Balance of Fragile Things

by Olivia Chadha

  “Yes, we do, Mama. I know about the wars and stuff. The world is full of dictators, fallen empires, and bombs waiting to go off. Blah, blah, blah.”

  “Izjah, do not take these things zoh lightly.” Oma turned her back to both of them.

  “Why don’t you go clean your room, Izzy? Make sure it’s neat and tidy.” Maija said this without looking up.

  Great, she thought. Oma had only been in their house for a day, and Isabella had already managed to be sent to her room twice. She shrugged and rolled her eyes for dramatic effect, then entered the tempting boundaries of her bedroom. This, she thought, could end badly.

  ~

  The next day, the rain washed the world of any color and lulled the population of Cobalt into a state of sleepiness. Isabella had succumbed to the gloom. Even her teachers were dragging. Mrs. Stein yawned uncontrollably throughout English class. She assigned quiet reading time, something Isabella noticed she was doing more and more lately. Isabella looked up from her copy of The Scarlett Letter and sighed. Three students were sleeping, their heads against their textbooks; one was already drooling. The humdrum was interrupted by an aide who entered the classroom and handed Mrs. Stein a note. Mrs. Stein looked at Isabella over the thick edge of her reading glasses and gestured for her to approach her large wooden desk. This wasn’t the first time Isabella felt anxious butterflies bouncing against her insides, but it was the first time a teacher induced this sort of fear.

  “Isabella, let’s speak in the hall, okay? Best bring your things. Yes, your jacket, too.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stein.”

  When they were outside and the door had closed, the teacher cleared her throat and said, “Mrs. Cohen wants to see you in her office.”

  “Why?”

  “She didn’t say. But one thing to keep in mind, Isabella, is that this is not the time to lie. Be truthful and answer all their questions, all right?”

  “Okay. I have nothing to hide.”

  Isabella took the note and walked very slowly to the main office. She felt nauseous and took a sip of water from the drinking fountain. When she arrived, two people were waiting for her: Mrs. Cohen, the principal, sitting behind her desk, and Mr. Douglas, the assistant principal, who was pacing.

  “Hello,” Isabella said. “Mrs. Stein told me to come right away.”

  “Yes, Isabella, please sit down.” The tension in the room was not promising; Mrs. Cohen was small in stature, but her voice was deep and commanding. “We have a few questions for you.”

  Mr. Douglas opened a large box: her entire collection from her locker. “What exactly are you planning on doing with all of these?”

  Mrs. Cohen picked up a knife and several nails and pieces of glass from a jar.

  “Nothing. I just collect things, Mrs. Cohen. I swear—ask Mrs. Stein. Why did you go through my locker? That’s my personal property.” She raised her voice not because she was angry, but because she felt if she spoke louder they would actually believe her.

  “How do you explain these things?” Mrs. Cohen shook her head. “A knife? Isabella, we are so disappointed in you. This is not the direction we thought you would follow. I am not sure you should be the lead in the play. You aren’t a good representative of Cobalt High. Not anymore.”

  “The knife isn’t mine. I swear. Please.” The knife was hers, but she didn’t see the harm in having collected a dangerous object and contained it in her locker. She may have prevented an injury to someone else, for all she knew. The real issue was: They had invaded her privacy. Who would have tipped them off to her stash? Isabella thought about Tracy. She wondered if Tracy wanted her role so badly that she would divulge her ex-friend’s habits to the higher-ups. When they were young, Tracy also collected things, though her collections turned toward more materialistic items rather than found objects. It had to be her.

  “I am going to call your parents. Someone should pick you up. Knives aren’t allowed here. No weapons of any sort.”

  “No, please. I—ouch.” Her stomach began to ache as it had before, but this time the pain was so great she thought she might faint.

  Mrs. Cohen picked up the receiver. “Please wait outside.”

  Isabella moved to a chair in the hall, sat down, and rested her face in her hands. Both her parents were at work; maybe no one would answer the phone. She wished she’d moved her collection to a place where no one would find it.

  Mrs. Cohen didn’t come out of her office, and as the minutes passed by, Isabella assumed she was still trying to reach someone at home. Then she saw Oma at the front doors of the school.

  Oma was wearing her yellow raincoat, rain hat, and galoshes, and she held a walking stick in one hand and a tin of sorts in the other. She looked like an obstinate lemon hurrying across the linoleum floor. When she saw Isabella sitting there on the chair, she nodded, took off her rain hat, and continued into the principal’s office. The door closed firmly behind her. Isabella heard loud voices within, a mix of Latvian, German, and bad English. In only a few minutes, Oma reemerged without the tin, smiling brightly, with Mrs. Cohen at her side.

  “Thank you for coming down on such short notice, um…”

  “Hermione, but everyone calls me Oma. Yes, it is good you called. I wanted to see za school where mine grandchildren come, neh?” Oma grinned at Isabella.

  “Yes, all right then, Oma.” Mrs. Cohen appeared to be in a much better mood.

  Isabella was still dumbfounded at seeing the effects of her grandmother’s persuasion, and they walked through the fog side by side for two whole blocks before speaking. Water sounds surrounded them as they went; the rainwater drip-drip-dripped off of trees and ran through gutters. Oma slowed her pace and straightened her rain hat. She appeared to relax, as though the weight of authority she’d carried into the principal’s office had finally evaporated from her shoulders.

  “Oma?”

  “Yes?”

  “You believe me, right? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Of course, darlink.”

  “Oma?”

  “Yes?”

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Do what, darlink?”

  “How’d you handle Mrs. Cohen?”

  “I’ve handled much worse.”

  “Oh.”

  “You want to know a secret? Always bring a gift.”

  Oma

  Papaji and Oma were like oil and water: mustard oil from the Punjab and spring water from Mežuļi. Not only did their languages separate them, so did their genders. They were grandparents, yes, but not husband and wife. This fact was difficult for the receptionist at the podiatrist’s office to understand. Oma tried to explain over and over again, failingly, why she was going to wait for Mr. Singh when he woke up from the surgery.

  “Nonsense,” Oma said as she returned to her chair in the pastel-colored waiting room.

  “It’s okay, Ma. She’s just not that bright,” Maija whispered as she filled in Papaji’s paperwork.

  “She called me Mrs. Singh.” Oma laughed and shook her head.

  “It’s a good name, Mini.” Papaji smiled.

  The day before, Oma and Papaji had spent time alone together. The house emptied: Maija to work, Vic and Isabella to school, Paul to the station. The stillness returned once the garage door closed and the last youthful member of the Singh tribe exited. The quiet was palpable. Oma turned on a fan over the stove in the kitchen to disrupt the silence. Papaji appeared to assume that she was going to cook, so he turned his chair in the living room to watch.

  He smiled.

  She smiled back.

  She saw his curiosity; even after his substantial breakfast of cereal, pancakes, and eggs she knew he could still eat. Oma was a chef. She was trained in all the pastry ways of Latvia and Europe—from blintzes to piragis, cottage cheese cake to Alexander cake, she knew it all. She’d seen this look before in her husband’s face, God rest his soul. Heinrich Georg Rainier Mazur died so long ago, his death was part of another portion of time, dog-eared in a
history book. He was tall; part German, part Latvian; and together they’d had a child. But when history shifted again, he was drafted into World War II at the bitter end of the bloodshed. He was taken to the Eastern front, and it was there he was injured. As she whisked eggs together, Papaji had asked about her husband.

  He died long ago.

  Papaji pressed his hand against his chest and seemed to search for words. You know, I don’t know what to call you. The children call you Oma, and your daughter calls you Ma, but you aren’t my grandmother or mother.

  She felt her broad cheeks tinting pink. Hermione. She pressed her hand to her chest.

  Mini?

  She nodded, though the irony was not lost even on her. She was short, but not small by any means; with an ironic nickname like Mini, she’d have to be as round and plump as she was. But whatever he managed to call her would be fine.

  First class, you can call me Harbans.

  Hairbuns? Harry? Okay.

  And with that, they’d become formally acquainted with each other.

  When Maija handed the paperwork to the receptionist, she asked her to call the pharmacy when they were ready to be picked up.

  “Good luck, Papaji. I will see you in a few hours,” Maija called as she rushed out the door. A gust of cool damp wind flowed through the waiting room.

  The synthesizers and electric drums of the Muzak created an atmosphere of plastic comfort. Oma opened her large purse and retrieved a long piece of yarn, connecting it to her crocheting needles through a series of complicated knots. She quickly went to work on her project and within a few minutes she had a postage stamp–sized piece of orange, purple, and blue fuzz dangling from the two silver needles.

  “Ki halle? What is that?” Papaji asked.

  “A zeķe, a sock for you. It will help your heel heal. Don’t worry, I will make two.” She smirked and continued to twist the needles around each other as she hummed softly.

  “Mr. Singh? We can take you back now.”

  The two exchanged a glance, and Papaji followed the nurse through the double doors. Oma was happy to wait, content to knit him a pair of warm wool socks that would keep the moisture away from his injured extremity. She wiped her eyes with a crumpled tissue. Perhaps she would have to go to the eye doctor, as her eyes were becoming dimmer by the day. She wondered how long it would take for her to write down all of the things she had seen in her life if she were to lose her sight.

  She closed her eyes and found that she could still feel the warmth of the Latvian sun across her face. She could hear the whistling chickadee and smell the layers of pine needles and leaves decomposing under her feet. Four out of five of her senses were extraordinarily precise. Her eyelids pressed tighter over the cataracts as she imagined the feeling of her porch in Jelgava. It had been decades since she’d visited Latvia. One thing she hadn’t counted on during the slow process of encroaching blindness was that the memories she’d managed to bury would begin to bubble up to the surface. Then again, she wore history around her neck. Oma’s amber necklace was a relic of the sunken forest off the coast of the Baltic Sea. Some said a flood had dragged the forest under the water tens of thousands of years ago. Others said the wicked were punished in a flood and the amber, as it washed onto the shore, was a reminder—the blood of the trees petrified. The ancient sap contained flecks of flora, plant memories. She’d worn the one-inch round beads about her neck since the day her grandmother had given them to her, removing the resin reliquaries only to shower. As soon as she’d dress in one of her handmade outfits—poly-blend pants with a blouse and the sea-green sweater with an orange stripe through the center—she’d put her necklace back on. Familiarity was important to Oma. Her eyes, they’d told her, would soon be useless decorations on her face. The worst part about it was that the doctors described in specific detail the different stages she would experience. First, blurring would occur in the center of her vision. The right eye would go, and then the left. Her peripheral vision would become the only reliable perspective from which she could see the world. Once, when she’d cut her hand on a knife that she thought was a spoon, she realized that squinting no longer worked. She’d felt the floor of her small apartment under her bare feet as she always had, but her own reflection was blurring. At least she had seen Latvia’s independence and the rise of the Museum of Occupation alongside the Daugava River. She had been relieved when Maija asked her to move in.

  She continued to knit, and by the time she made a complete pair of extra-large multicolored socks, the receptionist mumbled, “He is out of surgery and will be ready to go home in a few minutes. It went well.”

  “But of course it went well.” Oma smiled.

  As the nurse dialed Maija to pick them both up, Oma retrieved her small tin of raspberry Bon Bons from her sweater pocket and offered her a few. The double doors opened, and an orderly wheeled Papaji into the waiting room.

  “You’re still here, ji,” Papaji whispered sleepily.

  “Of course, neh? Where else would I be?”

  Maija

  Maija’s eyes searched for a glimmer of the natural world outside the confines of Jones Drugs. She leaned on the counter as though it were the edge of her cage. Reconnecting with her mother had revived her longing for the outdoors. Searching for fresh air or natural light was not such an easy task, as not only was she trapped in the rear of the store, but the drive-through window was now bricked up. Her eyes searched for a hint of diffused sunlight. Her irises reached beyond the line of disgruntled drug-hungry customers; above the aisle stocked with Ron Popeil products, As Seen on TV; past the glaring brand names in the adult diaper section, which offered a false sense of dignity to those who suffered from incontinence (Poise, Certainty, Serenity, and Depends). Maija’s eyes watched eagerly as a teenager entered through the revolving door and let in a rush of cool air. This wisp of fresh air, traveling on miraculous wings, graced Maija’s cheek, and she shivered.

  Riding on the back of that gift of fresh air was the scent of the ground outside, wet and musky from the decomposing leaves and drain overflow. Maija knew she would have to get outside if only for a moment. The phone rang, seemingly at a slightly higher pitch than usual. Tom and Shandy were both dealing with customers, so Maija lifted the receiver and pressed line three.

  The line was quiet. Then she realized she was the one expected to offer a greeting.

  “Uh, hallo.”

  “Is this Jones Drugs?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Who answers a phone at a business like that?”

  Maija knew the voice. It sounded pink and glittery even over the phone. Maija disguised her voice the best she could by making it as deep as possible.

  “Can I help you?” she grumbled.

  “This is Eleanora Finch. I have a request about my prescription. Is there a chance someone could deliver the medicine to my home?”

  “Deliver?” She coughed.

  “Yes, to our home.”

  “We don’t usually—”

  “It’s important,” Eleanora said.

  “Fine.” Maija coughed again. “I don’t see why not.”

  “You should be happy to have an errand to run. The gate code is our address.” And she hung up the phone.

  Three very clear thoughts simultaneously waltzed through Maija’s mind. The first was most disconcerting: Eleanora was alive and had lived long past her vision. Maija had never been one for schadenfreude, but now, and for only one single second, she actually wished Eleanora had smacked her perfect little head on the floor of her shower and had been ushered toward unconsciousness. The second thought was strangely exhilarating: Perhaps the note she scribbled on the back of the PTA membership form had somehow altered the path toward her demise. The third and most pressing thought was that she had just agreed to deliver a prescription to the Finch residence, and she had the code to the gate that led directly into the Heights. Now she could inspect that haunted community to find out exactly what was going on out there.


  Without looking directly into Tom’s eyes, Maija simply said, “I have a very important delivery for Mrs. Finch,” as she grabbed the small white bag and left the store. He must have filled the prescription earlier. What a guy, she thought. He actually could do his job when he had to.

  As soon as she sat down in the car she rolled down the windows and took a deep breath. It didn’t matter that the sky was mere moments from raining again; the cool air revived her completely. She drove toward the Heights and expected the surroundings to be somewhat familiar. However, everything appeared foreign and curious. The shadows from the storm clouds above painted the road a dark ominous black; the center trees that lined the road appeared gnarled; thick fog obfuscated the view of the village below, making the Heights feel separate from the rest of earth, unaffected by the goings-on in Cobalt. Maija was climbing the Jacob’s ladder that connected the Flats to the Heights. As she drove, she heard a little inner voice inside her head whisper, Just turn around, but still she climbed. Within minutes she found herself face-to-face with that dominating wrought iron gate.

  Maija was reaching through her open window to type in the code on the keypad when it began to rain. The cold water chilled her bare arm, and goose bumps sprouted instantaneously. After driving through the gate, she rolled up the window and put the car in park as the rain blinded her, the downpour eliminating all visibility. What was she going to do when she arrived, anyway? Ask Eleanora if she’d slipped in her blue-tiled shower? Or ask if she’d been taking her medicine? She’d been so focused on the gate, the Heights, and Eleanora’s vitality that she’d completely forgotten to look at the drugs she was delivering. There were three bottles inside the bag: a broad antibiotic, a narcotic pain reliever, and an anti-nausea medication. These medications spelled out infection, but of what kind, Maija had no idea. They were too broad to deduce a specific problem. As she slipped the bottles back into the bag, she noticed that the letter E that she’d assumed was in front of the last name was actually a T. Tracy? Isabella’s former friend?