By the time we had finished, Mama and Navid still weren’t home, so we cleared the table and put the rest of the spaghetti into the refrigerator. Then we washed the dishes.
“Well,” Daddy said, “let’s see what’s on the news.”
He flipped on the television and we sat on the couch watching the news. Then we watched T. J. Hooker and The Love Boat. At ten o’clock, as Fantasy Island was coming on, we finally heard the key in the front door.
Navid walked in, carrying Kamran, who was asleep on his shoulder. Behind them came Mama. She smiled when she saw us.
“Hey, guys,” she said. “Kamran is fine. It’s nothing serious.”
Navid carried the baby into his nursery, then reappeared in the living room.
“I’m sorry, Kirk,” he said, extending his hand to my father. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
“It’s okay,” Daddy said, shaking his hand. “I understand how it is.”
Mama flopped down on the couch beside me and put her arm around my shoulder.
“What have you guys been up to?” she asked.
“Just watching TV,” I said as Daddy turned off the television.
“There’s spaghetti in the fridge,” Daddy said. “You guys must be starving.”
“Thank you, Kirk, for making dinner, and you, too, Judy. Thank you both for cooking and for cleaning the house.” Navid smiled at me. “It looks one hundred percent better.”
“That’s okay,” I said.
Mama rose and walked to the kitchen. “I’ll make you a plate,” she said, touching Navid’s arm as she passed him.
“Thank you, Cassie Joon,” he said. But he didn’t look at her.
We sat back down at the table while Mama and Navid ate reheated spaghetti. Mama chattered away while Navid ate in silence.
“Good Lord,” Mama said, “the emergency room is a zoo. I mean, it’s a complete zoo. It took them three hours to even get to us. Poor Kamran was asleep by then, and of course they had to wake him up to look at his hand.”
“What did the doctor say?” Daddy asked.
“It’s just a little burn,” Mama said. “Just like you said.” She smiled at Daddy.
“Well, it’s always good to play it safe,” Daddy said.
Mama sighed and sat back in her chair. “Good Lord, I’m tired.”
Navid raised his eyebrows at her. “I thought you had a nap today,” he said.
“Well, I think I could sleep for a year and still not be caught up,” Mama said. “It’s exhausting keeping up with the baby.”
Navid folded his napkin and set it on the table. “I don’t know why you complain so much,” he said softly. “My mother had three children in four years, and she still managed to keep the house clean and cook proper meals.”
With that, he rose and walked into the bedroom, leaving his dishes on the table.
Mama sighed again.
“Well,” Daddy said, his voice soft. “I guess it’s too late to rent a car tonight.”
“Oh, Kirk, I’m sorry,” Mama said. “I forgot.”
“It’s okay,” he said, smiling at her. “Maybe you can just drive me to the hotel and I can rent a car tomorrow.”
“Sure,” she said, rising. “Let me get my keys.”
She disappeared into the bedroom, reemerging with her purse. “Judy, do you want to come with us, or are you ready for bed?”
“I’ll come,” I said. I didn’t want to stay in the apartment with Navid. He was in such a bad mood.
We drove Daddy to the Ramada Inn and left him with his suitcase at the front door. Mama was quiet as we drove back home.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said as we turned onto her street. “This isn’t how I pictured your first night here.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Mama?” I asked as she pulled into a parking spot. “Are you okay?”
She smiled at me and touched my cheek. “I’m fine, Judy. Just tired, that’s all.”
“Are you and Navid okay?”
She looked at me steadily for a minute, then sighed. “We’ll be okay, I think. It’s just hard, adjusting to being parents.”
“Did you and Daddy fight a lot when I was born?”
“No,” she said. “But we were a lot younger then. I don’t remember being so tired all the time. And your dad ... well, your dad had a lot of patience.”
We locked the car and walked to the apartment building. Even though it was almost eleven, it was still stiflingly hot.
“Hey,” Mama said, smiling at me. “Do you want to take a swim?”
“Isn’t it too late?” I asked, remembering the pool hours listed on the roof.
“Not if we’re quiet,” she said. “Remember, my Sweet Judy, rules were meant to be broken.”
We changed into our swimsuits and took the elevator to the roof. The pool lights were out and the water was dark and still. Leaving our towels on the deck, we slipped into the cool water.
“Oh, that feels good,” Mama said. “And look, you can even see some stars.” She pointed to the sky, where a few tiny specks glistened. There weren’t nearly as many stars as we had at home.
“In the winter, you get a better view,” she said, leaning back into the water and stretching out her arms. “In the summer, you can’t see the stars at all most of the time. Too much smog.”
We floated on our backs, watching the stars.
“Do you like California?” I asked.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I like it better in the winter than in the summer. It’s too hot in the summer, and too smoggy. And it’s always too crowded.”
She sighed again. “Sometimes I really miss Indiana.”
She laughed then. “God, I never thought I’d hear myself say that. But it’s true. Sometimes I really miss being back there.”
“Do you think you and Navid will ever move?”
She laughed again, but it was a sad little laugh. “No,” she said. “Navid will never leave his family. They’re really close.”
“Navid said his mother had three children, but I only met Maryam at the wedding.”
“Navid had a brother who died a long time ago,” Mama said. “He lived in an apartment building in Tehran and there was a fire.” She paused. “I think that’s why he got so upset about Kamran’s burn.”
“He wasn’t very nice to Daddy,” I said, remembering Navid’s response when Daddy said Kamran’s burn wasn’t bad.
“I know,” Mama said. “He was just worried. And then he felt bad about it.”
“He wasn’t very nice to you, either.”
Mama was quiet for a minute. A plane flew overhead and somewhere on the street below a car honked its horn.
“Navid is a good man, Judy,” she said finally. “He tries to do the right thing. He just ... he gets frustrated sometimes ... with me.”
She sank beneath the water then, reemerging a foot away, her hair dripping.
“But we’ll be all right. Don’t worry, okay?”
We toweled off and walked back to the elevator, dripping on the floor as we went.
“I put towels in your room, if you want a shower,” she said, unlocking the apartment door. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m good.” I was shivering in the air-conditioning.
Mama kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning, my Sweet Judy. Sleep well.” Then she tiptoed into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
A minute later, I heard the shower running in her bathroom.
I toweled my hair partly dry and pulled a nightgown from my suitcase. Then I lay in my bed by the window, listening to Kamran’s steady breathing from the crib.
I wondered if Mama was happy, after all. She didn’t seem as happy as she’d been the summer before. But maybe she was just tired, like she said.
As I drifted off to sleep, the baby woke up and began to cry. A minute later, Mama walked into the room.
“Sorry,” she whispered, as she lifted Kamran from his crib
. “He never sleeps through the night in here.”
She carried the baby from the room, closing the door behind her. After a long time, I fell asleep.
27
The next morning I found Mama sitting alone in the kitchen, drinking coffee. She smiled when she saw me.
“Good morning,” she said, rising. “Do you want some juice?”
She poured orange juice into a glass and set it before me.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Navid took Kamran to Bahá’í school,” she replied. “It’s like Sunday school for Bahá’ís. They go every week.”
“Do you go with them?”
Mama shook her head. “No, Sunday morning is my quiet time. It’s the one time in the week that I have just to myself.”
“Does Navid mind that you don’t go?”
“Well.” She walked to the refrigerator and opened the door, pulling out eggs. “He’d like it if I went, I think. But I really need the time alone.”
“Is it weird that Kamran is going to be a Bahá’í and you’re not?”
“It’s important to Navid,” she said. “And I don’t think it really matters what religion you belong to.”
“That’s what Daddy says, too.”
Mama broke eggs into a bowl and whisked them with milk.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked.
She stopped whisking for a minute, then poured the eggs into a skillet.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I think if there is a God, he is much bigger than anything we can imagine. And he’s certainly bigger than any one religious group can claim.”
She stirred the eggs in the skillet, adding salt and pepper.
“I think most Western religions have it all wrong, in a way,” she said. “They all claim that their way is the only way to God. I think God must be bigger than that. Do you want Tobasco sauce on your eggs?” She smiled at me and I nodded.
“There’s a guy I know who teaches a different way of thinking about God,” she said, scooping eggs onto a plate and setting it on the table in front of me. “He says that God is in everything and in everyone. I kind of like that idea.”
“Is he a Christian or a Bahá’í?” I asked.
“Actually,” she said, sitting down at the table with her coffee, “he’s a Hindu. He’s from India, and he studies under a guru—that’s a kind of spiritual teacher. It’s pretty cool.”
“Does he believe in heaven?” I asked.
She smiled. “In a way, I guess. He believes in reincarnation, that we don’t just live one time on earth. We keep getting reborn until we learn everything we need to know. And then, we stop getting reborn and that’s nirvana, which is kind of like heaven in a way.”
I thought about this while I ate my eggs. Had I lived in the world before?
“Does that mean that Kamran was somebody else before he was born?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And now he will grow up in this life and learn what he needs for the next time around.”
“That’s kind of weird,” I said.
“I guess it seems weird to us because we aren’t raised with it,” she said. “To the Hindus, it seems weird that people believe they only live once.”
“What does Navid think about him, your Hindu friend?” I thought Navid probably didn’t think too much of Mama’s friend.
Mama laughed. “He thinks Arjun is behind the times. He says that Hinduism was a valid path to God in its time, but now it’s outmoded. Bahá’ís believe in progressive revelation.”
“What’s that?”
“The idea that God sends prophets down every few hundred years to update things. So, Jesus came in his day with teachings that were right for his day. And Muhammad came with teachings right for his day. And now, Bahá’u’lláh has come with teachings right for this time.”
“What do you think?” I asked, trying to take in what seemed like a very complicated thing.
“Well,” she said, “like I said, I just don’t know. I like some of what the Bahá’ís teach—like the equality of men and women and the unity of mankind. But ... there are things I don’t agree with, too.”
She rose to pour more coffee into her cup. “I guess you could say I’m still looking for a faith that fits. So far, what Arjun tells me about Hinduism makes more sense to me than anything else. But, I’m not sure what I believe.
“How about you?” she asked, sitting back down at the table. “What do you believe, Judy?”
“I don’t know,” I said, sighing. “Grandma says prayers can fix things, but sometimes I pray and nothing happens. Daddy says it doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew, as long as you’re trying to do the right thing.”
“Well, I’m with your dad on that one. I think if there is a God, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what your religion is, as long as you’re doing good things in the world.”
I finished my eggs and put my plate and fork in the sink.
“What should we do today?” Mama asked. “We could go to the beach or take a picnic up to the mountains. Or, if you’d rather, we can just hang out.”
“Let’s go to the beach,” I said. “Will Navid and Kamran come, too?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “They should be home in about an hour and we can ask if they want to come.”
I showered while Mama drank more coffee; then she showered while I watched MTV. By the time Navid arrived with Kamran, we were packing a picnic lunch.
“Hey,” Mama said, reaching for the baby. “We’re going to the beach for a picnic. Do you want to come?”
Navid smiled at me. “That sounds like fun,” he said. “But I can’t go today. I’m helping Azad at the Bahá’í Center. We are soundproofing the youth room, so they can play their music without driving everyone else crazy.”
“Oh, Navid,” Mama said, “you can do that next week. Judy’s only here for a little while. Come to the beach with us.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cassie, but I made a commitment and I cannot just break it.”
Mama sighed and took Kamran into the nursery to change his clothes. When she reemerged, he was dressed in little swim trunks and a T-shirt, wearing sandals and a sun hat.
“We’ll see you at dinner then,” she said, not looking at Navid.
“Okay,” he said, kissing the baby’s head. “Be careful, and don’t let him get too much sun.”
We drove to Malibu and Mama pointed out places along the way while Kamran slept in his car seat. By the time we got to the beach, he was awake and fussing.
“Okay,” Mama said, lifting Kamran from the car, “you get the bag and I’ll carry the cooler.”
We spread a blanket on the white sand and Mama raised a large umbrella above it, so we could sit in the shade. We stripped to our swimsuits and sat down. I was wearing my first two-piece, and I felt self-conscious and proud at the same time. Mama wore a low-cut white one-piece. She had lost all of her pregnancy weight, but her breasts were swollen from nursing. I noticed several men watching her as we undressed.
We ate our sandwiches while Kamran happily shoveled sand into and out of a little bucket. I thought Malibu was probably the prettiest place in the world, with the ocean in front of us and the mountains behind.
After lunch, we took Kamran into the water and Mama held him while he splashed and laughed.
“Look at those houses,” I said, pointing up the beach, past a large fence that extended far out into the water. Huge, beautiful homes sat along the water, their windows glistening in the afternoon sun.
“Yeah,” Mama said. “Aren’t they hideous?”
I stared at her. I thought they were beautiful.
“Really rich people live there,” she said. “And they put up that big fence to keep everyone else out.” She looked at the fence in disgust. “It’s disgraceful that the city lets them do that. The beach belongs to everyone.”
“Do you think anyone famous lives there?” I asked.
“Sure,” she sai
d. “Lots of Hollywood people have houses here.”
“I wish we could go over there ... just to walk on the beach.”
The strip of beach in front of the houses was pristine and empty, unlike the crowded public beach where our blanket lay.
“Okay,” she said, grinning at me. “Let’s do it.”
She started walking through the water toward the fence, holding Kamran on her hip.
“No, Mama, it’s okay,” I said, struggling to keep up with her. “We don’t have to. I mean, we’re not supposed to, right? That’s why they have the fence.”
“To hell with the fence,” she said, laughing over her shoulder. “Like I said, the beach belongs to everybody.”
She waded deeper into the water, holding Kamran aloft. The waves crashed against us, nearly knocking me over.
“Mama,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I want to go back.”
“Oh, come on, Judy,” she said, taking my hand. “It’s okay. It’s just a little bit farther.”
She pulled me along as she pushed into the waves. Each one seemed bigger than the last, threatening to push us under. My heart pounded. I held tight to her hand.
“Here,” she said triumphantly, as we reached the end of the fence. “Come on.”
She pulled me around the fence and turned to smile at me, then her eyes widened. I turned just in time to see a huge wave crashing down on us. I was pushed under the water and felt Mama’s hand slip from mine. I closed my eyes and held my breath. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down, or where I would end up. My lungs felt like they were going to burst and I opened my mouth and gulped down seawater. Dear God, I prayed. Please. Please. Please don’t let me drown.
I hit something solid then, the fence. I grabbed on with both hands and held tight, feeling the wave pushing me forward. Then suddenly, I could breathe. I was several feet from the end of the fence, holding on for dear life, coughing and sputtering. I felt like I might throw up.
My eyes scanned the water, searching for Mama and Kamran. Then I heard her.
“Oh, Judy, thank God!” She was behind me, a few feet closer to the beach. She still held Kamran tightly. He was soaked and whimpering.
She struggled toward me through the water, then grabbed me into a fierce hug.
The Sometimes Daughter Page 20
