March/April 2009

Aneesa sat with her legs tucked into her chest, her chin sat limply on the worn denim that covered her knees. Her shoes were a well-loved pair of classic black Converse, the rubber parts entirely decorated with Sharpie. Her dark brown hair, so dark it looked black at first glance, hung over her face, putting a veil between herself and the world. She always wanted a cover from the world, even if it was just a hood or something small. She felt very delicate compared to the vast world so brimming with dangerous, frightening, unpleasant things and ideals. She felt that life had already taken enough blows at her, and she never wanted to be caught unarmed again. She pressed her cheek against the car window, watching her breath creep across the glass and then drawing spirals in it with her fingertip. Right now she hated this car, this vehicle that was driving her away from her home and bringing her to yet another unfamiliar place. She took a glance at her brother, who was rubbing his thumb back and forth over the left ear of his raggedy old stuffed rabbit. It had once been terry cloth but was now almost completely threadbare. She looked at him, thinking about how lucky he was. He hadn’t even known Daddy, she thought. He was only six months old when it happened. *          *          * It had been four years and she could still remember, exactly as it happened, that day, the day he died. She, her brother, and her mom were eating dinner when the phone rang. Her mother had just stared at it for several seconds before she hesitantly and slowly got up to answer it, as if she knew it would be simply awful news. Her polished fingers trembled horribly on the phone until finally she dropped it “Hello,” she said. Aneesa and her brother couldn’t tell what the person on the other line was saying but they didn’t really need to. Their mother’s lips clenched into a tight, white, thin line and her eyes had a petrified glimmer that neither of them had ever seen before. Her polished fingers trembled horribly on the phone until finally she dropped it. In the utterly silent room the clatter was like thunder. “Mrs. Ahmed? Mrs. Ahmed?!” shouted the man on the other line. “Yes, I’m sorry.” She picked up the phone again. In a shaky, weak, almost defeated voice she asked, “What hospital did you say?” She took out a pencil and paper, briskly wrote an address down and hung up the phone. “Mom,” Aneesa asked, “is everything… OK?” “No, hon, it’s not,” she replied, running her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Suddenly tears were rapidly streaming down her cheeks. “Your father,” she said miserably, turning to Aneesa’s brother and kissing him on the forehead, “your father got into a car crash, a very bad car crash. He suffered massive internal bleeding and they… they don’t think he has more then a few hours to live.” Aneesa remembered thinking about how in movies, when parents die, the children just feel numb and don’t cry until someone tells them it’s OK. She remembered wondering if there was something wrong with her because the moment those terrible words left her mother’s lips she had broken down sobbing. She had sat almost limply on her chair with the tears relentlessly gushing from her eyes. She remembered her mother holding her, trying to comfort her, but she too was sobbing hysterically. Aneesa remembered her mother’s cheek pressed against hers, and remembered wondering if it was her tears or her mother’s she felt on her skin. She remembered that her brother, a mere infant, who couldn’t have possibly known what was going on, began crying, just because he could feel the despair in the room. She remembered the horribly, devastatingly silent car ride to the hospital. She remembered the hospital lights were so bright, the walls were so white, and the floor was so clean it was like some disgusting alien world that she certainly didn’t want her dad to spend his last moments in. She remembered dashing out of her dad’s room the moment she saw him, and waiting right outside the room for her mother to say goodbye, with her back against that whiter-than-white hallway wall. It was just too much to bear to see his body so immobile and riddled with bandages, blood, tubes, and beeping machines. *          *          * Yes, Aneesa remembered that day exactly as it was, and it tortured her. “Hey hon, you OK?” her mother asked, running her fingers through her daughter’s hair. “I’m fine,” Aneesa replied. “I know you’re only nine, and your brother’s only four, and I know this is hard to understand, but I am very sorry that we’ve had to move so much, it’s just that, houses are so expensive these days, and on only one income it gets hard to pay the rent. This new house is a little smaller, but it has a backyard, and don’t you think it will be fun to have a little garden? And with some outdoor space I might even consider getting you that dog you were bugging me about a year ago.” “It’s all right Mom, don’t worry, me and Jakeem are fine.” “I love you more than anything, you know.” After a thirteen-hour car ride, Aneesa, Jakeem, and Mrs. Ahmed arrived at their new home. It was a pristine fall day, with a playful breeze, a glowing blue sky, and crisp leaves gently descending to the ground. It would have been a very pleasant day, Aneesa thought, if not for the fact that her life was being shifted once again. This house was in a small apartment building in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Aneesa studied the contents of the windows of the already-inhabited apartments. One was lined with stuffed animals and children’s drawings, another had dully colored, half-open curtains that revealed a windowsill filled with books. Mrs.