Love from a to Z

by S. K. Ali

  I just stared at them.

  Because obviously it was.

  • • •

  I decided to write Kavi a long e-mail about what had happened to Daadi. Out of everyone, she, my best friend, would understand my sadness the most.

  I needed to set it down in words before I spoke to her in person.

  In the middle of composing the e-mail, tears streaming down my face as I thought of how happy Daadi must have felt to get into that car headed for a traditional village wedding, right in the middle of that grief, a message from Adam came in.

  Zayneb, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. My dad and I (and Hanna) prayed for her.

  Zayneb, I can’t figure out what happened yesterday between us. But there’s one thing I CAN figure out and that’s how much I don’t know. How I don’t know what you went through at school. With your teacher. I don’t know about the extent of Islamophobia you’ve faced. I don’t know what it feels like to be you. But here’s another thing: I DO want to know. But if you don’t want me to know, I get that, too.

  I lifted up the edge of my pajama T-shirt to wipe away my tears and then enlarged the picture of us he sent right after this message. It was the same one I’d favorited yesterday when Hanna had first sent it, making a mental note to crop Adam out.

  I sniffed and went back to my e-mail to Kavi. When I finished, I pressed send without rereading it. Kavi needed to hear my uncensored, unedited thoughts.

  Then I went back to what had become my favorite pastime since last night: research.

  I now know more about drone warfare than I ever have, more than most topics I was interested in previously. I know that every US president increased the military’s drone program, no matter what political party he belonged to.

  Everyone had blood on their hands.

  But I couldn’t find the answer to one thing I’d been searching for: What made the public okay with it? With accepting the killing of innocent people?

  The answer came in the evening, when my sister, Sadia, messaged me an old picture of Daadi and me on the first day of second grade.

  My grandmother was holding my hand, about to walk me to school.

  She was dressed in a loud pink-and-green shalwar kameez, a long scarf wound around her head.

  She was different-looking, but the same, too. Same, like a lot of the other people killed over there.

  Maybe she looked too Muslim. And people thought it was okay if some Muslims got killed, because so many Muslims were weird anyway, like Fencer believed.

  Like, if you believed Muslims were the type of people who buried girls alive, you would be okay with them being dealt with.

  My grandmother in her pink-and-green suit with a covered head, holding my hand tenderly, looked into my eyes now and told me the truth:

  Islamophobia is the thing keeping it okay to kill people like us without repercussions.

  Then, with this realization, I fell asleep, exhausted.

  • • •

  Auntie Nandy was sitting at the edge of my bed when I woke up. “I’m sorry to be sitting here like this, but do you want to eat something with me? It’s past dinnertime.”

  I nodded, my eyes on the ceiling. “The Emmas bought some food. It’s on the table.”

  “Zayneb, I couldn’t help seeing your phone when I came and sat down, and there are a few messages from Adam.” Auntie Nandy cleared her throat. “Totally didn’t read them. Just thought you should know.”

  I nodded again, too heart tired to care whether Auntie Nandy had seen them, or about Adam messaging me.

  She left the room to set up dinner, and I stepped into the shower and into a decision.

  I’m not going to let up on Fencer.

  I don’t care if they expel me.

  Because that isn’t worse than having my grandmother taken from me.

  • • •

  “Are you okay going out tomorrow?” Auntie Nandy passed me the tray of sushi rolls.

  I took two and said, “Where?”

  “Well, there’s a concert happening at Katara. Again, if you’re up to it, we can go earlier, look around, then sit for the concert. It’s the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, but, because it’s spring break and Katara will be full of kids, they’re playing popular movie soundtracks.”

  “Okay.”

  “Some friends of mine will be meeting up there for the symphony part, but we’ll be on our own to wander Katara,” she assured me.

  “I’m fine with anything,” I said, mixing wasabi into my soy sauce puddle.

  “Maybe it will be good for you to go out. Just feel the air.”

  I kept swirling the wasabi with my chopsticks, staring at it instead of Auntie Nandy’s face. “Did Mom tell you why I was suspended?”

  “Yes, that you drew something that the school thought was threatening.”

  “There’s more to it.” And then I told her. About #EatThemAlive. Everything about Fencer. And Mom and Dad wanting me to lie low.

  And how it felt like Fencer and his kind had killed Daadi. “Am I reaching, Auntie Nandy? Am I crazy? For wanting my grandmother not to have died? Not to have died like that?” I began sobbing, covering my face.

  I felt Auntie Nandy’s arms around me, then heard her voice. “You’re not crazy; you’re in pain. You have a right to feel pain. And you know what?” She paused and waited for me to move my hands away from my face before she reached up and lifted my chin until I looked at her. “You have every right to want justice.”

  “But then why do Mom and Dad act like I can’t feel this?”

  “They just want to protect you from the consequences you’ll get for fighting for justice. Because there will be consequences when you shake the world.” She pulled out the chair closest to me and sat in it. “But here’s a secret: If you plot and plan wisely, the consequences are less unexpected.”

  “You mean to plot quietly? My friend Ayaan did that, and she, too, got in trouble.”

  “You plot so quietly that no one knows anything, then you spring, armed with the facts, like I did with Marc at the pool.” She reached across to her plate and picked up a sushi roll and popped it into her mouth, chewing fast before speaking again. “I’m going to say something really radical now. That you have to promise you won’t tell your mom came from me.”

  I paused, a roll on its way into my own mouth. “I promise.”

  “If everyone listened to their parents who feared the consequences of fighting for justice, this world would be a more awful place than it is now.”

  “It’s already an awful place.”

  “Imagine if it were even worse? If Nelson Mandela had feared the consequences of fighting against apartheid? If Malcolm X and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King had?”

  “If their parents had held them back?”

  “No, if they’d listened to their parents, or anyone else for that matter, holding them back.” Auntie Nandy turned to face me fully. “That itch in your heart for justice was put there by God. Your bravery, too. Don’t let anyone squash it—it’s like squashing the source of it.”

  I leaned over and hugged her.

  She made me feel proud of my angry self.

  But yeah, I had to learn to be quietly angry.

  Spring without a roar.

  And spring I will.

  Insha’Allah.

  MARVEL: ANGER

  You cut me

  Now I sit, sharpening my blade

  One day I will loom, a shadow no more

  Silence your hate, leave it shredded

  Strewn around your feet

  The only sign I’ve roared my pain:

  You

  Cut

  Down.

  I sent this poem to Kavi too, with the subject line I’ve started writing poetry.

  • • •

  Kavi called and cried with me. She, too, had felt Daadi’s loving hands.

  • • •

  As I was going to bed, I finally looked at the new messages from Adam.

 
We prayed again for your grandmother, at Maghrib.

  Then: Hope we can clear this up before you leave.

  Then: I swear I’m not trying to bother you, just not leave it like this between us.

  Then: I’ve never met anyone like you before.

  Then finally: It’s like we were meant to meet, but then I ruined it somehow. I’m sorry.

  Lying on my pillow, I shook my head.

  Because he didn’t ruin it somehow.

  The circumstances of our lives did.

  ADAM

  TUESDAY, MARCH 19

  ODDITY: IMAGINING THE FUTURE

  THE EXPERIENCES OF MS PATIENTS vary considerably. Some degenerate fast and furious. Some take a general, slow decline. Some experience symptoms sporadically.

  Mine seems to be the latter. And that makes me fearful.

  Maybe it’s because mine is at the beginning stages, but it’s like waiting for the ax to drop, the other shoe to fall, the tension of not knowing where you’ll be, ability-wise, the next day, next week, next month.

  It’s stressful. And right now it immobilizes me.

  • • •

  I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling beams, thoughts gathering at the back of my head, some telling me to get up and get downstairs to work on the room while I could, to use my hands to bring it to life.

  And then there were other thoughts, cautioning me to preserve myself, to not make a movement, to wait for the inevitable.

  For the first time in a long time, I wanted someone to talk me out of these crippling thoughts.

  I glanced at my phone and saw that Zayneb hadn’t replied to any of my messages.

  I wanted her around.

  Her straight-shooting talk would be welcome now. And the way she said things so resolutely.

  I needed that sense of bravado.

  I also wanted to just see her.

  I sighed and scrolled through my messages to find Connor. Hey, you up to anything?

  Just about to play. League of Legends.

  You want to play here?

  You ok?

  Yeah.

  I’ll be there in a bit.

  • • •

  Connor brought his gaming laptop and set it up in my room.

  I’d attempted to make myself look less pitiful. So I was sitting up, still in bed, and scrolling mindlessly on my phone.

  Connor tried my desk chair out, giving it a spin. “Wait, let me see if Jacob’s getting online. We’ve been playing together. Duo.”

  He put his phone on speaker and dialed. Madison picked up, groggy sounding. “Hello? Connor?”

  “Hey, where’s Jacob?”

  “In the shower.”

  “Tell him to give me a call. You guys have plans today?”

  “No, just hanging out. We’re at the Hyatt. You know how Jacob’s parents don’t like us staying over at each other’s?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “So we’re spending the last days in Doha together at the Hyatt.” She laughed. “They think we already flew back to college. Think we left last night.”

  “You guys are baaaad.”

  “Hey, my parents know.”

  “Okay, then forget about telling your man to call me. I was just checking if he was getting online for League.” Connor hovered his finger over his phone to end the call. “Bye, talk later, have fun in that room.” He laughed before hanging up.

  I looked at the guitar on the floor by the bedroom door. The one I’d made sure to bring to Doha because Hanna had wanted me to play at her birthday, coming up in a few days, but that I hadn’t touched except to check its journeying condition. “Pass me my guitar, by the door?”

  “I don’t know how those guys do it, Madison and Jacob. The way they can’t see each other when they’re at school, different countries, and then they can’t see each other, if you know what I mean, when they’re together here, either. Summer’s going to be brutal for them, when everyone goes back home. Jacob’s family to Spain and Madison’s to Australia.” Connor handed me the guitar and sat back down in my chair. He laughed wildly. “And now they’re banging for all its worth.”

  “Okay, relax.” I strummed a few notes.

  “Why? It’s one of the best parts of life, man.” He turned to his laptop and activated it from sleep.

  “Didn’t say anything about it.”

  “You told Emma P. you weren’t into her, huh?” He tilted his head to consider me. “That there’s someone else?”

  I began to play the opening notes of “Seasons in the Sun,” Mom’s favorite song. Then paused. “Yeah.”

  “Who’s the someone else? Because you told me there wasn’t anyone else.”

  “I wasn’t sure she liked me, too. I’m still not sure.” I picked up the chords again from where I’d left off.

  “What’s she like? I don’t know her anyway, so fill me in completely.”

  I played a bit more, then stopped. “She’s sure about herself, who she is as a person, and just cares about stuff. And is an activist. And cute.”

  “And is she Gryffindor and Slytherin and Muslim?” Connor twirled in the chair and faced me. “The Zee person. Forgot her name again.”

  “Zayneb.”

  “Oh man, I thought so from the moment I saw you look at her at your dad’s party!” he said, snapping his hand at me, excited he’d gotten it right. “You were a goner from then.”

  I shrugged in acceptance. Maybe I was.

  “What’s holding you back? Is she available?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. We’re just talking to each other. Me more than her.”

  “Why isn’t she falling for Adam, the wonder kid?” Something dawned on his face. “Wait. It’s not because you’ve got MS, right? That she’s not into you?”

  “No. Okay, stop. You’re making a story in your head. She’s mourning her grandmother. Change the subject.”

  “Forgive me. I just don’t want you to stay a virgin all your life, dude.”

  “Ass.”

  “You’re lucky I’m turning the crass down, ’cause I like you. Only ’cause you used to save my math grade all the time.”

  He laughed and turned to his game.

  I finished playing “Seasons in the Sun.”

  • • •

  After a couple of hours of him gaming while throwing out song challenges for me to play on the guitar, he packed up to leave.

  I made myself walk downstairs with him, walk him to the door. And then out the door too.

  I sat on one of the pair of white rocks right at the entrance to our pathway and just looked at the back of his car as he drove away, down the avenue of sprawling white houses, “Spanish villa” type houses, as Zayneb had called ours.

  The sky Connor drove off toward was a vivid, distinct blue, and I stared at it, wondering if I noticed everything blue suddenly because of the blue scarves she wore. Zayneb.

  I wondered what was under the scarf.

  What she was like, completely at home, somewhere.

  I could almost imagine it, but it was like a dream that you wake up and try to remember but only have the wispy fringes of.

  Like a face that you’ve seen so much—but when you try to conjure it to hold in your head, it’s too ethereal to stay still and clear.

  Maybe it was Connor bringing up sex before, about Madison and Jacob, them in their hotel room, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  I went inside and back to bed.

  • • •

  Hanna had been at her friend’s house down the street, but the minute she got back home, I knew it. My door was closed, locked, so she knocked a pattern on it, politely—first. I knew it would get incessant soon, so I immediately called out to get her to stop. “Yeah?”

  “Can you open this thing?”

  “What is it?”

  “I wanted to see if you’re okay. Because, you know. The MS thing.”

  Dad and I had talked to her last night about it. And though she’d reached for Stillwater and one
of Mom’s photos while listening, she’d been surprisingly strong on hearing the news.

  But then the checking on me started. Like this morning when she woke up, then before she went to her friend’s, and . . . now.

  I sighed. “I’m okay.”

  “Can you open it?”

  “Hanna, I’m okay. I’ll come down soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Soon soon.”

  “Okay, I’m waiting then.”

  She left and I sighed again.

  Maybe she was spoiled.

  Or maybe she just cared too much.

  There are two ways to see everything, I guess.

  Maybe lately I’ve been seeing things only in one way. Only in the hopeless, helpless way.

  I grabbed my Marvels and Oddities journal off my desk and flipped through it.

  Yeah, sure enough, everything had become oddities.

  I went back farther and saw that I’d always been a marvel-heavy observer.

  Maybe that’s how I’d kept myself afloat, all those years.

  Everyone told Dad that he was “lucky” that I was so “good.” How he’d done a “good” job, given the circumstances.

  Of Mom passing away.

  And being in another country.

  And converting to a new religion as a family.

  What they’d meant was that I was easy to handle, didn’t talk back or push limits.

  But maybe it wasn’t that I was just good or that Dad had done a good job.

  Maybe it had been this journal.

  This way of noticing that even during the suckiest moments in life there was something marvelous to be seen, heard, touched. Or just a tiny awe felt in the heart.

  Maybe it was going out of my way to try to notice something, this noticing, that had saved me all along.

  And now I couldn’t see anything good.

  Because I had stopped trying.

  • • •

  Before I went down to show Hanna I was okay, I picked up a pen and wrote three marvels to make up for the ones I’d missed the last few days.

  MARVEL ONE: CONNOR

  Yeah, Connor. Because when he’d thrown out random songs for me to play on the guitar, he interspersed them with repeated requests of “Leaves from the Vine.” From Avatar: The Last Airbender.