Chapter 10 Salma #2
Poppy has chosen to study “family units” in the rainforest. It is quite a sophisticated topic for second grade.
Unlike facts and figures that are easily researched and documented on poster board, she is looking at the nature of families.
The component parts, the roles each parent plays, the role of elders, how children spend their time.
I have never had a child pick this as their topic. She continues to delight me.
Since my return, I have been dissuading her from sitting next to me at all times and trying to integrate her back into the wild.
She comes to me in the middle of the day and whispers, “Can I stay and help you clean the room after school?”
Her lower lip trembles, and her large brown molten eyes look like she might dash away at a sound.
She is venturing out on a limb. Marlene is always late anyway.
The afternoons are getting chillier. It would be easier to wait in the room.
I, of all people, know that children are not responsible for the sins of their parents.
“Let’s make a deal. You do research while I clean the room.
You can read to me about what you’re learning. ”
Oh, the way her eyes light up. She throws her arms around me, and I squeeze her back. This child is braver than I have ever been. Taking a chance and asking for exactly what she needs.
Observing Poppy’s small acts of bravery inspires me, and that day when Marlene comes for pickup, I tell her, “From now on, when you’re late, just come inside and pick Poppy up. I’ll have her in class with me. I have too much to do with Rainforest Night approaching, and I’m still slower than usual.”
“Oh, MissCh! I’m sorry.”
“No, no. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad. I just think it’ll be easier for me, and Poppy can do homework or read until you get here.”
“I don’t know what to say other than thank you, thank you! This is a huge help.”
“It’s not a big deal. But listen. There is one other thing.”
Marlene tilts her head to me like she is all ears.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I feel a little weird for asking.”
Marlene steps forward farther into my space. I resist the urge to step back. “Whatever you need, Salma. You know that.”
I look up at her. Her eyes, which, in another, could look cold and steely, draw me in, encouraging me with their crinkly corners and eagerness.
Either the lingering effects of the concussion have made the feeling of vulnerability manageable or there is some part of me that’s relieved that there is a person with whom I can let my guard down.
A person around whom I do not have to carry the mantle of being a normal person.
I exhale. “I really want Asma’s diaries and video. ”
“Oh.” Marlene steps back.
“You say you know everything, right? Well, you can imagine how much this means to me.”
Marlene looks worried. “Oh! I don’t know, Salma. I just don’t know.”
“Can you please try?”
“Okay. I’ll try,” she says unconvincingly.
How quickly Poppy and I fall into happy habits.
For those extra fifteen to twenty minutes after school, it is easy to forget that she is Ruby’s child.
She’s just a wise, old-hearted little kid with a wry sense of humor, who reminds me at times of myself and at times of Asma.
Just a kid trying to figure out who she is and how to fit in.
I walk around on my tiptoes, feeling like I might take off.
I can’t wait to see the video. I will hear my sister’s voice again and not just in my head.
I can’t wait to read the diary. I’m going to get a part of Asma back, see parts of her that are new to me.
Maybe the diary talks about how much I meant to Asma, articulates her love for me in ways that I have come to doubt over the years.
Perhaps this is the key I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve needed all along.
This will give me closure. If facing the past is the cost of reclaiming a part of her, I will gladly do it.
Quickly I learn that Poppy loves strawberries, peanut butter crackers, and popcorn.
She hates grapes and blueberries, something about them being small and round.
In the mornings, I make sure to pack a diversity of snacks for our after-school hangout.
She sits in the hot-air balloon, legs up on the side of the basket like she owns the place.
It is getting darker earlier, so I light up the hot-air balloon to give her more light for reading, but really just to make her feel special.
Everyone else has to earn their time in the balloon. Not Poppy.
She reads out loud to me in her gravelly voice, sometimes stopping to ask questions about what something means or telling me an aside.
It has only been a week since we have started this routine, but she is already more confident during the day at school.
She takes a book to the playground and sits and reads on a bench.
Sometimes, I see her watching the soccer kids, sometimes the imaginary-play kids, and sometimes the jungle gym kids.
Eventually, she will start participating in one or two of these groups and start figuring out around whom she is the most comfortable and, from there, finding friends.
The one group she does not observe or try to join is Kirsten V.
and Kristin B.’s, whose moms dress them as mini versions of themselves and are training them in the art of doing whatever it takes to draw attention.
I am proud of Poppy for showing no curiosity about them.
Trying to be seen by the Kirsten V.’s and Kristin B.
’s of the world is a long path of misery and feeling less than.
No, I would rather Poppy be with the kids who run at experiences and fun and dirt without regard for how they look to others.
One day, Poppy confesses. “I don’t want to talk in front of everyone.”
“You mean your presentation in front of the class?”
She nods. “Or at Rainforest Night.”
“Can you tell me why?”
Poppy shrugs.
“I think other kids and parents are going to be really interested in how kids and parents live in other parts of the world,” I say.
“Maybe.”
“Is it what you’re going to talk about or the idea of having to stand in front of people and say it?”
Poppy breaks apart her peanut butter cracker and licks the peanut butter out. I need to bring Oreos. She’ll love those.
Finally, she says, “I just don’t want everyone looking at me.”
“I have the same thing!” I say.
Poppy looks shocked and then immediately skeptical, like she thinks I’m just telling her this to make her feel good.
“I’m serious.” And all of a sudden, I remember being in seventh grade and freaking out about having to do a class presentation. And Asma, already a performer, telling me to take deep breaths and that she was going to help me. “And guess what?”
“What?” she answers with a pout, like she doesn’t want to be talked out of her feelings.
“I have a trick I sometimes use that helps. Do you want to learn?” I stand up and climb out of the basket and go to the center of the room. Asma is in my mental periphery, cheering me on and clapping with delight.
Poppy stays in the basket side-eyeing me.
I hobble around the room as though I’m a monster with my arms stretched wide and my face in a grimace.
Periodically, I stop and growl. A few steps later, I shake my leg out like a dog after peeing against a fire hydrant.
A few steps later, I hit my belly and shake my head and yelp.
Poppy is in stitches, pointing and laughing.
I stop with my hands on my hips and look at her and smile. “Want to join me?”
Poppy runs to the middle of the room to join me being weird. “What are we doing?” she asks.
“We are practicing at not being perfect. So what if you don’t say everything perfectly? So what if people aren’t interested in your topic? So what if you feel embarrassed? You’re still you. You’re still the most amazing Poppy—the only Poppy I’ve ever known.”
Poppy and I are crawling around the room and acting like gorillas when Marlene walks in to pick her up.
And then, because one memory begets another, I start remembering other things, events that have been blocked for a long time.
The weeks at Mamoo’s were a balm. I had no school, no homework, and no parents, and I missed none of them. In the absence of the daily weight of keeping others happy, I felt untethered and directionless. The sound of Asma’s oof never far out of my reach.
I read romance novels on Mamoo and Aunty’s couch with Mippy lying on my feet.
I ate countless boxes of mac and cheese and hurried to pick up my mess when I heard the garage door open.
Aunty and I went to the video store every few days and picked out movies that we all watched every night.
It felt like vacation without any sense of escape or respite.
I knew our parents loved us. But this wasn’t an issue of love.
It was an issue of honor and duty and pride, and the formula for my parents’ had been written long ago.
All it required was that we live our lives on their terms and within the dictates they set forth.
By definition, their happiness meant our unhappiness.
I was coming to realize that the sense of responsibility I felt to make peace among my family wasn’t actually dependent on my parents’ presence. It traveled inside of me like a dormant illness.
I had assumed that after spending time with Asma the first weekend at Mamoo’s, whatever upset was between us would work itself out the way it always did.
But it hadn’t turned out that way. I hadn’t been prepared for her extended coldness, her unwillingness to talk about what had happened, and her seesawing emotional signals.
Even more surprising, I was shocked at my own sense of ambivalence toward her.
I was increasingly resentful that I was left to pay the tab in the wake of her transgressions.