A Place for Us Read online

  Hadia is ten now but still, she cannot leave them unattended for long. Layla walks to the lobby where a librarian is typing fast on her keyboard without looking down once. She has short, black hair, coral tear-shaped earrings. Layla never gets books for herself. Maybe she should. The books she once checked out with Hadia are now in her home again, for Amar. She pauses to admire the familiar illustrations: caterpillars and bright fish, a fireplace in a darkened room, a child playing in the shade of trees.

  What is surprising to Layla is that it is Hadia who picks them out for Amar. Hadia who has grand ideas of how he should move through the world. So important to her, that he reads the books that were her favorite at that age, that made her love reading. Amar should watch animal documentaries about tigers and lions and sharks. They should go as a family to the museums her school took her to. That these activities are good for Huda’s and Amar’s imaginations. These are Hadia’s words. Her decision too that Amar not watch violent shows or movies. Amar not spend too many hours playing video games. Because she did not. All by herself, Hadia chose not to do these things, and chose to watch dolphin documentaries, brought home books she read on the stairs, or upside down on their living room couch, her hair falling down the side. Layla is amused, but also astonished, only allowing him the movie Hadia deems too scary for him if he comes to her crying. Where did they come from, her children? And how did they arrive already themselves, and unlike anyone else?

  “Can I help you find something?” the librarian asks. Her earrings sway when she tilts her head to one side.

  Layla nods. Her children have not followed her here, and she has been away from them for no more than five minutes. She is unsure how to ask.

  “Books on children.”

  “Fiction? A novel, a child protagonist?”

  “No, no. Maybe a book if you sense that, something might be…something might be a little wrong…”

  “Healthwise? Or, a mental illness?”

  “No,” she responds quickly. “No, nothing like that. At all.”

  “I am not sure I understand, ma’am.”

  She shifts from one foot to another. Looks at the cuticles of her fingers as she tries to explain. For example, if he gets upset about little things, upset to the point where you wonder if this is normal? He is louder about his hurt than the girls were, they were less irritable, but perhaps it is just that—that he is a boy? What kind of stubborn behavior is normal, and what is not? If he refuses to eat, for example. If he makes a decision and no one can shake him from it. And this may not be important—but say he began speaking at a later age? Say, for example, he is upset and he begins crying, he will do so until his voice is hoarse, he will kick his legs on the wall even after it bruises him, he will cry until he is exhausted, until he falls asleep. And it could be for the smallest reason—I lifted the shades up too abruptly without telling him. I poured milk when he wanted none. Or he says he did something when I know he didn’t do it, brush his teeth, for example. But he insists so adamantly I am certain he believes himself. The woman is nodding, slowly, her earrings moving too, and Layla cannot tell if she is concentrating or concerned. She is grateful her children are aisles and aisles away, and that Hadia cannot overhear her and become worried, or that this woman cannot see her son and know who she is betraying.

  Before returning to her children, she places the books at the bottom of their book bag, knowing Hadia or Huda would see the spines and ask questions. The librarian was kind, left her post at the desk and led her through the aisles, gestured at entire shelves but pulled certain books out, discussed them briefly. Layla nodded, thank you, thank you, she said quickly, so that the woman would leave her to flip through the books and then return to her children having decided that she did not even need them. But instead, Layla found herself pausing at sentences and sections, and every sentence seemed applicable to Amar, while also feeling impossible it could be him. She feared she was doing what Rafiq often accused her of doing: worrying herself, finding something to be wrong only because she looked for it. But still. She would keep the books hidden in her bottom drawer, read them after her children were tucked in bed and when her husband was away.

  Only if she, God forbid, came across a passage that was actually concerning would she bother Rafiq with it. It might only make it worse if she brought it to his attention. She wishes Rafiq would be a little easier on Amar, prays for a deepening in his patience. He is so easily angered, offended by little things when it comes to Amar. So what if he asked Huda to paint his nails too? It was no matter that he had no interest in the trucks that Rafiq bought him; let him play in the garden kicking up leaves, let him watch the shows his sisters watched. It was true he was a little sensitive. Layla’s own father had not been an angry man—he painted, showed Layla his progress every week—but he had only daughters to raise. Maybe what a son evoked in a father was different than what a daughter evoked?

  It would be all right. She was only afraid that when time passed, it would not be these trips to the library he would remember, or his eagerness to learn how she made roti in the kitchen with him as her helper, but how upset he would become when Rafiq scolded him. When she sees her children again, her son is still leaning his head on her daughter’s arm. Her daughter is flipping the page of a book. Her hand is angled up a little so the cover is visible, and Layla can see it really is the same book they have checked out for years. Sometimes, when Layla reads them to her children, she opens up the cover and runs her fingers down the dates stamped onto the lined paper, wonders which of these dates of return have been theirs. If she had a camera with her, she would have pulled it out. Taken a picture of the three of them unaware of her watching. How calm they are. A Sunday in their public library.

  How many times has she stood, as she is standing now, and looked at her children as she is watching them now? A way of seeing that magnifies her attention, deepens her love at the sight of them, and she notices them in a way she otherwise might not, the way the sunlight goldens the profile of their faces, the way Hadia scratches at her nose, adjusts her scarf that always looks a little big on her. Perhaps a hundred times, just in a single week. Huda memorizing a poem for her class and wanting to recite it for her, Layla smiling at the way she looked up at the ceiling as though the lines were projected there. What a little person she was and so poised. And how Huda decided, all by herself, to not wait until her ninth birthday to begin wearing a scarf, but to begin months early, on her Islamic birthday. Or Hadia reminding her that this week, eight P.M., a shark documentary was on television and they should all watch it together, maybe eat dinner earlier to make it in time. And that new favorite game of Amar’s, asking her, “Guess how old I am, Mumma?”

  “Ten.”

  “No.”

  “Thirty-eight?”

  “No!”

  “Oh, I know,” she would say slowly, so he leaned in closer to hear her reply, “a hundred and fifty-six.”

  Lots of laughter, and then, “No. I’ll give you a clue.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Five.”

  She smiled every time. She did not have the heart to teach him the subtlety of a clue.

  “Hm,” she paused, tapping all fingers on her cheek to mimic his thinking face, and he waited wide-eyed until she said, “Five?”

  “Yes!” He clapped, took another bite of dinner, and then after a pause asked her to play a game, and the game was again, guess how old I am, Mumma?

  A hundred times. If not more. She was stunned and stunned again by them, and her love for them. How much had been lost? Never made it into her memory, never been captured in a photograph?

  Hadia closes the hard cover of her book, a snap of sound that reaches her, and she leans back a little as if she has accomplished something great and is now tired. Let this moment make it, she prays, let each of them remember it too.

  “Again,” she can hear her son say.
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  “Again?”

  “Yes, I liked it.”

  Layla considers walking up to them and breaking the moment’s spell. But she does not have to, Hadia is scanning the library, restless and waiting to be found, and when she spots Layla she relaxes and smiles before reaching for a different book and suggesting they read that one instead. Amar is reluctant; he blows the hair off of his forehead to show her he is frustrated, but then he nods, leans in, and lets his sister lead him.

  * * *

  HE WAITS FOR Amira in the tunnel beneath the bridge, rests his head against the uncomfortable concrete slope. Here is where they come when they have no time to linger. It is the only meeting spot she can reach by foot. The tunnel is decorated with graffiti and somewhere beneath the layers is the image he and Amira’s brothers once had spray-painted of their own names, laughing from the ease with which they could leave a mark.

  After five days of complete silence it was a relief last night to see her name in his inbox: The tunnel tomorrow, she had written, 3PM. Don’t reply. Of course he is sick about it. For days he could hardly eat, woke in the morning unsure if he had even slept, wondered if she had somehow found out that he does drink, does smoke both cigarettes and weed, does not lie to her but also does not offer information she would never think to ask him for. Or maybe she had grown tired of waiting and realized he wasn’t fulfilling his potential, his promises to her. He did horribly on his last chemistry exam but was too afraid to tell her. Yet another failed mark. Every semester he was scared she would discover he couldn’t transfer on her hopeful schedule. The third night she left his e-mails unanswered, he had snuck from his house with Simon, who Amar had grown close to—close in the sense that neither had to speak much to have a good time, and he could count on Simon to arrive with a plan as soon as he called. They had broken onto the rooftop of a friend’s father’s restaurant, and sat there for hours, their legs dangling off the roof, passing a spliff back and forth and staring at the stars until the sky emptied of darkness and glowed a bare white.

  It has just stopped raining. The air is thick with mist. The tunnel is dry, save for a weak stream at his feet. When will she come? What will she have to say? It is half past three already. He pulls his knees to his body, rests his head against them. If this is about drinking then I will give it up. If this is about my grades, would your father mind a different career? I will do anything. He presses his thumb to his eyebrow and follows its line to the edge of his face in an attempt to calm himself. Then at last the sound of her shoes as she descends the uneven stairs. She is not being discreet. It occurs to him that this is the first time since they have begun speaking—no, since he has become aware of her existence—that he does not want her to come. Then she is standing at the entrance and it does not matter what she has come to say to him, he hardly thinks of God and never to thank Him, but he thanks Him now.

  “I don’t have very long—Mumma had a doctor’s appointment, and they made Kumail stay with me right until he had to leave for class; that’s why I’m late.”

  She does not step over the stream to take a seat beside him. She is wearing a powder-blue dress he has never seen, long pleats that run from her waist to her ankles, as if she woke in another time entirely, thinking it was summer. Her hair is disheveled and tied up in a ponytail, loose strands falling over her shoulder. She breathes heavily. She must have run. But what is odd about her is not her dress or demeanor, but that her eyes are swollen and red. He knows it is raining again by the gentle ripples on the surface of the puddles outside.

  “Amar,” she says, and he does not turn to look at her. Each raindrop ripples out to join the ring of another. “My Mumma knows.”

  He swallows and closes his eyes. A car passes above them and the tunnel rumbles.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “We made sure no one saw us.”

  “I know.”

  “It might just be a suspicion.”

  “She knew details.”

  “Let’s not risk meeting for a few weeks,” he says. “She will forget.”

  Amira is quiet. She plays with the white belt of her dress, twists it around her wrist until it tightens. He looks at her muddied shoes. If her mother sees them when she comes home she will know.

  “I wanted to meet today because I thought I should tell you in person. I thought I owed it to us.”

  He must have known it would end, and maybe it was knowing this that made it easier for him to continue to go out at night, to keep a bottle tucked in the laundry basket in his closet if he wanted a drink before falling asleep. He could have tried harder and he did not. She speaks and speaks and sometimes she pauses between her words and sniffles; she is asking him to look at her but he does not want to look at her. Her dress falls just above her ankles, when she moves even a little it sways.

  “Won’t you say anything?”

  How unlucky that one person has the power to determine the shape of another’s life. He could laugh about it. Please, she is saying, say something, I don’t have much time. But there is nothing he can think to say, and it occurs to him that it is the one who loves less who has the privilege of being able to express their feelings easily and at all.

  “What did they tell you about me?”

  “Is there something to tell?”

  She tilts her head to one side and watches him, steps one foot behind the other, crosses her ankles. They are quiet.

  “I can’t do this to them anymore,” she says finally.

  “And what about me?”

  “They are my parents.”

  “Have I been no one?”

  “You’re asking me to turn my back on everyone I love.”

  “I would do it for you in an instant. I wouldn’t even have to think about it.”

  “You don’t care how your actions affect others.”

  The little raindrops tap gently against the puddle. Is it possible he feels relief? That now it is done, now her image of him has been ruined, and he has no reason to try to be someone he is not?

  “Were you waiting for them to find out so you’d have an excuse to leave me?” he finally asks.

  “It’s been three years since you came to my door—what has changed? You don’t know how angry Mumma was. How disgusted with me.”

  Maybe her plan had always been to defy her parents as long as it was convenient for her. He brought her comfort and some excitement, and she experienced herself as different—the only girl from the community who dared to speak to a boy, who wrote and received letters, hid a locket beneath her clothes. Or maybe she liked feeling close to or sorry for Rafiq’s boy, who everyone in the community said to stay away from, the rumors about him drinking, the gossip of him leaving every speech to wander the halls regardless of how holy the day, how sad that parents so sweet be given a boy so difficult they would say, how God tested His believers in mysterious ways.

  Maybe what she loved in him was never him, but who she hoped she would inspire him to be. Maybe she always intended to withdraw as soon as her reputation, and the sterling, sparkling name of her parents, was threatened. What about his family name? He had been foolish. He had entered with no plan to leave, let himself be her stop on the road, on her way to a man who was dependable, decent, someone she would not have to nag to quit smoking, someone with an education, someone without anger, someone whose parents were proud of him and proud to send forth a proposal on his behalf, and good for her.

  “I was wrong about you. You’re just like everyone else,” he says to her, surprised to find that he wants to hurt her.

  “And I wish you were a little more like us.”

  She cups her hand over her mouth immediately. The look she sees on his face makes her cry. He bites on his cheek until it hurts.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she says, the tone in her voice suddenly deeper, and she steps forward
. “I’m so sorry. Will you look at me?”

  The rumble of another car passing. She sways from one foot to another and her dress sways with her.

  “I can’t put them through any more pain,” she says at last. “Not after Abbas. I thought I could, or that you would have become who you said you would be before they found out, and we would do this the right way. You’re lucky, you know. Mumma is so upset with me, she has not looked at me in days. Everyone can find out about us and you will walk away unscathed. But it will be my parents who can no longer walk with their faces raised. For having a daughter like me.”

  She is so beautiful still. Even after all her crying, with her face he has known all his life. He is afraid to speak for fear his voice will betray him.

  “You can hate me,” she says at last.

  “I could never.”

  She sighs. A minute passes. He is a different person by the end of it.

  “Your shoes,” he says, pointing. “They will give you away.”

  She looks at the muddied soles. Her face pinches. She steps out from the tunnel. The light outside is bright and little spots of rain darken the blue cloth of her dress. There is something familiar about her logic. Something that reminds him of Hadia, how she thinks, and it is this thought that allows him to believe that she is being sincere. To forgive her as she takes careful steps around the puddles, turns a corner, and leaves his sight.