baseball, found a baseball hat in the park last fall, and he is wearing it. It is dark blue, with an orange letter. The letter is so fancy that I am not sure if it is a B or a D, and Baba doesn’t know either, so when people make comments about his hat, he is kind of careful how he answers.
Baba and Nene have been mad all morning. They have been arguing about money for two weeks, and something happened yesterday that Baba is really worried about. We have to pay the power bill, not just rent, and last month it was too high. Baba said Nene was not being careful enough. Plus Tirana got sick, and Nene took her to a clinic, and she had to pay for a medicine too, and Baba says that we can’t afford that. He says Tirana would get well by herself, and that it is healthier to get well by yourself, but I know he was worried about Tirana too. She didn’t even want to get out of bed when I came home from school, and usually she is jumping all over me and trying to give me baby kisses when I come home. Tirana is really happy to see me every day. Since she is so little, she doesn’t know about not hugging people at school, so if she and Nene come and get me there, it is embarrassing.
Baba and Nene are trying not to argue while we are working, because they both know that people don’t like to buy ice cream when they do that, but Baba is so mad, he cannot control himself. He thinks that if he speaks in Albanian, people won’t know he’s mad. Actually, it’s worse in Albanian. Baba doesn’t know about how Albanian sounds in America.
When Baba is like this, I get very nervous. I am listening for Tirana, and trying to see what the kids are doing in the game, and watching my nene too. Everything about Nene is different when Baba is mad. She keeps her elbows right next to her body, and she moves her fingers together, in and out. I hate it when she does that with her fingers. She is really quiet too, except with the customers, but her voice doesn’t even sound right with them. I want to help her, but it’s hard to do anything right. And the truck is crowded with three people and all the ice-cream freezers, so we keep bumping into each other. I can tell that everyone wants to be far apart.
Nene sends me out of the truck. She says she will listen for Tirana, and that she and Baba can handle it. I walk over to the baseball field and stand by the fence, a little away from where the moms and dads sit. The sun is bright, even though it is February, and it smells good here. I think I would like playing b
aseball. Some of the players who are waiting for the ball to be hit to them are looking right at the sun, and they have their hats pulled down low so that they can block it.
“Okay, Ryan. One more. Right down the center. You can do it.”
“Eye on the ball, Jake. Eye on the ball.”
The boys who are waiting to bat are lined up inside the cage where they sit, and everyone is watching Jake try to hit the ball. On the other side, I can hear people yelling at the boy who is throwing the ball to Jake, and the coach keeps touching his hand to his arm and chest. I think that baseball might be sort of complicated, and I am not sure I should write about it to Luis. I am also thinking that I would not want to be the batter or the thrower, because everyone is staring at them. I think I would get pretty nervous.
But it looks fun to be in the cage. Boys are laughing, and they say things like “Batter uuuuup,” and one kid keeps crawling partway up the fence, he is so excited. I wonder if everybody has to hit with the bat in baseball.
“Hey, Bashkim!”
It is Derek, a kid who was in my class last year. I sort of nod at him, because he is in the cage, and I feel funny watching them.
“What are you doing here? Do you play baseball?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, okay. Maybe I’ll see you after the game.”
I say okay, and I feel pretty good that Derek wants to see me later. Then I think about Derek seeing me in the ice-cream truck, and about Baba being mad, and I get worried, so I stop watching that game and walk over to watch a different one. There are four games at the same time, and the fields are arranged in a circle, with the food and stuff at the center. It’s nicer than the soccer fields, because there you have to walk really far to see another game, and it’s hard to park our truck where everyone will come by it. At baseball, everyone goes to the center, so as long as Nene gets a license to park there, we sell a lot of ice cream.
I can see Baba and Nene in the truck from here. Baba is shaking his head at a little kid, and I can see that Nene does not like it. The kid is handing his ice cream back to Baba. It doesn’t look open, but Baba is shaking his head about taking it back. I can’t hear what he says, but I see Nene come over and reach her hand out to take the ice cream. Baba gives her his worst look, and even though I can’t see anything from this far, I know Nene is clenching her shoulders the way she does. I really don’t want Derek to come to our ice-cream truck, but I don’t know what I am going to do about it.
I don’t feel like watching any more baseball, so I start walking away from the games and the food and the people. There are some trees at the edge of the park, and there is a dry wash over there, which sometimes even has water in it, and I think that I will hang out there for a while. Nene will get worried if I am gone too long, but I don’t want to go back there right now. I don’t know how I can help Nene anyway.
It is quiet and peaceful in the wash. There isn’t any water today, but I see two lizards, and a chipmunk, and a whole bunch of quail. They get so nervous when I come that they run right at me. Quail are not very smart. I am not supposed to play with chipmunks, because Mrs. Jimenez says they carry a disease. I am pretty sure I couldn’t catch a chipmunk, but it would be fun to have one for a pet.
I have to be careful where I walk because a lot of bushes look soft, but they have thorns. I am wearing jeans, so it will only hurt if they scratch my face or neck, but sometimes I have gotten a lot of pricklies in my jeans and scratched myself when I took them off at night. I find a big rock, and I sit down there to think for a while.
It is quiet, but I can hear things. I can hear the people cheering at the baseball game, far away, and I can hear those quails rustling around in the bushes. There is a bird making sqwaaack sounds too. The sun is on my face, and I close my eyes. It feels so warm.
Sometimes at night, before I go to bed, my nene and I watch TV. My nene likes Jeopardy!, even though she doesn’t know very many answers, and I watch it with her just because she likes me to be there. When she tries to answer the questions, she gets all mixed up about the question words. She says, “Why is Abraham Lincoln?” and “How is a thermometer?” I like my nene’s questions better than the right ones, and I sit on the couch next to her, not really watching, but listening to her funny question words. It feels sort of like I feel right now, all warm and peaceful. Sometimes my nene is trying to win, and she sits straight up, watching. Other times she sits back like me, and then she touches my head and my face real soft. My nene has long fingers, and she can make circles on my head and face that are softer than soft. I almost can’t feel her fingers, they are so soft, but I know they are there barely touching me. I think I might be too big for her to do this now, but I really like it. I wish Jeopardy! would last longer when she is doing it.
I almost fall asleep there, and then I remember how worried Nene will be if I don’t come back to the truck. I walk back fast. Derek’s game is over, and I don’t see anyone wearing his uniform, so I think I probably don’t have to worry about him coming to the truck.
“Where were you?” Nene asks, kind of mad and kind of relieved.
“I was in the wash, and I forgot how long I was gone, Nene. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Bashkim, but I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t leave the truck. I have been watching and watching.”
I feel bad because I know how nervous Nene gets, and I am also worried that Baba is going to punish me. But Baba is really busy. One of the ice-cream freezers isn’t keeping everything cold, and he is trying to figure out what the problem is. Plus, Tirana is up, and she wants someone to pay attention to her, so I don’t really get in trouble because nobody has time to do it. I right away tell Tirana that I will play Mouses with her, so I know that helps Nene too.
I think we have had a pretty good afternoon at the baseball field by the time we leave, but Baba is upset about the freezer compartment. He says that fixing it will take all our profits for the day, and we still have to pay the power bill and the doctor bill. I think we are eating too much too. All of the baseball kids are pretty much gone, and we are cleaning up the truck to leave, when Baba and Nene finally start yelling. I think that they almost made it until we got home, but at least nobody I know is still here.
“Arjeta, you throw away this ice cream? You think I am such a rich man that you can throw away perfectly good ice cream?”
“It is half melted, Sadik. We can’t sell melted ice cream. You know that we can lose our license for that.”
“What difference does it make if we lose our license if we are already out on the street? Hmm! What difference does it make if we lose our license if I can’t pay the rent this month? Foolish woman! Do you see an inspector here?”
My nene is quiet, and I know that she does not want the argument to get worse, but then, she can’t stop herself. Very softly, she starts to say the worst thing.
“For love of Allah, Sadik, just kill me and my—”
Arrrgghh! Like that, my baba is shoving my nene into the side of the truck. Nene’s head kind of thunks against it, and both Tirana and I scream. That makes Baba furious.
“Shut up! You children. Shut up! You have no idea what she is doing to us. Do you want to starve?”
I get quiet real fast, and even Tirana sort of gulps and stops crying. I can’t believe she is big enough to figure out that she has to be quiet right now, but I guess she is getting more mature too.
Nene has moved away from the side of the truck, and she hisses at Baba.
“Stop it. Do you want someone to see us? Do you want someone to call the police? We are in a park.”
This makes Baba stop, because he is afraid of police and because he knows Nene is right. He slams down the sliding panel that closes the counter on the truck, and I help Tirana get in the seat and buckle her belt. My heart is beating so loud that I am afraid Baba will hear it and get mad, so I try to take big breaths to stop it
, but those are sort of loud too. I put my arm around Tirana, because it will really help if she can stay quiet. Baba and Nene get in the front seat, and we start to drive away. I notice that Baba and Nene don’t buckle their seat belts, and this worries me, but it is not a good time to mention it. Nobody is saying anything in the truck, but it feels loud anyway, like someone is screaming, and I am just hoping that we can get home, and that they won’t start yelling now, because I am afraid of my baba’s driving when he is yelling, and I am not sure that I can keep Tirana quiet. I think about the dry wash and how peaceful it felt in there, and I feel so sad that I almost start to cry in the car. But I don’t. That could set everybody off.
21
* * *
Bashkim
NOBODY TALKS ON THE ride home. Baba makes noises with his mouth, like he does when he is mad, but Nene does not react. I know she is afraid of what he will do, and I am glad that she is being really quiet, because I am afraid too. I keep one arm around Tirana, hoping she will stay quiet and figuring that nobody can see me doing this anyway. Tirana is such a baby that she starts to fall asleep right away. I wonder if she just forgot about being afraid a minute ago or if going to sleep is how a baby deals with it. I deal with it by counting my breaths: one, two, three, four. Our PE teacher has us lie on the mats and count our breaths sometimes, and now I do it on days like today. It sort of helps, except I am so nervous that I can’t even count to four. I keep forgetting where I am and having to start over.
I don’t recognize the sound at first. Baba curses, very loud, and Nene makes a kind of aye sound, and then I hear the whoop of a police siren, right behind us. I know this means Baba is supposed to stop, but he doesn’t right away. He keeps driving, and I see Nene look at him, and she is about to say something, and then he swings the wheel right, very fast, and the seat belt catches me hard at my waist as my head knocks into the window, and Baba stops.
We Are Called to Rise Page 16
