by Varsha Bajaj
“He’s going to be fine, right?”
“They think so, honey,” Mom replies. “But at his age, recovery is harder and slower. And his blood pressure is still all over the place.”
“Yes, but he’s going to be fine,” I repeat with certainty.
Papa not getting better is not an option.
I get dressed, and Mom and I drive back to the hospital.
“Do you think Chris made it to school?” I ask Mom.
It feels weird to not be going. I’ve always been proud of my 100 percent attendance record, but after everything that has happened, it suddenly feels unimportant.
“I’ll call his mom later,” Mom says.
The chilled air and antiseptic smell feel strangely familiar as we enter the hospital building, although before yesterday I had never spent time in a hospital before. It’s as if the antiseptic is supposed to mask the smell of disease, infection, and death.
Mom and I tiptoe into the room. Papa snores lightly. An intravenous tube is attached to his right arm, and his hand is blue and bruised where the needle is bandaged down. Papa looks so small and vulnerable that it breaks my heart.
Dad is resting in a chair next to Papa. He has stubble on his face from not shaving.
Papa opens his eyes when he hears us.
“My beta,” he says, and reaches his hand out to me. Papa calling me his “daughter” is music to my ears.
I squeeze his free hand. When he winces in pain, I step back, horrified.
Then Papa laughs. Not his usual loud laugh but a paler imitation. Still, it is Papa’s laugh.
“I fooled you!” he says.
We exhale. He is trying to help us smile again.
Then he asks about Chris. “Is he okay?”
I nod. “He just got a few scrapes and scratches.” I show him the pictures I took of Chris’s arms.
“Karina,” he says, “God willing, I will be okay. I will come home and we will celebrate. Chris will get an A and your picture will be in the art gallery, and we will have a party.”
“Yes,” I say. “I like the way you are thinking.”
Then, more quietly but with steel in his eyes, Papa says, “Karina, we are not going to let that hater take us down.”
I hold back my tears. I nod in agreement.
“That man will not win. He will not defeat us,” he says. “I have traveled too far for that.”
Dad adjusts Papa’s blanket and puts his hand on Papa’s shoulder to reassure him.
Papa’s words make me feel less scared and alone. This morning, the path was as dark as the night before. It’s as if Papa has turned on a flashlight and shown me the way forward. If he is going to fight, so am I.
Papa gives me a look that sees through my soul.
He must notice the small quiver of my lip, because he says, “One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry.”
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Papa berry, cake berry, get well soon berry,” I say.
* * *
When the orderlies come to transport Papa to surgery, I hold his hand and walk as far as I am allowed.
I stop before the big swinging doors that read PERSONNEL ONLY.
“See you soon,” Papa says.
The clock reads exactly 10:30 a.m. when I walk into the waiting room. Not even twenty-four hours have gone by since an ordinary walk to the car took an unexpected turn and changed our lives.
I scroll through the pictures on my phone. I have lots of images of the smashed berries, the shattered glasses, and the sandal.
I keep going back and forth viewing the pictures. I am not sure what I expect will happen. Will the pictures show me a truth I’ve missed? It’s not like it’s a mystery. I know who the victim was. I know who the bad guy was. There are no hidden clues to be found. Yet I keep looking.
Then the pictures tell me what I need to do.
I pick the one of Papa’s shattered eyeglasses surrounded by the crushed red fruit. His upturned sandal is also in the frame. At first, I don’t know what to say, but then the words write themselves. I start typing.
My grandfather was beaten up and called ugly names yesterday. He was attacked by a stranger who felt that Papa did not belong in America—someone who saw him as a terrorist and a threat. Papa has lived in America longer than he lived in his native India. Today he lies in a hospital bed. My friend Chris and I were with him but couldn’t stop the hate. Please pray that Papa recovers. And that soon he will be back to tutoring math and mending broken fences.
I share the post with my friends and family. Papa needs their prayers, and I need their support.
CHAPTER 12
CHRIS
I’M SHOCKED WHEN Mom gives me the option to stay home from school the day after the attack. But I decide to go, thinking Karina might be there.
Before I leave, Mom applies some ointment to my cuts.
“Mom,” I say, “will Mr. Chopra get better?”
“Oh, Chris, I pray that he will be fine. What exactly happened, though? How’d it all start?”
As I try to put what happened into words, Mom’s eyes get wide. She puts her coffee cup down with shaky hands and asks the question that has been swirling in my head:
“Why would anyone do something like that?”
It’s a question neither of us has a good answer for.
* * *
School feels weird, and I immediately regret my decision. Karina isn’t here after all, and no one knows about what happened to us. A few people ask about my scrapes, but I don’t know what to say.
At lunch, I go to the bathroom to sneak a look at my phone. That’s when I see that Karina has posted a picture, and I almost drop my phone in the toilet.
The picture is of Mr. Chopra’s glasses. The ones he would peer over when I gave him the wrong answer. The glasses that always slid off his nose, that he meant to have tightened.
“Chris,” he would say as he polished the smudges off his glasses, “if you focus and leave your fears at the door, math will make sense.”
He was right. So I focused—and he helped it all make sense.
I could hear his voice in my head, saying, “Correct, beta!”
Mr. Chopra invited me to his house, and he made me worksheets. He didn’t need to do any of that.
He told me stories of when he came to America as a computer science student in 1968. “I was so eager to learn,” he said. “I went to university, got a job, and then applied for legal citizenship. It was hard, Chris. So hard. But America has been good to me and given me a life I couldn’t have dreamed of.”
He doesn’t deserve to be disrespected by a man who thinks Mr. C isn’t American enough—a guy who thinks he’s the more American one. Who made it a contest, anyhow?
I look at the photo again. I notice how Mr. C’s broken glasses lie next to a bunch of smashed berries.
Karina Chopra is speaking up. And I see lots of other people have already commented on her post. So I speak up there too. Hate has no place here, I write.
In the hallway, I hear people whispering Karina’s name, and I see them showing each other Karina’s post on their phones.
The word is spreading.
I remember when Matt first started learning to play African drums and he was so excited. He said that a long time ago, people would beat their drums a certain way to send messages to others.
“It was like long-distance communication,” he said.
“You mean like phones?” I said.
“Yup,” he said, “like phones.”
“Way cooler than phones,” I said.
“Yup,” said Matt, beating his drum.
Social media—that’s our drum. Suddenly, I want the world to know what happened to Mr. Chopra. I want the drums to be loud so that everyone will hear our outrage.
* * *
“Coach, he’s here!” my friend Diego shouts out as I enter the gym for basketball practice.
Coach sees me and says, “Hustle, Daniels!”
We line up to do layups. But I’m off my game. My free throws don’t sink, and the ball slides away when I dribble. I don’t care, though, because the gym, the game, doesn’t feel important today.
Quinn slides up to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and whispers, “Did you see your girlfriend’s picture?”
I shrug his hand off. “I did,” I say. “She’s my friend, and what happened is terrible.”
“She’s crying because she spilled her berries,” Quinn says.
I shoot a warning look at him, but Quinn has never been one to take a hint.
“Wah! Wah!” he says. “Karina Chopra is complaining because her grandpa broke his glasses.”
His voice is like a drill boring a hole in my skull. “Quinn, you don’t know anything,” I say. “So shut your trap!”
Diego and a new kid named Trevor come over and stand next to me, silently supporting me. I decide I’ll show them Karina’s picture. I know they’ll get it.
“K Chops is whining because someone hated her grandpa’s brown behind,” Quinn says, laughing.
I step closer to him, curling my hands into fists, and he sneers. “You want to hit me, don’t you?”
Now I am in his face. He’s right. I want to hit him. He looks scared for a second, and when he turns away, I grab his arm.
“Coach!” he yells. “Chris is looking for a fight.”
Coach comes running. “What’s going on?”
Quinn says, “He started it.”
“Chris Daniels,” Coach says, looking puzzled, “I didn’t expect this from you.”
“It’s not Chris’s fault,” Diego tells him.
By this time, lots of kids have circled around us.
Coach is holding Quinn and me apart. “Did you start this?” he asks me.
I stare at my shoes and don’t answer.
Coach shakes his head, confused. “Okay then. Chris, you’ll have to sit out today. Starting a fight also means detention, my friend.”
Quinn laughs.
I sit on the sidelines and fume.
I should’ve punched him. What’s wrong with Quinn, anyway? And why are there so many haters?
CHAPTER 13
KARINA
PAPA HAS BEEN in surgery for a while, and each minute feels like an hour. I keep remembering how the doctor warned Dad that surgery at Papa’s age can have complications.
I glance at the waiting-room clock. It’s 1:00 p.m. On a typical Friday, I would be in sixth period.
Dad paces. Mom knits and dozes in a chair. We all worry and pray.
Nobody is voicing the thing that scares us the most: Will Papa walk again?
Will he be able to climb stairs? How will he get to his room if he can’t? He is always on the move—cooking, fixing, and doing.
Papa would absolutely hate being dependent.
To pass time, I begin taking pictures of the waiting room, the nurses’ station, and the doctors rushing around. Anything to take my mind off the fact that Papa is on an operating table with his leg cut open.
“Karina,” Dad says, “was there anything at all you can think of that might have set the man off yesterday?”
Mom puts down her knitting and looks at me, hoping I will say more. I already told her we did nothing. Just being us on the street set this man off, I want to say.
But the words get stuck in my throat as I look around the waiting room that the staff has tried to make look more like a living room than a hospital. There are couches, colorful cushions, even a few throws. There are plants strategically placed around the room. I notice that none of them are dying and award brownie points to the hospital.
I also notice that there are lots of tissue boxes scattered around the room, breaking the illusion. Reminding us that this is also a place for upset, sometimes grieving families.
I stare at the weave on the throw blankets. They are red and blue, and they remind me of the spilled berries. I keep staring. I want to tell my parents what happened, but how?
I look down at my phone and go to my pictures. I’ve always been more comfortable saying things with my photographs. This is why I took them. I knew there might be times I would not be able to find words—times I would need the images to share my experiences. With my pictures, I can remember all the details.
My parents stare at the pictures of the attack scene on the screen. I wonder if I should mention that I posted the one of Papa’s broken glasses, but then I brush away the thought. How does it matter?
Then I begin to tell them everything I can remember.
Even as I narrate the events, I wonder if there was anything I could have done differently.
“We were walking along, minding our own business,” I say. “The man got out of his car and attacked us just because he didn’t like how we looked.”
I pause for a moment and then ask, “Did that man forget that his grandparents or great-grandparents were probably immigrants too?”
The line on Dad’s forehead is deep. Mom takes tissues from a box.
“Karina,” Dad says, “I am so sorry.”
I see a tear roll down Dad’s face. I have never seen him cry before, and I break down too.
Mom puts her arms around us both. Hugging us to comfort and reassure us.
“If only I had never suggested that Papa be a tutor,” she says.
Surely, she can’t blame herself.
“Trisha, stop. You know that had nothing to do with it,” Dad says. “Tutoring makes Papa happy. He feels needed and useful.”
“Yes,” I say, agreeing with Dad. “Papa was so happy yesterday. We all were.”
I get us another box of tissues, and between the three of us, we use almost the whole box.
Then we continue to wait for someone to come update us on the surgery.
Finally, the surgeon appears. Dad jumps to his feet. I hold my breath. “Your father is resting. The surgery went well. We’ll know more after a day or so.”
My parents and I hug at this good news. It is a step in the right direction, but I am still troubled. More than anything, I want to know that Papa is going to get better and walk again. Until the stars align and that happens, this galaxy won’t feel like home.
CHAPTER 14
CHRIS
ON SATURDAY MORNING, I tell my parents I want to visit Mr. C at the hospital.
Both my parents are surprised. My hatred of hospitals is well-known. When I was eight, I fell off my skateboard and busted up my lip. The metallic taste of my own blood freaked me out—but worse was when I got stitches and felt like I was gonna pass out. Since then, hospitals have been on my Places I’d Rather Not Revisit list.
Dad slaps me on the back. “My boy’s growing up,” he says. “A little blood doesn’t scare him anymore.”
“Dad, this is serious,” I say.
He looks at me for a minute and surprises me by saying, “Of course it is. I didn’t mean to joke. I’m happy you’re standing by your friends.”
Mom takes the banana bread she made for the Chopras out of the oven and says she will drive me.
* * *
At the hospital, we find Karina’s mom in the waiting area. I leave the moms there and go to see Mr. C.
I walk through the hushed corridors toward room 2154. I hate the smell of hospitals, but for Mr. C, I will deal. A man with an IV pole and a flapping hospital gown walks in front of me. I try not to look at his butt. Can you squeeze past a sick man? I decide not to.
At the door to Mr. C’s room, I pause. Karina’s sitting by her grandfather’s bed. She is reading Roald Dahl’s The BFG aloud, with different voices and all.
It’s so Karina that I smile.
Mr. C notices me hovering by the door. “Chris,” he says. “Chris, come on in!”
I enter the room and see that Mr. C is hooked up to an IV and that his thigh is bandaged. I try not to stare.
“Come here, beta. Come here,” he says.
Hearing him call me “beta” is the best, and I relax a little. I inch closer and stand right by his bed.
Of course Mr. C wants to check out my arm and look at my scratches before I have a chance to ask him how he is.
There’s a knock on the door, and two police officers enter the room.
I’ve been around more police officers in the last forty-eight hours than ever before in my life.
“I’m Sergeant Muniz with the Special Crimes Unit,” the older one says, “and this is Detective Willis.” They both shake Mr. C’s hand.
The men say they are investigating the incident. They want to ask Mr. C a few questions and have him look at a few photographs to identify the perpetrator. They suggest that Karina and I wait outside.
“They should stay,” Mr. C says. “They were both with me when I was attacked.”
“Aha,” Sergeant Muniz says. “I didn’t realize that these were the children. You must be Karina and Chris.”
I stand as straight as I can when they shake hands with me, and try to make sure my grip is firm.
“I’m sorry that y’all had this terrible experience,” the sergeant says after Mr. C tells him all that he remembers from the attack.
Then he goes to ask our mothers’ permission for Karina and me to identify the attacker too.
The sergeant explains that he will show me the pictures first, then Karina. Detective Willis takes the pictures from a manila envelope.
