Chapter 1 Salma #4
“If you don’t get baptized, you go to hell,” Amy said.
There was no judgment or hostility, just a statement of an objective, irrefutable fact.
The girls walking with Amy slowed down and nodded in unison.
Amy was simply saying something they were all thinking.
“My mother says it’s okay to be friends with you but to not get too attached because that’s where you’re going,” she said with a one-armed shrug.
Asma asked Ami if we were going to go to hell.
“Asta far! What a thing to say! Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to that camp,” Ami said, as though we’d had any choice.
Once, when I was around sixteen or seventeen, I heard Ami ask Abu if they expected too much of us. “They’re still only children.” Her voice warbled with insecurity.
“You had children at her age,” Abu said.
In the memories of those moments, I can see that Ami was flailing from the very beginning.
A highly anxious young mother, still learning how to be a wife and a parent, with no role models and trying to figure out how to get by in this strange new world, with no understanding of the rules, isolated, and without culture, language, or extended family as community.
Who knows? Maybe we would have muddled through if we had remained little.
But little kids grow up. While she was trying to figure out who she was, we were becoming teenagers in America with its culturally sanctioned and national imperative to rebel, find a unique interest, and be independent.
She was as in breach of culture as we were and had no idea how to raise us.
Maybe because of her insecurity she was influenceable and easy to manipulate.
Or maybe she was just a mom who had a hard time saying no to her children.
Either way, it felt like she was one of the girls rather than our parent.
Even now I seek to understand them. That is the greatest legacy they bequeathed me, a lifetime of struggling to understand. A lifetime of keeping the emotional wolves at bay. With the past set loose, I can’t help but see Asma and me in these children I am surrounded by.
By the end of the day, the kids are fraying, impatient, and whiny. Their finite store of self-control is spent. The last bell of the day rings, and the class leaves in a single file line, hands to themselves. They are the picture of well-behaved.
As soon as the exterior doors open, the poise evaporates.
Children call out to their parents and caregivers as though they are returning from a great voyage, the joy so overstated and genuine.
Working mothers, in their business attire or scrubs and still on their phones, maximize their facial expressions—big eyes and exaggerated smiles—to give their child the welcome their words can’t.
Kids with nannies look at me and say, “My person is here.” Parents wave and say, “Thank you,” but no one tries to pull me aside to talk.
There is a not-small part of me that is envious.
As a child, I longed for touch, a warm word, a hug.
The only time they were freely given was when Mamoo and Aunty visited.
And now, as an adult, around children all day, I long for someone to embrace without the boundaries that we teachers must maintain.
Poppy remains at my side as she has most of the day.
Twice she reached for my hand subconsciously, as though she forgot that I was still, in essence, a stranger.
I don’t like how good it felt to have her warm, moist little hand in mine.
There are holes in me that will never fill. The mere thought of seeking connection makes me queasy. I can never be that dependent on someone again.
Within five minutes, the crowd outside the school has thinned out considerably.
Children with parents in tow have wandered off to the playground.
Mothers stand in small circles talking. This is a neighborhood school.
There is no bus service, and parents are neighbors and friends.
A handful of teachers and a handful of students remain until a shared teachers’ aide comes out to relieve us.
But I have nowhere to go and no family to get home to.
Besides, I want to see Poppy’s mother again to properly introduce myself and to assess whether she will be one of those parents.
There is always one. “How was your first day?” I ask Poppy.
“Eh. It was all right,” she says.
I can’t help but smile at how world-weary she sounds. “What would have made it better?”
“If I could have brought Lenny.”
This time she sounds like the child that she is.
“Is that your little brother I saw earlier?”
She looks at me as though I’m an idiot. “No, he’s my cat!”
“No way! My cat’s name is Leonora!”
Her eyes light up, and we’re on the cusp of trading the etymology of our cats’ names and funny cat stories when I see Marlene hurriedly walking toward us, this time with no toddler on her hip.
“I’m coming,” she yells. She has taken a shower since I saw her this morning because her hair has lightened by several shades and is illuminated in the afternoon sun, which has the effect of making her eyes pop even more.
Poppy runs at her hard. “Sorry, sorry!” she calls to me as Poppy barrels into her.
I don’t want to say anything that implies that it is okay to drop off your child late and pick them up late.
She swoops Poppy up, mid-stride, and continues walking unfazed. She is strong.
“How was your day?” she asks. It is unclear whether she’s talking to me or Poppy.
Poppy squeezes her neck in return.
“Miss Chaudhry.” She pronounces my name perfectly. “Really, I’m terribly sorry about the late drop-off . . . and the late pickup.” There is a slight singsong in her voice, a lilt. She smiles sheepishly. “I’m hopeless.”
She’s trying to charm me. Whether by her physical appearance or how she walks into a space, there is something dramatic about her that attracts attention.
I know this type, the kind of person who drags intrigue, emotion, and drama in her wake.
I am self-aware enough to know I am drawn to people like this and should keep my distance.
I end up becoming a de facto counselor, the steady to their spiral.
It makes me wary. It would be rude for me to turn and walk away, but that is what I want to do.
She steps closer to me. “I still haven’t gotten Poppy’s school supplies. Can I bring them tomorrow?”
I find this so frustrating. Every year there are parents who don’t seem to understand that the home-school partnership actually requires them to be a partner. “Hm.”
“I’m not usually so disorganized, but we just moved here from Chicago,” Marlene says. She is cheerful, but with a forced air.
“Yes, Poppy told me.” That is where my father has said he lives. “Well, welcome.”
“I grew up here, but my wife is from Chicago.” She says the second part of the sentence softly and gingerly, as though testing me.
“We’re just like Chicago here, other than the lake, the restaurants, the big-city energy, and the diversity,” I say breezily. I want to tell her that she needn’t worry, that this community, out of the casual tolerance that comes from the highly educated affluent, will not judge her.
Marlene guffaws a little too enthusiastically and takes my statement as license to draw closer. “My wife went to university here and said that she always dreamt of living in one of these hundred-year-old houses.”
“Got it.” I take a step back.
“And it’s just so hard raising two little ones in the city.”
If I don’t stop her, she is liable to go on.
I still have notes to take about my students to help me learn about them, and transport the communal supplies from the bins to my cabinets for use later in the year, and get the room organized for tomorrow.
“Poppy, it’s been so nice to spend the day with you.
I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turn around and start going up the steps.
“Is Chaudhry a common name?” Marlene blurts out.
I turn around. She is a lonely extrovert. I can spot them from a mile away. “I don’t really know,” I say patiently.
“Oh, Miss Chaudhry, sorry, one more thing.” Marlene glances at Poppy, who is playing in the wood chips under a tree, and approaches me hesitatingly. Quietly, she asks, “How did she do?”
I don’t like talking about children like they’re not there. “Poppy, how did you like school today?” She is old enough to speak for herself.
Poppy is deep in imaginary play and doesn’t even register my voice.
Marlene is now standing on the same step as me. I have to look up at her, and the sun is shining in my eyes. I move up one step to get more space.
“It’s been a bit of a tough move . . .” There is something she wants to say but is holding herself back from saying. This is her real voice, not the one that she uses to keep the air light and bubbly. Her accent is more noticeable. British? Irish?
“Sounds like there are a lot of changes. Thanks for letting me know,” I say. “I’ll keep a close eye on Poppy. Once we get into a routine and Poppy makes friends, school will be very consistent.”
“Right.” She resumes her overly chipper voice. “We’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for everything.” She walks back down the few steps and says, “Come on, Poppy. Say goodbye to Miss Chaudhry. Let’s go get those school supplies. I have a snack in the car.”
I walk inside and watch mother and daughter, standing back from the window so they don’t see me spying.
Poppy skips, her voluminous hair moving with a life of its own.
A biracial child with two moms. Marlene seems to have shrunk, and it’s not just the trick distance plays on perspective.
No, her shoulders slump, and when she turns to get in the car, she looks worn out and depleted.
The woman with torch hair is not burning so bright now, out of the gaze of others.
I feel the savior in me being called forth. I will have to be careful. I sense these two could need me, and the last thing I want is to feel needed.