Chapter 10 Salma
Salma
At last, there is a connection to Asma. It is so unexpected and the potential so great that I can barely take it in.
I thought I was the steward of her memory, the person who loved her most, her sole receptacle.
But no, there is a diary, written in her hand, into which she poured her heart.
There is a recording of her moving, talking, breathing.
My sister remains of this world. Remnants of her linger like dust particles in the air.
She has left something of herself for me to discover.
Of course I have known that there are things about her life I do not know.
There are events and incidents and memories I do not have in my memory bank because I wasn’t a part of the experience.
To know that there is a memorialization of Asma’s private moments fills me with something like hope. It is a chance.
Ruby wrote me letters, all those years ago.
A week, a month, a year later—who knows.
Time was elastic back then, possessing a disconcerting way of being out of sequence, putting events up close and far away at the same time.
Maybe I read one—I don’t even remember. But then I started throwing them away unopened.
I think. In my recollection, they just disappeared. Those years are a blank.
What did they say? What did she want to tell me? For the first time, I wonder. Did she tell me that she had these mementos of Asma? Was she offering them to me because she knew they belonged to me? That Asma belonged to me.
It is Sunday night. I am returning to school tomorrow after ten days at home recovering from this concussion. I am ready to get out of the house.
Emil made a white chicken chili, cornbread, and a homemade ice cream cake. My nausea has abated, and I am eating again. Before he leaves, Emil says, “I’m sorry you bumped your head, doll. But I’ve not had so much fun in a long time.” Sweet, sweet Emil.
Mamoo keeps asking if I’m really ready to go back, that the impacts of concussions linger and it is better to take a few extra days than to have a relapse. He probably thinks my pensiveness is due to the concussion.
“Mamoo?”
He is dozing in the reclining chair, pretending to read The Economist. “Mmm.”
“What happened to all of Asma’s stuff?”
The magazine falls to the floor. I can see him trying to make a connection between my question and anything that happened tonight. There is none.
His voice goes funny. “Darling, it was so long ago.”
“Do you remember Ruby?”
There is a long pause. “Yes, of course.”
“Do you keep in touch with her?”
Again, it takes him so long to answer that I wonder if he hasn’t fallen asleep. Finally, he says, “No.”
“Do you know that she wrote me letters? Afterward?”
“Hmm.”
The past sits heavy between us. We are not used to keeping things from each other, and I can sense his withholding.
“What are you not saying?” I ask.
He gets out of his chair stiffly and walks around the room putting on all the overhead lights. He gathers himself and then sits down on the coffee table immediately in front of me. Our knees touch.
“Yes, I remember she wrote you letters for a good long while,” he says slowly. “What’s this about?”
So I tell him everything, one revelation followed smoothly by another.
Why I passed out and hit my head. That the Poppy I so frequently speak about is Ruby’s child.
That the Marlene who has befriended me is Ruby’s wife.
He about falls off the coffee table when he hears that.
I tell him what Marlene told me, about Asma’s diaries and tapes.
“What are you going to do?” His voice is thin and raspy.
“What should I do?”
Aunty’s presence looms large. This is the sticky emotional situation she would have known exactly how to handle. I lean into his shoulder, and he kisses my dirty hair.
“Well, I would like to meet this Poppy and Marlene for one thing.” Of course he finds the silver lining.
“And what about Asma’s stuff? I want it. It belongs to me.”
“About that.” He hesitates. “I don’t know if that’s actually true.”
The first week back to school is physically exhausting. My kids bring me little gifts expressing their affection and vying for my appreciation. A drawing of a sunflower. A huge moth discovered on a front screen. A dozen cupcakes. They are exceptionally behaved and focused.
My class is still on track. Much of October will be spent studying the rainforest. English, science, history, math, and geography will all be taught through the lens of the rainforest and the countries it sits in.
This is not school curriculum; this is a me curriculum.
It takes monumental effort to modify mandatory curriculum and have it washed through the lens of another culture.
But the level of student engagement and the connections it fosters in their minds make it worthwhile.
In addition, the children will pick topics for their research project.
They will give their presentation on their research to the class and share their projects and presentations with parents at the capstone event, Rainforest Night, where parents will learn about the rainforest through the eyes of my second-grade class.
Whatever little independence Poppy was experimenting with before my accident seems to have evaporated. I send Ginger, the class intern who is staying on for a few weeks while I continue to recover, outside for playground duty because I need the break. Poppy trails her lethargically.
What did she hear at home after curriculum night?
Did she overhear the discussion between Marlene and Ruby about me?
There is a part of me that is afraid she now knows my story, and I try to maintain a professional distance, which is difficult given my role and her attachment.
I hear from the school nurse that Poppy spent half of the last week in her office with stomachaches.
I want to protect this child from the ugliness of her parents’ turmoil at the same time as abiding my long-held belief to stay away from drama.
But she reminds me so much of how I was as a child, trying to make everyone else happy, that I can’t help but want to support her.
Decorating the room to become a rainforest is a substantial undertaking.
In the past, Mamoo, Emil, and I have transformed the room overnight.
But this year, I told Emil I had plenty of helpers, and besides, he deserved a break after the last week of taking such good care of me.
And I told Mamoo not to come. We are not yet back to normal.
Mamoo told me that after everything, he and Aunty went to Asma’s dorm one time and took some of her clothes and pictures. And then, he said, “I think we told Ruby she could take what she wanted.”
“You think? How did I not know this?”
“I don’t know that I entirely knew what was happening. Those were terrible, terrible days, darling. I was barely hanging on. I tried to be there for you, but other than that, everything from that time is a haze. Still.”
I know exactly what he means. I experience it every day. There is my day-to-day life in which I function moderately well. But when I venture to the past, my emotional state regresses to who I was then, and panic, grief, and abandonment quickly overtake me.
“Why didn’t you ask me? It wasn’t yours to give.”
He just cried in response.
It doesn’t feel right to be friends with Ruby’s wife.
It doesn’t feel appropriate to feel so much affection for her child.
The randomness of our lives being thrown together falls under the adage that truth is stranger than fiction.
Or is it fate? Has Poppy landed in my class through some cosmic intention?
Since the discussion on my patio, I have tried to maintain my distance from Marlene.
I can’t get over the fact that she knows my history.
I am so curious about the specific details of what she knows.
Like a game of telephone told over history, what has been imparted to her and how close it is to what actually happened.
But as is her way, Marlene saw an opening and has squeezed herself into it.
She called me at home midweek, and without even a greeting, she said, “You really need to get a cell phone.”
“That’s what you called to tell me?”
“Ha. No. I’ve organized a bunch of parents to help set up the rainforest.”
Converting the room into a rainforest to support the curriculum is no small feat.
We will cut trees out of construction paper and hang them everywhere.
We ask parents to lend us any tall tropical plants they have at home.
We have blow-up bananas and coconuts and monkeys and snakes, which we glue onto the trees or hang from the ceiling.
We hang plastic vines that look like they could double for cheap feather boas.
When the children walk into the magically transformed room, their faces will reflect their surprise and wonder. The line between real and make-believe is still thin at this age. It is one of those moments in which I know I am doing exactly what I’m supposed to.
Marlene arrives before everyone else with snacks and bottles of wine for the volunteers.
“Marlene! You can’t have alcohol here.”
She looks genuinely confused. “Why?”
“It’s a school.”
“That’s ridiculous. There aren’t any kids here.”
Honestly, I don’t know what to do with her. “Then make it discreet. Put the wine in something else. I don’t want Betsy all over me about this.”
Out of her large tote bag, she pulls out a stack of little paper Dixie cups decorated with jack-o’-lanterns and ghosts and dances a little jig.
God, she makes it hard to keep at arm’s length. Tonight, it will be me and Marlene and a bunch of enthusiastic moms talking about wainscoting and other important topics. And despite my own misgivings, I can’t wait.