by Jasmin Kaur
Her round eyes darted across the atrium and over my shoulder. Through the glass doors of the university, the cement train station stood in plain view. “But—but he saw your license. The address. The house address.”
I looked helplessly from her skittish eyes to her ticking hands. I wondered whether she was right, whether someone would be waiting at the house when we reached home. “Okay, umm . . . why don’t we go sit somewhere in the university for a while? The library or . . . one of the study areas.” The university tower was an Egyptian labyrinth, but I could sort of remember my way around from our twelfth-grade tour.
I guided Mom up several escalators, whooshing past uninterested students. I took a left and ran into a row of study rooms, their glass windows long and curtainless. Not what we needed. At the end of the walkway, there was a tiny room tucked into a corner, its blinds half-drawn.
“I think we’re allowed in here . . .” I said. Mom shut the door behind us and began to pace back and forth.
“Try to calm down. Your breathing, remember?”
She jerked her chin at my suggestion after a few moments, as if my words were reaching her through water. She was elsewhere, drowning.
“Let’s do it together. Deep breath in. One . . . two . . . three . . . four. And exhale. One . . . two . . . three . . . four.” She followed my lead and I watched her chest slowly rise and fall.
“We’re safe. We’re together. No one is coming. We did fine, Mom. We’re okay.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m gonna find a full-time job this summer. Roop was telling me that her cousins own a blueberry farm in Abbotsford. They’re looking for full-time packers, like ten-hour-a-day shifts. I could work there till September and save up as much as I can before school starts. We just need to get this immigration stuff done with. Once and for all.”
She didn’t speak but she slowed her pace.
prom
electric by alina baraz played
& i refused to let it be sunny’s song
so i reached for jeevan and he placed
a hand on the small of my back
in this long black dress
that was a sore thumb
in a sea of pastel
carry me home by jorja smith played
& i rested my head on his chest
& i didn’t care who was watching
or what they thought of us
or what they thought we are
too good at goodbyes by sam smith played
& jeevan leaned into my ear
so i could hear him over the music
& asked if i would always be by his side
& i wiped the tear from his eye.
grad caps & feels
roop and i had barely spoken since she and jeevan broke up
but she swiftly turned to me in the dark auditorium
after i crossed the stage and accepted my scholarship
to say
you’re going to art school?! so lucky!
my parents would think that’s a waste of time . . .
black and white memories collided with her words:
the spring day on the skytrain with mom
the cop we barely escaped
the time i got my learner’s permit
although mom didn’t have valid id
all the bullshit she tolerated at work
barely getting paid despite her long hours
i counted each tear-drenched night
when i was carried to dawn
with the hope of mom’s pr card
finally reaching our hands
my mother wanted me in art school
more than she wanted her own breath
so i honored her wishes
accepting an opportunity
that would never again land at my doorstep
one that had, perhaps, found me in the wrong lifetime.
we didn’t go to dry grad
instead, miguel played on my phone
wafting through bear creek park
with smoke that emanated
from jeevan’s blunt
the sky went from golden hour divine
to breathtaking, cotton candy pink
as we sat there on our favorite green bench
and laughed about every beautiful thing
we could recall of the year
and cast away every dark memory
with the warm summer wind
as if we were just two teenagers
who were not weather-worn
beneath their skin
i’ll be good by the weekend
miguel sang
as my head found its way
to jeevan’s shoulder
and his arm wrapped around me
in that comfortable, easy way
that could only exist among friends
who knew each other better
than they knew themselves
things’ll be good
jeevan said.
i promise.
i believe you.
this summer
wanted to be a beach
and a brand-new bathing suit
instead it was a conveyor belt full of blueberries
and a night shift in a cold warehouse
jeevan and i stood on opposite sides
of the most boring parade in history
picking out the rotten fruit before
it got packaged and shipped to wherever
when the supervisor went back to his office
jeevan flicked a blueberry at my head
and started a war he wasn’t ready for
javier, a migrant worker from guaymas
with three children and a sick wife
who he called every lunch break
looked over and shook his head
said we worked like we could afford to
lose our jobs.
the last days of august
were slipping through our fingers
home early from work for once
mom joined bibi and me for our evening ritual
of watching the punjabi news broadcast
and poring over current affairs
with cinnamon cha in hand
there was a food drive in surrey
a unit at the hospital had been renamed
a forest fire blazed beneath the dry summer sun
and then came the news
that left the room pin-drop silent
a punjabi international student
had been arrested by border security
for working more hours
than his student visa permitted
no one needed to speak
for the same thought to be rippling
through each of our minds:
mom was working forty-three hours a week
with no work visa at all.
the fight at the restaurant
i know i shouldn’t have
i know i should’ve held my tongue
i know there were only fifteen minutes left
until the end of this overtime shift
but i snapped
the red in her eyes could’ve matched her hair
and i suddenly wished i hadn’t said
the pay is shit and you make your employees
work like dogs
the new cooks silently stared
eyes darting between the two of us
and returning to each other
waiting to see what would happen
and what it would mean for them
you should be grateful to even have a job
gurinder simmered
all these years you’ve worked here
i’ve given you extra hours
i gave you time off for your daughter
i never said a word to immigration
three tables sent their biryani back
and you have the nerve to be rude
to me?!
i could get you deported
&nbs
p; in a moment.
i should get you deported.
the butterflies in my stomach
have never been sweet. their wings scraped against
my insides and they were born with teeth.
most days, i could distract them with a painting
or a project or a pattern i could pick out from grass
or sky or water or cloth
but today was not most days.
when maasi and mom walked into the living room
i could already tell something was wrong
maasi’s eyes were drained of their usual sparkle
and mom’s hands were trembling
she looked like she’d just faced death
maasi’s mind was scattered
just like the words she spit out
so that lady
—gurinder—
the red-haired lady—their family
owns daman’s, right?
she
—she got into an argument
with your mom and she—
—she threatened to report me.
mom finished her sentence
all the butterflies in my stomach
flapped their wings at once.
they circled my insides in an ugly
symphony and tried to claw their way
out.
an impossible woman
“We need to come up with a game plan—” I hardly managed to spit out my sentence before Mom bolted from the living room, whooshing past me and heading down the hallway, feet creaking loud against the hardwood. Maasi and I rushed after her, following Mom to her bedroom door.
“Let’s brainstorm. We need to do something. We can’t just wait around for Gurinder to screw us over.”
Mom didn’t say a word. Instead, she hovered at the door, fingers around the handle, back to both of us. Thick locks of black hair had unraveled themselves from her bun. Hair clips dangled haphazardly from her head like ornaments on a Christmas tree.
“Kiran, Sahaara’s right,” Joti Maasi began. “We need to plan for the worst-case scenario. She probably was just bluffing but we need to take every precaution possible here. We could reach out to a lawyer—”
“No,” Mom said, voice unbending. She turned the knob and tried to vanish into the darkness of her bedroom. I caught the door before she managed to close it behind her. This conversation wasn’t over just because she’d decided so.
“You try,” Maasi whispered. She patted me on the shoulder and nudged me into Mom’s room, alone.
Dull evening light settled into the room where Mom stood facing the window, clinging to her arms as if to stop herself from shivering. I fumbled for the light switch beside our family portrait. When she turned around, features fully visible, I startled at the sight of her. Her skin was a pale moon. She looked like she was about to be sick.
“Mom, it’s okay! You’re not alone in this.” I reached for her arm to comfort her, but she recoiled, almost reflexively. The rejection stung.
“I am alone.” She shook her head, back against the window. “I’m the only one who’s gonna have to deal with this and the only one who can.”
Seriously? I could’ve banged my head against a wall in frustration. Was Maasi not here, trying her best to help? Did I not even exist? “That’s not the case at all. We’re with you on this. I’m with you on this. If you would just listen to Maasi and talk to a lawyer—”
“—we can’t talk to a lawyer—”
“—and get a different opinion—”
“—we just have to wait it out, Sahaara!” She took a step toward me, anger edging into her voice. “There’s no talking to a lawyer.”
“Why the hell not, Mom?” I hissed, no longer masking my exasperation. “Let’s be real for a second. We’re not ready to file the sponsorship papers—and we won’t be for a long time. Not with the amount of money we’re making. We need to find out what rights you have if Gurinder reports. A lawyer would help—”
“No, Sahaara. A lawyer would not help. Getting a lawyer involved would make things infinitely worse. It could put us in more danger. They could take advantage of—of the situation.”
“That’s not how things work—”
“That is how things work for women like me!” She grabbed my shoulders hard. “Women like me don’t run into strangers who come along and miraculously make everything better. Strangers look at me and wonder what they can take. What benefit they can gain from my suffering. I’m not entrusting my life to some person I don’t know when we’ve done just fine for all these years by keeping quiet.”
“But Gurinder . . .”
“I’ll get back in her good books,” Mom pleaded. “I’ll keep my head down at work. I’ll take her bloody overtime shifts. I’ll watch my tongue when she pushes at me. Please, just trust me. I can handle this.”
financial planning
even if i worked full time
and mom didn’t get fired (or worse)
the sponsorship papers
would still be a distant horizon
mom’s pleading eyes
etched crimson with exhaustion
fluttered in my mind
as i imagined another life:
one that didn’t feel impossible.
dead prez bumped
over my truck speakers
and jeevan sat in the passenger seat
gazing into the darkness
he was quiet just like me
because neither of us knew
what we could do for mom
if she refused to let anyone help
my vibrating phone slivered the silence
i blinked at the message
from a number i knew by heart
even though i’d deleted his name
months ago
tell me why
the nervous fluttering in my stomach
came to rest when he texted
tell me why
i barely heard jeevan when he said
are you gonna tell him off?
tell me why
the anger evaporated
just long enough for me to do
exactly what i’d promised myself
i wouldn’t
of course, i responded to sunny.
my mind was a whirlpool
and i was drowning
sunny was back
and my heart was already thawing
for a boy who was only good
at goodbyes
mom was in danger
sitting in the sharp-toothed mouth
of an entire world that was ready
to swallow her whole
and i was a day away from university
wondering now more than ever
whether art school was
a catastrophic mistake
there was no way
to breathe out all this
anxiety.
a series of collisions in the parking lot
Raindrops gathered on the windshield as I waited for Mom outside the train station. Of all the joys my driver’s license had bought, the greatest was being able to help her get around. I always felt like shit when she had to wait for the bus in the rain.
Over the radio, Billie Eilish bemoaned her fickle ex-lovers and my fingers itched for my phone, but I refused to text Sunny first. As if on cue, my phone vibrated. It was Jeevan.
Jeevan: How u feeling?
Sahaara: I don’t know, honestly. Just trying not to think about everything.
Sahaara: My stomach is still in knots, though.
Jeevan: ☹
Jeevan: Like I said, we’re gonna figure this out together. Right now, just try to breathe?
Sahaara: Trying.
The truth was, no matter what—or who—I tried to distract myself with, nothing was working. Last Friday was red and raw in my mind. Maasi had sounded so sure that Gurinder wouldn’t call immigration, that she wouldn’t put her own business at risk just to get back at Mom. But the odds, however favorab
le, weren’t enough to settle my stomach. Over the past days, I had tried to distract myself with a sketch or a new painting or a deep dive into a poetry book. The maelstrom of anxiety would only settle momentarily, though, stronger than any stupid idea about grounding.
Sahaara: Honestly, that aunty is so ridiculous. Who threatens to report an undocumented person just because they’re mad about biryani?
Jeevan: Yup. So dumb. My mom knows her too. She said she just runs her mouth a lot. I wouldn’t stress.
Sahaara: I know. But still. It just makes me so fkn angry that she would say something like that to my mom. Like someone else’s life is a joke.
A part of me wanted to cry, but Mom would be out of the station any minute. The last thing she needed right now was the sight of me sobbing over all this. I changed the subject.
Sahaara: Anyways . . . don’t kill me but I hung out with Sunny.
Jeevan: . . .
Sahaara: He asked how you were doing
Jeevan: Lol. Did he bother asking how *you* are?
Sahaara: :/
Jeevan: Idk Sahaara. You already know what it is with him. But you do what you want.
Sahaara: What’s that supposed to mean?
Jeevan: I’m sorry . . . that didn’t come out right. I’m half asleep. Can we talk about this tomorrow?
Sahaara: Cool.
Jeevan began to type. Oh god. It was a long message. I could feel irritation swelling within me even though I knew he meant well. I didn’t need a lecture right now. I needed a hug.
As I looked up in exasperation, my breath faltered. The whirring in my head, constantly reminding me of what needed doing, suddenly went silent. Even the butterflies stopped fluttering.
I forgot how to breathe as a uniformed police officer guided my mom into the back seat of his car.
“WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HER?!” came a voice that felt detached from my body. I sprinted across the parking lot as a car slammed its brakes to avoid colliding with me. The sound of his car horn only existed in the distance.
“We have concerns about this woman’s immigration status. We’re holding her until CBSA arrives,” replied the officer, with a voice that was far too calm for the moment that was shattering my world. Head downturned, Mom wouldn’t look at me. I wasn’t sure if it was because of pride or shame. In Mom’s case, it might have been the same thing.