“Melly!” My best friend Aisha catches my arm. “What’s up, Aisha?” I ask, because her big brown eyes tell me that something is up, and it’s not good. “Will you walk with me?” What she means is can I walk with her around the dirt track that surrounds the soccer field, one of the play structures, and the tire swing, at our school. “Sure.” After we’ve taken about ten steps, I turn to her. “What’s wrong?” “It’s Rahim.” Now she’s got my attention. She rarely talks to me about family affairs. Except when she has crying spells because of her second oldest brother. He got in a car crash when he was thirteen and didn’t make it. Rahim, her oldest brother, still can’t get over Hassan’s death. He punches walls in the house, and gets into trouble with the police. She and her family also have trouble because they are from Pakistan, and it is very hard to be a Pakistani in our city because many people have been suspicious of them since 9/11. “I’m listening,” I say. She pulls me over to the side of the track and we sit down in the shade of a pine tree. “Rahim . . . he . . . he . . . he’s in jail.” I don’t know what to say. I want to say that I know what she’s going through or that she’s going to be OK. But I don’t know what she’s going through, and I don’t want to lie to my best friend. Because the truth is I don’t know if she’s going to be OK. Sitting there, I wonder how I got myself into this. I wonder why I am the one stuck in this position of being Aisha’s best friend. But suddenly I snap back into reality and realize that however it started I am Aisha’s best friend, and I am proud of it. I also remember that there is a girl who is crying a billion rivers, and who is secretly counting on me to console her. So I don’t say anything. I just scoot close to her and hug her. I hug her for a long time and hold her in my arms. After we’ve taken about ten steps, I turn to her “What’s wrong?” “How long?” “They’re not sure. Maybe five years, possibly two.” “When do they decide?” “Tonight.” * * * Ring, ring, ring! Pick up, pick up, I think to myself. “Hello?” It’s Aisha. “What happened?” I ask, too loudly. “Shh. My parents are here.” “Sorry.” “I think it’s OK. Everyone is acting happy.” I want to tell her to ask instead of just waiting until someone tells her, but knowing her and her family, I figure that it is some Pakistani thing. So instead I say, “Good.” “Listen, I have to go. I’ll see you at school.” “OK, bye.” “Luvs.” As I set down the phone thoughts are racing through my head. How can she be completely in tears this morning, and totally calm right now. I mean, I would be ecstatic. It could be because of the whole fact that I am not supposed to know about this and her parents are right there, but still! The next day I run up to her right as her car pulls up to the school. There is Rahim in the front seat. Aisha puts her finger up to her mouth, telling me to be quiet, but a huge grin is on her face. I say hello to Rahim and he waves at me but I can sense sorrow in his smile. Aisha and I walk to our classroom and as we walk she fills me in on the details. She says that he got released from jail last night but the police are still checking his case. Then she pulls me over to the side of the path. “Melly, there is something I didn’t tell you yesterday that is really troubling me, but you can’t tell anyone else.” I promise and she continues. “My parents . . . They’re the ones that turned Rahim in.” “What?!” I practically scream. Aisha puts a hand over my mouth. “Sorry.” “It’s OK. . . It is kind of surprising.” “Were you there?” “They always send me to my room during the fights but I can hear the yelling from miles away.” “What do they fight about?” Tears start to prick Aisha’s eyes. “OK, we won’t talk about this right now.” “Yeah,” she says and puts her head on my shoulder. We walk to class and I wonder what I would ever do without Aisha. Talking about her family problems eases mine. I think about how every time I’m sad I run to her and gush everything but how she is so much stronger. She hardly ever cries but her problems are so much bigger than mine. I sigh and put my books in my locker. The phone is ringing. I look at the clock and see that it is one AM on Monday, two weeks before school gets out. “You rang?” I say in my most sleepy voice. “Melly!” As I had guessed it’s Aisha. “What?!” I yell grumpily. “We’re moving.” “It is too early in the morning for jokes.” “This is not a joke! We are moving in June, after school gets out.” “No. No. NO!” “We are moving to Singapore.” “This is not happening.” “Rahim is already on the plane.” “Aisha! You can’t do this to me!” “I don’t want to but I have to! You know how much danger Rahim is in. The police drive past our house every ten minutes, they will soon have a tap on our phone line, and they stalk me to the grocery store!” “You can stay with me!” “I wish!” “I mean it.” “Melly, I love you! I always will! You will always be with me! I’ll come back! I have to go! See you at school.” “Don’t leave me!” “Bye.” I lie
Friendship
My Last Summer’s Night
“Mommy! Mommy! Look what I found!” Trish squealed as she entered the living room, dragging behind her what appeared to be a giant book. I set down the magazine I had been flipping through; there was something familiar about that book, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. “What do you have there?” I asked. “It’s a photo album.” Trish plopped down next to me on the couch. “And look, it has your name on it.” Sure enough, there was my name scribbled on the cover. “Oh my, I used to keep this when I was just a few years older than you. I haven’t seen this in years,” I murmured wonderingly, running my fingers over the worn and creased edges. As I opened to the first page, deeply buried memories came flooding back. “Who’s that?” Trish asked, pointing to a middle-aged woman smiling up at us. “That’s my mother, your grandmother, way back when I was a kid.” “That’s Grandma?” Trish said doubtfully. “Yep.” “And who’s that?” “That’s my old dog, Suki.” Next, Trish pointed to a trio of young girls. Their arms were linked together and they wore huge smiles from ear to ear. “Is that you?” Trish asked, pointing to the middle girl. “Mommy! Mommy! Look what I found!” “Yes it is. And those two girls are Clara and Megan. We were the best of friends up until high school.” “What happened at high school?” “Oh, nothing. We were just districted for different schools and after that we kind of drifted apart . . . we were such good friends . . .” As my voice trailed off, my mind drifted back to that last summer’s night I had spent with those two . . . * * * Night had already set in when we stumbled out of the movie theater, doubled over with laughter. “Did you see that guy?” Megan squealed in between giggles. “He was such an idiot!” I agreed. “What are you talking about?” Clara cried indignantly, wearing an expression of mock disbelief. Then she leaped forward and brandished an invisible sword, mimicking the character perfectly. “Art thou thy dragon I musteth slay?” “Musteth?” I inquired. “Whatever.” And we all fell over in another wave of laughter. I lifted my jacket sleeve and wiped away mirthful tears. “When’s your dad getting here?” I finally managed to ask once we had settled down a bit. Clara glanced at her watch. “We still have about ten more minutes.” “Any of you have some money left?” Both Clara and Megan shook their heads solemnly. “Sorry, spent mine on that last bag of popcorn,” Clara said. I sighed deeply and sank down onto one of the steps leading to the theater entrance. “Well, what do we do now?” We all stared down at the ground, the same thought passing through our minds, but no one wanting to speak it aloud. Finally, Clara whispered out the painful words, “You know, school starts up tomorrow I guess we won’t see each other for a while.” I bit my lower lip and nodded. “It sucks we all have to go to separate high schools,” Megan muttered, sadness and rage blended deep within her tone. “Sure does,” I said. Thinking back, I tried to recall just how long ago we all had met. Was it second grade? Maybe. But ever since that fateful day many, many years ago, the three of us had been inseparable. It seemed a rather cruel punishment to split us apart this late in our friendship. “But it’s not like we can’t still be friends,” I added, my voice brimming with hope. “I’ll call you both right when I get home tomorrow.” “Yeah, I guess,” Clara sighed. No one spoke for a long while. I glanced from one sad face to the next, not sure of what to do or say. Our silence was only broken when the theater door swung open behind us, and two people strode out. Megan quickly shielded her face with her hand and whispered through gritted teeth, “Look away! Look away!” Almost instinctively, I turned to see who it was. Clara grabbed my arm and tried to yank me back, but not before I had caught a glimpse of them. The two most irritating people, Shauna and Zack, were walking hand in hand down the theater steps. I waited a few moments, making sure they were far enough away, then turned to my friends and raised an eyebrow. We watched as they walked off, slowly being swallowed by the night. Once again alone, we were consumed by another fit of hysteria. “We were the best of friends up until high school” I was clutching my stomach, giggling like crazy, when Clara’s dad pulled up in his old wreck of a truck. Most of the paint had chipped off, revealing a thick layer of rust, and the engine made a mysterious clunking noise at spontaneous moments throughout the ride. We didn’t give it a second thought. Rising from our seats, we piled into the dilapidated truck. “So how was it, gals?” Clara’s dad asked as I pulled the door shut and strapped myself in. For some odd reason he always emphasized the last word of every sentence. But we were used to it by now. “Not worth the time,” Clara said. We both agreed. “Ah, well. So are you gals ready for school tomorrow? First day of high school, that’s a big deal. Shame you’re all going to different places.” “Yeah . . . a shame,” Megan said. Then, we all grew quiet, each staring out their own window into the dark, moonlit night. Regret hung heavily in the air, nearly choking me. Why did it have to be this way? Why did we have to be split up now? Clara finally ended the mesmerizing silence. “You won’t believe what I saw this morning . . .” And the spell was broken, our words slurring together in our haste to
A Little Bit of Home
For Mom, and all the “Emmas” out there. “Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before.” –Ram Dass “Em? Wanna go bike riding with me today?” “Can’t,” I mumbled and grabbed my backpack. “Emma?” Jennifer asked, “Are you OK?” But I was already out the door and sprinting down the sidewalk as fast as I could. “Emma?” Jennifer called, “Emma?!” I ignored her. I didn’t care. I just ran. I just ran toward nowhere in particular. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care about biking with Jennifer. I didn’t care about moving to Maine. I didn’t. I didn’t! And then, quite suddenly, I realized I was standing in front of Maddy’s house, and just as suddenly I realized that was where I’d intended to go all along. Maddy! I should have thought of Maddy sooner. * * * Maddy was the strangest kid in my class. Every day at recess she sat on the swings and rocked slowly. In the beginning lots of kids asked her if she wanted to play with them, thinking she had nothing to do. Maddy replied (very politely), “Maybe another time, right now I’m thinking,” though what she thought about beat me. She was a quiet kid, not the shy kind of quiet but the thinking kind of quiet. Maddy was the kind of person who spoke only when speaking was necessary. No more, no less. Whenever someone was sad, or stressed, or when a pet or relative died, people went to Maddy. When they went away again they were, if not happy, calm. I had only been to Maddy once. It was after Coral died. Coral was my border collie, the first dog I ever had. We got her a few years after I was born. I’d played with her and fed her, and slept with her, and loved her, and suddenly she was gone… I’d stayed home from school, refusing to talk to anyone for two whole days. “To you this is dirt, but what is it to me?” Then I found myself at Maddy’s. Maddy had listened to my story without saying anything. After I finished she was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Pick up a stone.” That had seemed far too simple. I stared at her. “Just any stone?” I asked. “The right stone.” “How will I know which one is the right one?” “You’ll know.” I looked down at the ground. It was littered with stones, but sure enough one stood out to me. I picked it up. It was not particularly smooth or shiny. It was just an ordinary gray stone. I closed my hand around it, the hard crust of the stone against the soft skin of my hand. It felt good. Really good. And suddenly I knew that Coral had a long, happy life and that it was time for her to return to the endless circle from which we all come, the circle of life. I still have that stone under my pillow. * * * Maddy was weeding a flower bed when I came to a stop in front of her house. “Hi, Emma,” she said. I took that as an invitation, so I opened the gate and stepped inside. Maddy continued weeding. Was it the rhythm of her work, or was it just the way her light brown hair fell over her shoulders that made me feel at home? “My family has to move to Maine because of my parents’ jobs, and I really don’t want to go.” I surprised myself. I hadn’t really meant to tell her, because I was trying so hard not to believe it. But deep down I knew what I said was true. I didn’t want to leave my friends. Especially Jennifer. “Mom says we can come back in a few years, but I don’t want to go at all.” Maddy slowly looked at me. Her soft brown eyes gazed straight into mine. Her face was gentle, yet unreadable. After a minute she said, “Come here, Emma.” I walked over to her. She had turned her attention to the flower bed and was digging with gentle and strong intention. After a minute she scooped up some loosened soil and held it in her cupped hands. “What is this, Emma?” she asked. “It’s dirt,” I said, knowing all the time that I was wrong. That soil wasn’t dirt. Not in Maddy’s world. To my surprise, she smiled. “To you,” she said, “this is dirt, but what is it to me?” “I don’t know,” I said. She looked at me for a long time before she spoke, but when she spoke she did so with such passion that it touched me to the heart. “It’s a little bit of home, Emma, it’s a little bit of home!” * * * Later that night, while my parents were talking in the living room, I slipped outside. I took an old plastic bottle out of the recycling and got a hand shovel from the garden shed. In the backyard I found an out-of- the-way place behind a bush and began to dig. In a minute I scooped some soil out of the hole and put it in the bottle. Now I had my own little bit of home. * * * My family’s move to Maine was not as hard as I expected. Though I really missed Jennifer at first, after a while I started to make new friends. I grew particularly close with a girl named Maria. I told her everything. We spent lots of time together: hiking, drawing, talking, or even just sitting and staring at the sky. Life was rich and wonderful. And then one day, three years later, my mother asked me if I wanted to go back. I felt a great surge of happiness rise up in me. Then I remembered Maria. The happiness melted away as fast as it had come. Mama saw this. “Emma,” she said, “maybe I
