Love from A to Z(20)

“Out of clay.”

She stared at it, holding Mom’s photo up high against her shoulder, so high it was like Mom was looking back at me.

I’m proud of you doing your best to keep everyone happy was what Mom’s eyes said to me.

? ? ?

We got to DIS early on Sunday due to riding down with Dad. As head of the school, he was hands-on. Which meant he made sure to get to school an hour early to check on everything in the office and do a school walk-through before greeting parents dropping their kids.

Hanna took off for the schoolyard. I hung around the foyer talking to the reception secretaries, but then they decided to ask a million questions about London and university.

I got away and headed to Hanna’s class to wait for her teacher, Mr. Mellon.

Zayneb stood just outside the door to the classroom, reading something on the wall beside it. When she saw me, she beamed and waved the hand that wasn’t holding a travel mug.

Then she opened her mouth as if she was going to say something. But nothing came out, and she turned back to look at the display, taking a slow drink from the mug.

I came to stand beside her in front of a bulletin board of student projects on historic discoveries.

I laughed.

Zayneb turned to me, eyebrows raised.

“Hanna did the same project I did in fifth grade. Our dad has mine framed in his study at home. She’s pretty efficient, using my research like that!” I chuckled again.

“The Pinhole Camera Based on Ibn al-Haytham’s Camera Obscura by Hanna Chen?”

“Her drawings are much better than mine, though.” I nodded at the sketches under her write-up.

“Yeah, she’s really good. That’s one cool panda being projected through.”

“That’s Stillwater, her stuffed panda.” I turned to Zayneb. She was almost my height, maybe just a couple of inches shorter. “He’s like a third sibling. Sits at the table, gets blamed for stuff, pretends to do chores, everything.”

She laughed loudly. And then closed her mouth quick, with a big smile, but looked away.

I’d been staring. Ugh.

I looked back at Hanna’s project.

“So how does a camera obscura work?” Her voice was upbeat, eager—like she absolutely wanted to know. “Which I feel bad not knowing. Ibn al-Haytham is huge at home, because my dad’s an ophthalmologist.”

“It’s the capturing of light entering through a hole. Images of objects in front of the hole get projected inversely onto a surface. In the case of a pinhole camera, the surface would be the film inside the camera or, like in Hanna’s project, a box. Pinhole cameras came about because of the camera obscura discovery.”

“Amazing.” She peered at Hanna’s drawing of an upside-down Stillwater. “My sister and I have this theory that photos are some kind of magic. Or little jinns—or maybe angels?—anyway, some kind of beings, sitting inside devices, making things happen. Shh, don’t tell my dad.”

Her blue-hijabed head, light grayish blue today, turned to me. I don’t know what she saw on my face, but she quickly added, “I’m talking about digital photos being magic. Not pinhole ones.”

I tried not to laugh, didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her, but I couldn’t stop a chuckle. “Sorry, not laughing at you. Just the idea. Of little beings in my phone.”

“It’s okay. I know it’s crazy. We just like to attribute everything we can’t figure out to the unseen realm. Controlled by the greatest unseen being of all, of course.” She took a quick drink from her mug and smiled. “Which, I just realized, I’m comfortable saying to you, knowing that you’re Muslim.”

“Makes complete sense to me. For life in general.” Like meeting you again, I thought, looking at her bent head as she turned the lid of the travel mug to close it.

I liked that she wore a hijab with birds for a trip to be with animals.

Serendipity?

This would be a good time to bring up the weirdness of meeting her. And our journals.

But when I looked at her again, she was texting on her phone, so I stepped away a bit.

“No, it’s okay. It’s nothing. Just my mom.” She looked up, mug in the crook of her elbow, thumbs paused midair over her phone, face stricken.

Oh.

Oh yeah.

Of course Ms. Raymond must have told her about Mom.

“Go ahead. I’m going to go into the classroom. The teacher, Mr. Mellon, will be cool with it.” I tried the door.

Damn. Locked.

I turned to her. “Look, it’s okay. I’m okay if you mention your mom, moms in general, or even my mom in particular. Actually, I’m more than okay if you mention my mom.”

She clicked her phone and slid it into the pocket of her jeans.

“I’m sure your aunt told you about it, but yeah, my mother passed away when I was nine.” I leaned on the classroom door. “And it’s interesting, because the next year, in the fifth grade, I did this exact project on the camera obscura that Hanna copied. Because of my father. Because that’s his specialty, history of the Middle Ages. He’s always been fascinated by everything about that time, but especially the Middle East. The Silk Route, the Crusades and Saladin, scientists like Ibn al-Haytham. And we just engulfed ourselves in that era and then went even more back in time, to Medina and Meccan times. Right after my mom passed.”