Love from A to Z(69)

I kicked pragmatism aside and went for it. Went for her.

No matter the outcome.

? ? ?

Zayneb, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. My dad and I (and Hanna) prayed for her.

Zayneb, I can’t figure out what happened yesterday between us. But there’s one thing I CAN figure out and that’s how much I don’t know. How I don’t know what you went through at school. With your teacher. I don’t know about the extent of the Islamophobia you’ve faced. I don’t know what it feels like to be you. But here’s another thing: I DO want to know.

I paused and then added But if you don’t want me to know, I get that, too.

I followed up the message with a picture.

It was the one with both of us on the landing of the museum stairs, looking up at the ceiling.

The light’s shining down on us, and we look sort of magical.

Hanna’s random photo clicks were the best.

Almost as good as her heart.





ZAYNEB


MONDAY, MARCH 18


ODDITY: KIND IGNORANCE


FIVE MINUTES AFTER AUNTIE NANDY left for the gym, I heard a knock on the apartment door. I didn’t have time to scarf up, so I hooded myself with Binky, pulling the blanket off my bed, draping it onto my head with the rest of its length dragging down my back and onto the tiled floor behind me, its width wrapped around my pajama shorts. Whoever it was at the door would get a jolt at my ghostlike appearance.

I didn’t give a shit.

I opened the door to the Emmas.

We stared at one another for a few seconds, me at their mournful expressions and appearances—Emma Z. holding a plastic bag of what looked like take-out containers, Emma P. clutching a bouquet of flowers, and Emma D., empty-handed but back again—and them staring at my white-shrouded self.

I turned and led the way to the living room.

“We’re so sorry to hear about your grandmother,” Emma P. said, placing the flowers on the dining table.

“This is for whenever you feel up to eating.” Emma Z. placed the bag of food beside the flowers. “Whenever.”

I nodded from the corner of the big sofa I’d already settled into, cocooned in my blanket. Emma D. joined me, taking a seat to my left. Emma P. proceeded to Adam’s—the club chair—and Emma Z. sat on the two-seater.

“You guys know she died in October, right?” I asked. “That’s when they killed her.”

They nodded.

“And you know who did it, right?” I asked. “We did. Because we’re okay with bombing other countries.”

They nodded again.

“I’m really angry. Then get sad. Then angry. It just doesn’t stop.”

“Are there some special prayers you can say? Or things you can do?” Emma Z. said. “To help?”

“There are things. And I’ve said them.” I sighed and pulled the bedspread around me tighter.

“Is that something special you have to wear when someone passes?” Emma P. indicated my blanketed self with her hands rotating in the air.

“This? No, it’s my blanket.” I dropped it from my head so that it fell back and showed my pajama top. “I’m wearing pajamas. And I didn’t know if you guys were guys, so I used my bedspread as a scarf.”

“Oh, sorry!” Emma P. looked embarrassed. “I just thought . . . I don’t know what I thought.”

“It’s okay.”

“Your hair is nice,” Emma P. said, rotating her hands again, this time a bit higher to indicate the messy hair escaping from a quick, high bun I’d wound it in.

We sat silently for a while.

Then I got up, emerging completely from the white blanket, and went to the kitchen. “You guys want drinks?”

There was nothing in the fridge.

I came back to the living room empty-handed. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any if you did want some.”

“Hey, we’re okay. We just wanted to make sure you were going to be okay,” Emma D. said. “Where’s Ms. Raymond?”

“Gym.” I remembered Auntie Nandy’s stash of junk food. “Wait. I got something.”

I dragged the big blue bin into the dining room and pried the lid off. “There’s stuff in here.”

They stayed seated. “Zayneb, it’s okay. We’re good,” said Emma D.

“Pop? Chips? Chocolate?” I held up different items. “It’s all in here. If I don’t feed you, I’ll feel my dad’s disapproval all the way from Pakistan. It’s a Muslim thing.”

“We just came from Adam’s house and had a ton of junk there,” Emma Z. said.

“Aha, Twizzlers!” I lifted the bag high like it was a trophy, then peered back into the bin, as I’d caught sight of the edge of a box that had become dislodged. I dunked my hand in.

Cigarettes. Auntie Nandy smokes? Or did?

I didn’t pull it out, just moved it, but when I did, a bottle covered in a plastic bag, wound tight with rubber bands, came free from underneath.

Emma D. got up. “Okay, let’s break out the Twizzlers, then.”

I tossed the package to her and took out a few cans of pop and passed those to Emma Z., and then dragged the box back to Auntie Nandy’s bedroom, into her closet.