Love, Hate and Other Filters(61)

“I gave him the G-rated version of finding you.”

“Which is why you and I are both still standing right now.”

“This … us … isn’t going to be easy, is it?”

“No. But I’ve gotten pretty good at sneaking out, and since I’m probably grounded for life, that skill is going to come in handy.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “I wish you didn’t have to leave. I wish I could leave with you.”

“Me, too, but under the present circumstances—”

I hug Phil. I don’t care if my parents see us. I’m tired of hiding all the important parts of myself.

My father walks back up the driveway after the last of the police cars have pulled away. He extends his right hand to Phil. “Thank you for bringing Maya back home. And for helping her. We are indebted to you.”

“Sir, it was nothing. I’m glad Maya’s safe.”

My dad nods at Phil and then walks past. He pauses and turns his head back. “Maya, it’s very late. You should come inside.”

“I’ll be there in a second, Dad.”

Phil waits for the front door to shut. “I don’t suppose I can kiss you now?”

“I guarantee it’s a drive-in movie at my front window.”

“I’ll take a rain check, then.”

Phil gets into his car and eases out of the driveway, waving as he pulls away. I try to shake the foreboding sense that this is the end of something instead of the beginning. I try to grasp at the spark of optimism I felt at the amusement park before Brian attacked me. But it feels beyond reach, and that makes me more anxious. I walk into the house, steeling myself for the inquisition.

My aunt is alone at the kitchen table. Hina rises to hug me and says, “Your mom is in bed. Your father is with her. It’s been … a lot.”

I begin to open my mouth to respond, but Hina puts her hand on my arm and says, “It’s late, and everyone is tired. Let’s talk about this tomorrow?”

Guilt surges through my body as my aunt speaks, but so does defiance. “They’re forcing their fears on me.”

“Running away didn’t exactly assuage their concerns.”

“I know. It was stupid. But I was going to explode if I stayed here one more minute.”

Hina smiles and cups my cheek in her hand. It’s a maternal gesture that I’m much more willing to receive from her than my actual mother. I know I should want this comfort from my mom, and sometimes I do. If I’m being honest, I know I push her away because I can’t be the daughter she expects me to be and still be what I want to be at the same time. On some level, I know she’s listened to me, but she never really heard what I was trying to tell her. Maybe there’s more to it than that, but that’s all the truth I’m willing to face right now.

“So this Phil seems … like a lucky young man.” As always, Hina knows when to change the subject.

“Is he? It’s like I’m watching my life through a double fog filter. Nothing is clear.”

She laughs softly. “Knowing you, I doubt that. Maybe you know what you want to do, but you’re scared to do it. Isn’t that why you ran away—to clear your head? To figure it all out?”

I pause. Hina is right. The choice is my dreams or theirs. In that way, it’s not a real choice at all. It’s an imperative.

PBS Frontline Documentary: The War at Home

For days after, weeks even, there was paper. It fell from the sky after Ethan Branson drove his truck through the doors of the Federal Building in Springfield, exploding the heart of the country.

Scraps of paper, driver’s licenses, receipts, grocery lists, drawings in crayon and colored pencil, school pictures. Burnt, charred offerings. Words of the dead, drifting down from the heavens like feathers from birds in flight. Remember me, they whisper.

Amongst them, a singed corner of letterhead and these words:

From our beginning as a nation, we have admitted to our country and to citizenship, immigrants from the diverse lands of the world. We had faith that thereby we would best serve ourselves and mankind. 1

1 Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, Nov. 17, 1994 US Naturalization Oath Ceremony





“No. That’s the final answer. End of discussion.” My dad sits stone-faced at the kitchen table. My mom stares into the four cups of tea at the counter, entranced by the little milk eddies she stirs up in each one. The air is heavy with the smell of fennel seeds, cardamom, and panic.

“I’m not asking you for permission; I’m informing you of my decision. I am going to New York in August.” I’m unusually calm and direct, which is almost the most shocking part of this entire scene. I don’t know if it’s the silent strength emanating from my aunt at my side, the soft underbelly of denial, or plain guts, but maybe for the first time, I face my parents with a kind of composure that feels adult—at least to me. Which doesn’t mean I’m not also terrified.

“This is ridiculous. You’re a child. You can’t talk to your parents this way. Ordering us around as if we’re you’re servants. We didn’t bring you into this world to treat us with such disrespect.”

“Dad, I’m sorry. But I’m not a child anymore; I’m going to be eighteen in a few weeks. I’ll be legally emancipated, and I have a right to live my life how I want.”