Dusty Yellow
Our apartment is its own island of Syria in the middle of Queens.
A two bedroom with a tiny kitchen that never stopped Mama from cooking the most delicious recipes.
A wooden cabinet sits in the hallway, protecting the delicate crystal glassware inside.
We’ve never used it, not even when we had guests over.
We still don’t. The cabinet is draped with embroidered tablecloths Mama got as wedding gifts.
She loved them so much; she bought more from Souq Al-Hamidiye when she visited Syria during the summer years ago.
They were to be put over the sofa and the TV.
And over the arabesque wooden table that sits in the living room.
Her art adorns the walls, portraits of me and Amal, the jellyfish in the Mediterranean, and the collections of stone-built homes in Arwad.
There are pictures of me and Amal from when we were babies all the way up to Amal’s wedding.
Our family photo hangs in the middle. Mama and Baba standing behind the photographer’s couch, which Amal and I were sitting on.
I was twelve then and Amal was nineteen.
I hate that picture.
If I look too closely, I can see the red rimming my eyes and the scrunch of my nose as I try not to scowl.
The huge pink bow in my hair distracts from all of that.
Mama had put me in a black-and-white polka-dot dress with white stockings.
Amal plasters a wry smile onto her face.
She’s in a long black pencil skirt and a white shirt, her two-piece hijab tucked under the shirt so the bejeweled collar shows.
Mama is in her signature gray manto, and Baba is in a suit he probably bought twenty years prior.
I was angry that day for a reason I can’t remember. I do, however, remember I didn’t want to wear that bow. It was too tight on my head, and I wanted it off.
That family photo was supposed to mark the beginning of our new life. One where cancer no longer had a grip on our fears and hopes. Mama was four months into remission. Her lungs were strong enough to breathe air.
But I was twelve, and I didn’t care, because the pink bow was too tight on my head.
Now this apartment is frozen in time.
We didn’t change a thing.
We couldn’t.
If we did, then her ghost would be gone. The wisps of her clinging to this apartment would disappear. Maybe if we left everything as it was, an unknown blessing she had would survive after death, and we’d see her in this apartment. Maybe she’d come back.
I take off my shoes and place them on the rack before walking to my room. The front door opens as soon as I shut my own door.
My room is a burst of turquoise, gold, forest green, and maroon I can’t see.
When Amal finally moved out two years ago, it became fully mine.
The very first night, I brought out my brushes, stood on my chair, and started painting the ceiling.
It took a week to complete, and I had to open the window for some air, but it was worth it.
Sea-green waves crashing on golden sands.
A San Francisco beach. And then on the walls surrounding me, I painted the redwoods.
Their rusty-brown trunks and the rich green leaves.
For now, they’re my reality until I can really see them.
In this room, I can breathe.
I change into pajamas Mama bought in Syria and flop onto my bed. The frills on the side are worn out, and the printed lettering Today and tomorrow is sunshine has faded. Mama, Amal, and I would laugh at the obscure sentences used on Syrian clothing, trying to discern the original intention.
I lie on my bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, until my phone pings with a message and I glance at it.
Lexi: how was the station?
Lexi: wanna come over this weekend?
Lexi: you need to do something other than staying in ur room and working
Lexi: you’ve been doing just that all summer. It’s not healthy
Lexi: u can be sad of course
Lexi: but let me be there so you’re not alone
I bite my lip.
Lexi: any update on your eyes?
Alexis has been asking that every single day.
She was the first person I told when the shock settled into grim reality.
I told her before I told Amal. Even though Alexis no longer lives in this apartment building, she came over a lot when we were younger.
Her mother was still working, and Mama offered to have Alexis here for the afternoons so she wasn’t alone in her apartment.
Alexis became very familiar with Mama’s stories and believes them wholeheartedly.
Before I can decide whether to respond to Alexis’s texts, a knock on my door startles me.
“Come in?” I say after three seconds.
Baba opens the door, and I sit up. He doesn’t fill in the space like he used to. He’s somehow shrunk this past year.
“I made dinner,” he says in Arabic, and his voice falls flat.
It doesn’t find the crevices in this apartment to settle into but hangs awkwardly.
I wonder if what’s left of Mama in this place shudders every time she hears us speak, and maybe that’s the reason our voices are strange in a place that was once home.
“Dinner?” I repeat, dumbfounded.
Baba hasn’t made dinner in ages. And neither have I.
“Yes.” Baba looks suddenly exhausted. Like the few words he’s said have taken up everything in him.
He moves toward the kitchen, and I follow, curious.
I blink a few times, readjusting my eyes, to take in what’s on the dining table. It looks like a pot of simmering shakriyeh, a yogurt-based dish with pieces of meat suspended in it that’s served with burghal. He even laid out two dishes.
We sit, and I notice the chopped onions and pita bread cut in half placed neatly together on a plate. He made an effort.
Something’s happening.
My chest seizes, and I think I might have an anxiety attack. This has to do with Mama and the way she was suddenly taken from us. It has to.
Baba sees the panic in my expression and shakes his head. “No, no. It’s nothing bad. I want to talk about you.”
I blink, but my muscles don’t relax.
Baba takes in a deep breath. “This year…” He closes his eyes, steeling himself.
I wonder if a time will come when words won’t feel like they’ll exhaust us to our bones.
He tries again. “This past year hasn’t been easy on us.
And I…I haven’t been here. But every time I look at you, I think you’re fading away.
I was thinking a fresh start would be good. ”
I stare at him.
“I talked to Alexis’s parents about the school she goes to,” he says in accented English, like he’s trying to turn the language into Arabic. “They said it’s a great place. You’ll be able to get a very good education. And have a higher chance to be accepted into university here. To NYU.”
My brain feels muddled. “Baba, the tuition at Braxton Academy is thirty-five thousand dollars a year.”
I remember because I looked it up after Alexis gushed about it. My hopes were shattered when I saw the tuition rate.
He waves a hand. “I saved enough.”
“I’m staying at my public school. I don’t want you spending thirty-five grand on me.”
“That is my decision,” he says firmly in Arabic.
“So I have no say, even though I’m the one going to attend?” I snap, and immediately regret my tone. “Sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It’s okay.” He massages the bridge of his nose. “You need advantages in life, yes? And with… with your mother…” His chin wobbles, and I look away.
I can’t bear seeing Baba cry. It’s an anomaly.
A scratch in the fabric of my reality. I’ve seen him cry more times than I can count this past year, which has made me suppress my tears.
They’re spilled only in private, onto my pillows, to water the redwoods on my walls. Maybe I cried all the colors away.
He clears his throat. “With your mother… gone, and your sister married, there is some money that can be used.”
The words are harsh like a slap against my cheek, and I feel their sting. Mama has been reduced to something materialistic. She was no longer being treated for cancer, but there was money stashed away in case it ever came back.
Now we’ll never use it.
“The cancer savings are just a little over ten thousand,” I say.
“It’s not your problem.” A hint of life sprouts in his eyes. “You are my daughter. You don’t stress about the money. Okay?”
“But still not my decision?” I say dryly.
“No, it’s not.” He sighs. “I thought you’d be happy. You’ll be with Alexis.”
We’d be in the same school for the first time since elementary school.
Braxton Academy.
I don’t know much about it beyond it being a school for rich kids. From Alexis’s Instagram, every face is a different shade of white, in Burberry and Chanel. That is when they aren’t in their school uniforms of gray trousers or skirts, white shirts, and matching gray jackets.
The uniforms aren’t baggy or poorly made but are tailored to each student’s measurements. That’s the kind of school Braxton Academy is.
“They also have art classes. I checked,” Baba says, and I ignore that, lifting the lid from the shakriyeh pot.
It doesn’t smell the way it did when Mama used to make it. But it comes close. It’s a special kind of pain to see parts of her that aren’t fully there—like looking through mist.
Satisfied with our talk, Baba retreats to the shell he’s been living in.
And I realize this is the longest conversation I’ve had with him in a year.