Chapter 2 2003
As is often the case with destiny, every incident has two possible outcomes: the one where inertia rights the course and leaves things mostly as they were, the proverbial bump in the road; and the one that derails the train completely and ends up changing everything from that point on.
My life’s undoing came when I was six, and its progression from that point on was a myriad of miracles and, behind each, a person—encounters both fleeting and enduring, which altered my course like stones in a river moving me this way and that.
Memories from that early time are gossamer—snippets, notions, and recollections spun together loosely and often so vague it’s difficult to parse imaginations from what was real.
But the memory of Mother’s surprising return from London the Christmas before I turned seven is clear and certain as any thought I know and is where my story begins.
Boodo had a great head of hair, thick and well past her shoulders, and it took nearly five hours every six weeks to “tame the beast,” which consisted of having it colored, conditioned, and rebraided. On these days, Tiny watched us, since she was the only one at Blue House without a job.
Tiny didn’t work because of something no one talked about that had happened to her in Somalia during the war. Boodo said it made her moods unpredictable, which made holding a job impossible. So instead, Tiny was in charge of shopping, cleaning, and cooking for the family.
Tiny wasn’t her real name, but it was what everyone called her. Somalis love nicknames, and they almost always have to do with how someone looks or behaves. Tiny was barely taller than Astur, who was only seven, and she was so thin that she might have weighed less.
Boodo was also a nickname. It meant “jump,” but Astur said the name was given to her grandmother because she was a force to be reckoned with. Which was true. No one messed with Boodo.
The men’s nicknames were usually less kind.
My favorite uncle was called A Ilka Maqas, which means “scissor teeth.” And my least favorite uncle was called Dhuusaye, which means “farts often.” And the man who was dating Astur’s mom, Happy, was Faroole, “no fingers.” Though he was only missing two fingers on one hand, which he’d lost when a bomb blew up his apartment building.
The war was the reason Boodo and her family, along with many other Somalis, had ended up in Minnesota.
The fighting led to famine, and many of the boys, like Scissor Teeth and Farts Often, were forced to be soldiers.
Minnesota was one of the places willing to take Somalis who had fled.
The state had always been a haven for foreigners and refugees.
It was the reason Profe, my teacher, had ended up there as well.
Though he’d arrived many years before my Blue House family and had come from Mexico, not Somalia.
The day my story begins fell on a Saturday, two weeks before Christmas.
I remember because Astur and I were making gifts at the kitchen table while Boodo was getting ready to leave.
We were making tin can lanterns. We’d painted the cans inside and out in bright colors and were drawing dots on the outside for Scissor Teeth to drill holes for the light to shine through.
Scissor Teeth worked as a window installer and had all sorts of tools.
He wasn’t really an uncle. Boodo only had daughters—Tiny, Happy, and Diamond.
But Scissor Teeth came from the same town as Boodo, so she treated him, along with Farts Often and No Fingers, like family.
The same as I was family, even though I was white and lived in another house altogether.
Blue House was very crowded. There were eight people living there and only two bedrooms and one bathroom.
It was at the end of a narrow, crammed street full of other small houses, and in the evenings, when everyone was home, it was very noisy and shook with conversation and laughter.
Tiny kept it very clean, and Boodo was very proud that she’d done well enough working for Mother as my nanny to buy it.
For my tin lanterns, I was mostly making simple animals: cats, dogs, horses.
While Astur was making patterns of stars, spirals, and zigzags.
My designs looked plain compared to hers, and I was jealous of how much better hers were.
Astur had a wild imagination and the confidence to go with it.
She never seemed to worry what anyone else thought. In that way, she was a lot like Boodo.
I was putting the whiskers on my cat face when Scissor Teeth said impatiently in Somali to Boodo, “Let’s go. We’re late.”
They were going into town together, Boodo to get her hair done and Scissor Teeth to see “his girl.” Astur and I had yet to meet Yasmin, but we knew she must be special because of how happy Scissor Teeth had been for weeks.
That afternoon, he was gussied up in his nicest, shiniest shirt.
He had oiled his hair. And he smelled like a candy cane.
Boodo ignored him. Trying to rush Boodo was like trying to rush a glacier. She moved in her own time. She was bent at the waist, rummaging through a cabinet, looking for a container for the kaakac she’d made for her hairdresser.
“Move,” Scissor Teeth said impatiently, then attempted to move her out of the way so he could look for the container himself. But rather than budging, Boodo loaded up and hip bumped him, knocking him off his feet and sending him skidding to his butt on the floor.
Astur and I busted up. Don’t mess with Boodo.
“Found it,” she said, straightening and holding up a yellow tub and lid in victory.
“Great,” Scissor Teeth said, getting to his feet and rubbing his elbow. “Now, let’s go.”
Boodo filled the tub with kaakac from the baking pan, closed the lid with a satisfying burp, and handed the tub to Scissor Teeth so she could wrap her hijab around her head.
As soon as the front door closed behind them, Astur and I ran to the living room.
“Auntie,” Astur said.
Tiny glanced up from the television but then returned her gaze to the news. The headline at the bottom of the screen read Saddam Hussein Captured—Ladies and Gentlemen, We Got Him! People were celebrating in the streets, dancing and waving flags and hugging one another.
“Auntie,” Astur repeated, “will you take us to the movies?”
Tiny turned again and blinked several times as if coming out of a fog.
She wasn’t wearing her hijab, and her hair was wild and sticking up every which way.
Boodo’s other two daughters, Happy and Diamond, were very beautiful and always well put together.
The greatest argument in the house was over how much time the two women spent in the single bathroom.
Tiny might have been beautiful at one time as well, but she did not care for herself and often needed to be prodded to wash and change her clothes. Fine boned as she was and with wide, skittish eyes, she reminded me of an injured bird who had fallen from its nest.
“We want to see Pirates of the Caribbean,” Astur said. “Will you take us?”
“Okay,” she said.
Astur and I high-fived and skipped to the door to put on our boots just as the phone rang. We looked back, curious. The house didn’t get many calls. Everyone, except Tiny and Boodo, had cell phones.
Tiny held the handset toward me. “English,” she said.
Like most Somalis, Tiny had a rudimentary understanding of English, but she was shy and uncomfortable speaking it.
I took the handset.
“Hello?”
“Cielo.”
It was Profe, and I smiled wide until he said, “You need to come home.” His voice was even but stern. “Your mother is at the airport. I’m leaving now to pick her up, and you need to be here when we return.”
The words registered slowly. I rarely thought about Mother when she was away, which was most of the time.
She was a very important person, CEO of Kendall Enterprises, which had hotels throughout the world.
My life spun almost entirely in a separate orbit from hers in a small loop between Blue House, Kendall House, and the few miles in between.
“But she’s not supposed to be home until Christmas Eve,” I said as I glanced at Astur, whose eyes were cast at the carpet.
“I’m sorry,” Profe said. “But life does not always go as planned. If you leave right away, you should be back before us.”
Mother was under the impression that, when she was away, I spent most of my time at Kendall House, when in fact, other than to sleep and do my lessons with Profe, I was hardly there at all.
The phone clicked off, and I imagined Profe running around, preparing the house for Mother’s return—turning the heat up to broiling; purging the pantry of every box of cereal, package of cookies, and bag of chips; and closing the drapes in every room except the library.
Light gave Mother headaches, and she didn’t like having “temptations” within reach.
Luckily, Profe always kept the Lincoln immaculate.
Before my grandfather died and Profe started working for Mother, he’d been my grandfather’s driver.
And though he did many things for Mother, like teaching me, looking after the house, paying her bills, and running her errands, driving was still his first love, and keeping a pristine car was a great source of pride.
“So you can’t go to the movies?” Astur said.
I felt terrible for letting her down. Astur was my best and only friend, while she had lots of friends and could have spent that Saturday with any of them.
“I suppose it’s good that you get to see your mom,” she said, which was a nice thing for her to say.
I nodded, though my feelings were distinctly muddled on the subject, Mother’s sudden return carrying a prickly sense of dread.