Chapter 20 Salma
Salma
Winter break is right around the corner.
We are all lizards, soaking up the sun in the form of festivities and holiday cheer.
Too soon, the Midwestern January, with its interminable flat gray sky and raw, scraping winds rolling off the prairie, will descend upon us.
Even though the school has a no-gifts-for-teachers policy, every day brings unnecessary presents and tokens of affection from my students.
Since I told Mamoo about the call from Abu, the wall we have so lovingly maintained for almost two decades has come down in a tumble.
We now speak freely of Asma. Mamoo and I find ourselves imagining her here with us, being a part of our life, experiencing what we are experiencing.
Asma, with her stubborn optimism, would be out there trying to make a snowman of the first dusting of snow, which barely covers the grass.
Asma would be insatiable with the range of ice cream choices that have developed over the past generation.
Ice creams with the waffle cone simply built in for the slow licker.
She would have loved Poppy and the vivacious, exuberant, close-talking Marlene.
It is an Asma in the present tense, not the version of Asma I have been attached to for so long, the long-suffering victim. I’ve been given this great gift of my sister entering my life anew, and there are moments I find myself contented and at peace when I think of her.
Poppy’s presentation on South Africa is a huge success.
She has quite the audience. Marlene is there with her parents, who record the presentation and the Q and A.
Mamoo is there. Emil stands against the wall, pretending like he has just been passing by.
Poppy is so brave and confident and poised as she stands in front of the classroom, explaining the country’s geography, people, and troubled history and why it matters to her as the Black child of a white South African mother, that the whole class, even Tommy, listens intently.
My chest hurts with pride and anticipatory loss.
One day, Poppy and I return to the room after pickup.
We have fallen back into our after-school routine.
I made peppermint-chocolate-chip cookies for our snack and am explaining to Poppy how I smash the peppermint sticks and sprinkle the sticky sugar into the batter.
We turn the corner from the stairwell, and Marlene is walking briskly toward us from the other direction.
My immediate thought is surprise that she’s on time, followed quickly with curiosity about why she didn’t just come outside.
And then I notice that her eyes are shining brightly and she is jittery, almost panicked. My stomach drops. What has happened?
“Why don’t you run and get your coat and backpack?” I say to Poppy.
“Ruby’s getting discharged next week.” Marlene wrings her hands.
I knew that she’d be discharged by the end of the month, but still it’s a surprise. When it’s news you dread, it’s always a surprise. I picture Ruby’s snarled face, the smell of iron and dirt; bitter, angry words hurled like stones ring in my head.
“Oh wow.” I don’t know what else to say. The little reprieve I’ve been living under, where I get to share Poppy with Marlene, is now over. “Is she better?” I ask tremulously.
“Yeah, I think so.” She looks as nervous as I feel. “The therapy sessions have been good, and I think they’ve diagnosed her with PTSD. She was turning to the alcohol to handle long-suppressed trauma. It’s not going to be easy, but she’s probably not a full-blown addict yet.”
“Are you okay with this?”
She looks apologetic. “I don’t know, but I have to give it a try. She sounded good on last week’s call. Like the old Ruby. Wait until you meet that Ruby.”
Poppy skips out of my classroom and jumps into Marlene’s arms.
What had I thought? That I would never see Ruby again? She’s Poppy’s other mother for God’s sake. She went to rehab, not the Arctic Circle. What was I thinking falling in love with this family, pretending like it was my own? Ruby’s promise to move Poppy from my class haunts me.
Marlene says to Poppy, “Mamby’s coming home, and she’s good.” Poppy looks at me to take my cue on how she should think about this new bit of news because Mawmaw cannot always be trusted when it comes to Mamby.
I turn my back, walk into my classroom, and throw away the cookies.
I will lose Poppy. It is natural and inevitable.
She will go into third grade and then fourth, and she will look back on her second-grade year as the year she moved to a new city and one of her mothers went away for a few weeks.
She will have fond and loving memories of MissCh, and if I’m lucky, I’ll go down in history as one of her favorite teachers.
She will go back to her intact family where she belongs, a family that I sincerely hope will be healthy and fulfill their potential.
I will go back to my regular life. It is a good life.
I have Mamoo. I have a community. I have friends.
I have so much. Perhaps this spring I will start making my front yard as glorious as my backyard.
Maybe I’ll suggest to Emil that we get dressed up and go to a zippy restaurant and watch people and have drinks.
Maybe Marlene and I can meet for coffee sometimes.
Marlene calls me one evening a few days later.
I am scared of answering the phone these days in case it’s Abu, but I make myself pick up just in case it’s Mamoo.
She talks artificially slowly and gently, and I picture a squirrel running around a room and Marlene trying to lull it into calmness.
“Sal. It’s me. We would really love for you and Mamoo to come for Christmas dinner. ”
Who is the we? Is Ruby back? I haven’t seen her at school, but she is supposed to be home this week. What has Marlene told her about our friendship? Whose idea was it to invite us? I say, “We have plans, but thank you so much for the invitation.”
It is the last day of school before winter break.
This morning is the holiday sing-along when the entire elementary school body and parents and grandparents and siblings jam themselves into the school gym in violation of all occupancy limits.
The kids sit on the floor by grade, and we teachers flank them.
Each grade will stand, face the rest of the school, and sing two songs.
It starts with the kindergarteners singing “Up on the Housetop” in their baby voices that can’t say the r sound and making movements that align with the song and ends with the fifth graders singing “Let It Snow.” In between, there is an assortment of Christmas, Hanukkah, and other winter songs.
Sometimes there is a song from another country; one year the fourth-grade class sang a Korean winter song.
There are no Jesuses or Marys to navigate.
Every year I love this event and cry at the sweetness of the young voices.
This year is worse; my impending loss hangs over me.
Parents hold gifts that they intend to give their teachers afterward and greet each other. Children wave frantically at their parents, who, in turn, record them. Fathers wear reindeer hats, and mothers wear jingle bell jewelry. It is a mad crush.
Afterward, we go back to our classrooms for a class party and then early dismissal.
I am leading my students to the classroom when standing in front of me is Ruby.
She looks good. Her face is more chiseled and less bloated.
Her skin pallor more golden and less gray.
I can see the shadow of the young woman on stage.
She gives me a half smile, rueful and sad.
I acknowledge her with my eyes and walk around her, giving her a wide berth.
Marlene and other parents are already setting up the hot-chocolate-and-marshmallow and cookie stations and organizing kids into groups for games.
I stand at the door trying to figure out where I fit in my own classroom.
“Salma?” Ruby is next to me. “Can we just talk for a second? In the hall?”
“I really can’t. I have to . . .” I point to the classroom.
Ginger walks by just then and says, “Oh, I’m here if you need to step out, Miss Chaudhry.”
What can I say? The hallway is alive and cacophonic, laughter and happy noises wafting from the open classes.
“Salma, I’m so sorry.”
I put my hands up to stop her.
“Please,” she pleads. “I need to say this. What I said to you, how I’ve treated you . . . it is unforgivable.”
I stand stock-still.
“I have so much to apologize for. To the people I love. To the people I am honor bound to.”
I finally make eye contact. She is so earnest, it’s painful.
“Thanks, Ruby. But you don’t need to . . .”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I’m sorry for barging into your class and making such a scene.
For . . . desecrating your room. I’m sorry for what I said to you at the rainforest event and on Halloween.
And, most of all, for when you came to our house.
There was no excuse. All I can say is that I was not in my right mind.
You have been a lifesaver for Marlene, and, well, for Poppy, you are .
. . I’ll just say that you are very special to her and, for that reason, very special to all of us. ”
This is not at all what I expected, and I am barely hanging on from not acting on my flight instinct. Instead, my stupid eyes start pooling.
Ruby touches my shoulder lightly.
“I have to get back.” I motion with my head to the classroom.
“One more thing, Salma.” She hands me a shoebox for a person with big feet. As I hold the box, she puts her hands over mine, dwarfing mine. “This. These are for you.” I recognize what she is doing, and I try to drop the box or hand it back to her, but Ruby holds my hands and the box in them firmly.
“Listen. I have done a lot of work the last six weeks. I was ready. It’s been a long time in coming.
I don’t need these anymore. Who Asma was to me .
. . ” She tilts her head up as she chokes up and starts again.
“Asma was my first love, and that love destroyed her. For so many years, I’ve walked around feeling like I .
. . like, it was my fault. That has messed me up.
In my twisted thinking, I resented that you got more time with her than I had.
I didn’t blame you. I just couldn’t forgive you for having gotten eighteen years with her when all I got was a few months. ”
“But it was my fault,” I whisper.
“No, Salma. That’s what happens in these kinds of events. Everyone thinks, somehow, it was their fault.”
“They asked me about you, and I told them.” My voice cracks and breaks. I have never said that out loud. Ruby’s hands feel like they are radiating heat.
“It wasn’t your fault, Salma. I promise you.”
I am shaking with cold or something.
Ruby goes on. “The guilt and anger around Asma made me do some really stupid things to people I love. To people I should be more grateful for. To little people who need me. So these are for you. I know Mamoo probably didn’t know what he was doing when he said, ‘Take her stuff.’ But I did, and I should have said something.
I just took them because I was greedy. I wanted it all.
Every last ounce of her that was left. But now, I don’t need these anymore. She’s with me in the ways I need.”
Ruby finally releases my hands and then says the thing I have longed to hear—I have needed to hear—for more than half my life. “Salma. You were everything to Asma. You were her person. The why behind everything she thought and felt. Never, ever doubt that.”
As she slips past me to go into the party, she kisses the top of my head.
Blessedly, I am alone. I lean against the wall and feel like my legs will not hold me up.
I had believed that these final mementos of Asma were gone.
I thought I had reconciled myself. But now.
It is opening myself back up to possibility.
I slide to the floor, holding that precious box, and take big, deep breaths so I don’t break down and weep.
Marlene comes out and sees me on the ground and rushes over. “Oh my God. What happened?”
I hold up my hand to make her stop and shake my head.
“Salma . . .”
“Marlene, I’m okay.”
She helps me up because I won’t let go of the box. “Will you and Mamoo come to our house for Christmas dinner? We all want you to,” she says, inches from my face.
I shake my head.
“Sal. What are you so afraid of?”