Jessica tabbed the cursor from column to column on the spreadsheet. Consignment. Donate. Keep. She marked the last column and closed the laptop. Then she folded the quilt carefully and set it across the arm of the chair.
JESSICA pulled into the driveway with a car full of groceries just as the kids were arriving home.
“Great timing, guys!” Jessica opened the trunk invitingly.
Mikey and Cricket hauled in as many bags as they could carry, while Conor made a show of turning off his car, checking the mirrors, collecting bits of trash, opening and closing his trunk, and walking ever so slowly over to Jessica’s car.
She handed Conor a gallon of milk and a gallon of orange juice. “You think you can handle these? I don’t want to overburden you.” The insincerity dripped from her voice like the condensation dripped from the gallon jugs.
Conor wordlessly took the jugs and walked toward the house as Mikey ran out to get another load.
Back in the kitchen, Mikey and Cricket competed in telling Jessica about their day and their weekend plans.
“We’re studying continents, and I got Australia, which is really cool because I love koalas, so I get to include them in my presentation.” Mikey had his arm up to his elbow in a bag of potato chips. Gracie sat patiently at his feet, awaiting the inevitable cascade of oily crumbs. “Did you wash my soccer uniform? I need it for the tournament this weekend.”
Cricket grabbed an opening when Mikey shoved a handful of chips into his mouth. “Mom, Mrs. Harriman is so mean! She made Ella cry today.” Her eyes widened with incredulity. “It made me so mad. But it is AP,” she conceded. “So Ella should have known there would be a lot of homework. I’m so glad I don’t have a swim meet this weekend. I have to work on a paper applying Machiavelli’s The Prince to a contemporary ruler. I haven’t even picked out my ruler yet.”
Without thinking, Jessica offered, “Bashar al-Assad.” She’d gone from not being able to find Syria on a map to having its dictator at the top of her mind for trivia.
Cricket twisted her mouth and looked up at the ceiling, considering the suggestion. “He did choose to have people fear him rather than love him, but he didn’t manage to avoid the people hating him part. Thanks, Mom. Good idea.” The kids were a little more in tune with world events than Jessica had been at their age, perhaps more than she was even now.
Mikey ran off, yelling something about going outside to play basketball, while Cricket wandered out of the room, glued to her phone. She was no doubt messaging with her AP class about how mean Mrs. Harriman had been today.
That left Conor, who was making a sandwich but was probably wishing he had snuck out ahead of his brother and sister instead. These one-on-one moments had been precious bonding times when he was five or eight, but now they felt tinged with the desperation of a mother who could see a door still ajar but couldn’t get to it before it closed.
“So... how are things going with you?” Jessica was fishing, buying time.
Conor wasn’t biting. “Fine.”
“Classes going okay? Do you like your teachers? How is that photography elective? Do you get to do a project on koalas?” Perhaps levity would hold the door open.
He probably rolled his eyes, but since he refused to make eye contact, it was impossible to know.
Jessica could feel the cords in her neck pull taut as she clenched her jaw and held back the words she wanted to say—that she was his mother, goddammit, and he couldn’t continue to ignore her. Instead, she kept her tone calm, imagining how a therapist would speak. “You don’t want to talk? Okay. But you didn’t finish up the last school year in stellar fashion.” Maybe a therapist wouldn’t have made a negative comment like that, but it wasn’t a secret that Conor’s grades had fallen second semester. They hadn’t fallen by too much, but he’d received a few low B’s that would have been A’s had he put in his regular efforts. His teachers’ reports on his classroom apathy were what had signaled a potential downward trend.
Conor finally eyed her with what looked like disdain.
“If you need help, just let your dad or me know. We’re here for you. No judgment.” That was what a therapist would say. “We were teenagers. We know what it’s like.”
Conor exhaled sharply through his nose, a condescending message that she was too far removed from today’s reality to comment.
She took a stabilizing breath, inhaling so much that she shuddered as she over-filled her lungs. “Whatever it is, school, sports, girls—”
He threw his head back as if it were a trunk lid on a hinge. “God, Mom. Everything is fine.” He grabbed his sandwich and stomped out of the kitchen.
Jessica stood impotent in the middle of the room. Maybe it wasn’t that she was too slow to reach the door to her son. Maybe she was taking the wrong path. They had hardly seen him over the summer. Danny had offered him a summer internship position at Binnacle. It would have looked great on his college applications. But the kid who used to want to spend every waking hour with his dad—hell, he’d wanted to be his dad—had decided he would rather sell tickets at the movie theater all summer.
“He’s got to find his own way,” Danny had said. If he’d been hurt by the rejection, he’d given no indication. “And he still has basketball.”
In any case, Conor had spent the summer working the two o’clock-to-ten o’clock shift, sleeping late, and coming out of his room only for sustenance.
Jessica agreed that Conor needed to find his own way, but it had better be the right way. She didn’t like the way she was seeing right now but didn’t have a clue as to how to direct him. Her arms hung heavy with the powerlessness of that realization. Basketball season couldn’t come soon enough to inject some discipline, structure, and social life back into Conor’s world.
“Lamb?” Danny must have come in the back door just after Conor left the room. Jessica turned to see him holding a meat-department package that he had pulled out of one of the grocery bags.
“Yeah, I know. Weird, huh? Thought I’d try something new this week. You know me, crazy kitchen adventuress.” Jessica waved her hands in mock wackiness, her heavy arms protesting the farce.
“Sounds good.” Danny moved toward her with a mischievous gleam in his eye. “I like when you’re an adventuress, though maybe not in the kitchen so much as elsewhere.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her on the neck. “Sorry I’ll miss dinner tonight. I’ve got a conference call and some documents I need to get out. I’ll be in my office. You all set?”
Jessica looked around her own “office.” “All set. I’ll take care of dinner and the kids. You and I can meet up for adventure later, after you’re done with Binnacle stuff.”
“That’s my girl.” He grabbed the newspaper from the table on his way out and lightly whacked it on Cricket’s head as she passed him on her way back into the kitchen.
“You’re back,” Jessica said.
The freckle-faced beauty opened the pantry, foraging for a snack. “Had to get my backpack. I’ve got a ton of homework. We finally got our tests back in world lit, and the scores were so bad that Mr. Harvey decided our current unit will include both a paper and an in-class debate.”
“Based on fifteen years of arguing with your brother—”
“And winning.” The cocky grin that proved she was Danny’s daughter lit up her face.
“Mostly, yes. Based on that, I imagine you’ll do pretty well in a debate.” With feigned nonchalance, Jessica offered, “You know, if you need any help, I am a lawyer. Just sayin’.”
“Got it, Mom. Anyway, I have trig homework and a lab report due in chemistry, plus a ton of reading for lit.”
Cricket arranged a tidy plate of pretzels, carrot sticks, and hummus then put everything away. If only Jessica could get the boys to do that.
“Hey, Crick. Before you head upstairs, I want to show you something I found in one of Oma’s boxes. I don’t think the boys will be terribly interested, but you might. It’ll just take a minute.” Jessica g
rabbed her laptop and led Cricket to the parlor, then she handed her daughter the handwritten note that came with the quilt.
Cricket started reading the note out loud. The honors student was suddenly a first grader, sounding out each word phonetically. “Enclosed is an an... an... What’s this word?”
Jessica grabbed the note, sighing. Damn schools didn’t teach cursive writing anymore. “Antique. It means really old.”
Cricket rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, Mom. I know what antique means.”
Jessica waved her off. “Enclosed is an antique quilt.” Jessica read the full note aloud while Cricket lifted the quilt from the chair.
“What’s a flour-sack dress?” Cricket fingered a quilt square of bright red with white stars.
“I had to look it up myself. Apparently, flour used to come in big cloth bags, not paper sacks like we have now. Women used the cloth bags to make dresses and aprons. Can you imagine?” They gaped at each other in mock horror. “The flour companies were smart, though. They started making the sacks out of colorful prints. Your great-great-grandma made all of Oma’s dresses out of different flour sacks. And here they are.”
Cricket touched one square after another, hopscotching across the quilt. Jessica steered Cricket’s finger to a square of cornflower blue covered with white trellises and red poppies.
Jessica opened her laptop. “Look at this. It’s Oma as a little girl. I pulled this photo from her obituary page.” She showed Cricket a faded black-and-white photo of a pigtailed girl holding a basket full of kittens. The little girl wore a dress covered with white trellises and poppies.
Cricket’s eyes sparkled in the lamplight. “This square is from that dress! That is so cool. Good thing flour comes in paper bags now. I wouldn’t want to wear a flour-sack dress you made... or any dress you made. No offense.” She frowned, her eyebrows pulling together.
“You’d better be nice to me, Crick, or I may just make your prom dress all by myself. In fact”—Jessica picked up the quilt—“this looks like just enough fabric—”
Cricket grabbed the quilt from Jessica. “No! Mine!” She hugged the quilt to her chest. “Can I have it?”
It had been in a box for who knew how long, and Cricket’s pleading eyes could win Jessica over any day. “Yes. I think Oma would have liked that. Just, please, be careful with it. No food, pop, whatever.” Jessica remembered the marshmallows on the floor. “And keep it away from Mikey.”
Cricket rolled her eyes. “I know, Mom. It will be fine. I love it.” She wrapped the quilt around herself and tromped up the stairs toward her bedroom.
“Thanks, Oma.” Jessica was not completely helpless with her teens after all. She knew she could find a way to reach Conor. She just needed to keep looking.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jessica arrived early at the coffee shop and sat at a table by the window farthest from the entrance. This time her coffee would have time to cool, but she already regretted her decision to go with decaf.
It had been hard to schedule a follow-up meeting with Amina. First, there was something about a lost phone. Then Sama went on bed rest, so not only had Amina’s hours at the restaurant increased, but so had demands at home. Today, Amina had the lunch shift off, so the two should be able to have a productive meeting.
On the up side, the delay had given Jessica a few extra days to scour those binders and learn more about immigration technicalities and how the intricacies of asylum law might be applied in this specific case. She had printed out and read the entire USCIS Asylum Officer Basic Training Course, and she had an empty ink cartridge and achy eyes to prove it. She’d read case law online and had tagged relevant passages and opinion summaries for future reference. When it was all said and done, she figured she could probably substitute for an asylum officer in a pinch and do a pretty good job at checking the boxes, judging credibility, and applying the law.
Danny had taken notice of the efforts, finding her in the dining room, working through some recent guidance Rosalie had sent. “Looks like you’re back in law school, hon. Didn’t they teach you this stuff in training? Or are you off on one of your ‘do more than I need to do’ tangents?”
Jessica felt vulnerable surrounded by the open binders and piles of papers, not to mention the boxes from Oma that still encroached on the space, and Danny’s subtly mocking tone put her on the defensive.
“Okay, Captain, imagine if I took an introductory ‘How to Sail’ webinar without stepping foot on a boat.”
Danny smirked. He knew she hated sailing.
“Right, I know. That’ll be the day. Anyway, just say I did. Would I be able to jump on a J-22 with an inexperienced crew and make it to the bay? Would I even be able to make it out of the harbor?” Jessica acknowledged Danny’s comical look. “Of course not. So in this situation, it’s like I read the materials from a training session months ago, and now I’m finally on the boat. And even though I read about what to do with which rope—”
“Line,” Danny corrected, “not rope.”
“Right! Exactly my point! Even though I learned that it’s called a ‘line’ and I read what I’m supposed to do with it, now that I’m on the boat, I just see a bunch of ropes. I know I can sail this boat eventually, but I’m going to have to be very deliberate about learning while I’m sailing.”
He had nodded sagely, no longer mocking her. “Just remember that it’s not always about simply knowing what’s in the book. Sometimes, you have to go with your instincts.”
This morning, looking ruefully at the closed folder resting on the coffee-shop table in front of her, Jessica’s instinct was telling her she’d better not sink this boat.
The front door jingled, and the draft from the door opening sent the rich, dark smells of fifty varieties of coffee beans swirling around the tables. Sneering at the decaf in front of her, Jessica inhaled the aroma, hoping somehow to absorb some caffeine as Amina approached the table.
After again rejecting Jessica’s offer of a drink or pastry, Amina positioned her chair a bit away from the table, as though she were attempting to make it clear that she was not joining in any coffee klatch. Or maybe she was ensuring the ability to depart quickly.
Jessica pulled Amina’s asylum application from the folder and set it next to a yellow legal pad displaying a handwritten checklist for today’s meeting. “I’m so glad you were able to meet me. I’m sure those boys are a handful. Is Sama doing well?”
“Yes.”
“Are you working at the restaurant every day now?”
“Yes.”
Those questions weren’t on the checklist, and they weren’t helping to ease into the discussion they needed to have. Amina’s dark stare, coupled with her body positioning, telegraphed an intent not to get comfortable. Amina was clearly not interested in small talk, but Jessica wanted to develop some level of comfort, if only for herself. She would pivot.
“I really did enjoy my lunch at Bathanjaan. I know I told you that already. But did I tell you I tried to make my own kibbeh?” Jessica inferred from the look on Amina’s face that either she hadn’t mentioned it or Amina simply didn’t care, or both. She wouldn’t tell Amina what a disaster it had been. Actual sea slugs in a milky sea would have been better.
Pivot. “I haven’t asked you, what else do you like to do? When you aren’t working or helping the Darbi family, that is.”
“I am very busy.” Amina’s raised eyebrows and pursed lips indicated this was not an answer but rather a statement of the current situation.
Jessica needlessly shuffled the papers and picked up her pen. She would just work her way through the asylum application. She handed Amina the copy that Amina had left behind at their last meeting.
“Can you check through the first two pages of this and make sure the information is still accurate?” The first and second pages were full of identifying information about Amina and her missing husband. The third page asked for information about children. Amina had left that page blank.
Amina t
icked off each entry on the application, one by one. She paused about three-quarters of the way down the first page before checking the section off and moving on. Jessica glanced at the duplicate form in front of her. List each entry into the US, beginning with your most recent entry. Amina had visited the US twice before, when she was school-aged. It was long enough ago that it wasn’t likely to raise eyebrows with the USCIS, but something about it struck a note with Amina.
After checking the last completed block on page two, Amina looked up at Jessica. “Everything is still accurate.” She raised an eyebrow. “I did tell you that last time.”
Jessica forced herself not to sound defensive. “Yes, I understand. But it’s important to make sure we take note of anything that changes. I will ask you to go through and check again before you go in for your interview. Can you check page four as well?” That page asked for places of residence, education, employment, and immediate family.
Tick, tick, tick. After checking the boxes by family members whose whereabouts were marked “Unknown” and by the sibling marked “Deceased,” Amina set down her pencil. Her mouth opened slightly, but she didn’t say anything for a moment. Her impatience won out over her reticence to speak, though. “It is all accurate.”
Unfortunately, now they had to get into the horribles. What horrible things happened to your family? What horrible things happened to your friends? What horrible things happened to you? What horrible things will happen to you if you return?
Jessica had thought this through ahead of the meeting. She was not a therapist. She would go at this dispassionately. Questions needed to be asked, and she would ask them. She would check off one item and move to the next, marching through the horribles but not stopping to stare.
She took a slow sip of her coffee. Her racing heartbeat assured her that she hadn’t needed the caffeine after all and that it might be hard to stay dispassionate. She scanned the room. The two of them were tucked away in the corner, alone in the shop save for the barista, who took advantage of the downtime to restock the bagged coffee.
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