My Firedancer is gone, I remember thinking. Now only fillers remain. Somehow that didn’t panic me. The fillers were my life now.
TWENTY-FIVE
July 2007
“Dearest Faizan,
I completed Soul Searcher!
It took me six years to complete your legacy. I have no more goals, only a little gift left by you, our son and your parting gift that gave me the gift of hope and survival!
He smiles like you. And knows the exact time to cheer me up when I am down. The other day when I came through the door, he took the groceries from me and carried them through the house. It took my breath away. He has your lopsided grin and the same shock of hair, more at the front, a few curls on the sides, straight down his back. He hates having his nails clipped. I sometimes wonder if he isn’t an incarnate of you, not that I ever believed in those things. But I didn’t believe in a lot of things until you left. I still believe that love lives forever. But I learned that loved ones don’t.”
I stopped and studied the tip of my pen. The night air brought in the scent of my freshly planted moghras from the yard. The first thing I did after buying my own home was to plant Arabian and night-blooming jasmines. The curtains danced to the rhythm of the breeze. The news said they had found more bone fragments while clearing a derelict building in New York. The authorities believed they belonged to victims of the World Trade Center attacks. It had kept me awake at nights. How would I react if the call came? It had taken years to piece my life together. How would I explain the situation to Raian?
I looked down again at the letter in front of me.
“Is it possible that through Raian, you have come to fulfill the vow of being with me forever?
I have discovered that there is a simple way of looking at life. One breath, one second at a time. You followed that routine. I never agreed, and I now see the worth in it. Our lives are not ours. The breaths we breathe are on loan; your mother taught me that. When your grief is uncontrollable, wipe away someone else’s tears. It helps you heal quicker, she said. I was not always an eager pupil. I was even hurtful at times, yet she understood and stood by me in her nonjudgmental way. It surprises me how easily love comes to her, as if her heart came in ready-made compartments for all of us. She made me a better parent.
Had you lived, you would have seen that I did many things differently, not always in the manner you’d have liked to see them done, but I did what I could and hope I made the right choices. I hope you will hover over us and laugh and cry with us. Even touch us at times. I always imagined you near me, a dimension away but still closely linked. For me, you will always exist as a wonderful memory, a silent companion. I love you, Faizan.
Arissa”
I opened the wooden box and slid the letter in and looked at the stack of four orange books beside me with a sense of gratification. The wooden statue, Zarek, a gift from Juhi, lay at the top of the pile, still asleep in his steadfast perseverance. Faizan’s legacy had taken many years to finish but it was finally done. Soul Searcher, it said on the cover, inscribed in a giant Zapfino font. At the bottom were two bedraggled children shooting phalsas. The art wasn’t my masterpiece, but it was better than any other work of mine. It stated the author’s name in bold, and at the bottom, in small print, listed me as a coauthor. The photo of Faizan at the back was taken the day of our second anniversary at Green Field Churrascaria. He was wearing a navy blue Dickies knit shirt and his broad grin creased up the skin around his eyes.
It wasn’t a perfect day for a picnic but Juhi and I made the best of the circumstances as we spread a blanket on the wet grass. The park overlooked the Texas Medical Center and offered a clear view of the downtown skyline. It seemed like an ideal place to meet after Raian’s eye appointment. Juhi had come down from New York to visit me with her five-year-old son, Amar, a spirited and chatty child who looked almost Caucasian with his shock of blond hair and true blue eyes.
“Are you sure you’re certain about who the father is?” I had teased Juhi, and she laughed.
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured me. “There are some who don’t think he’s mine either.”
I admired her. She wore a beige camisole with spaghetti straps that hugged her chest and exposed her big pregnant belly. She had married the man she’d started dating a year after Amar was born and was now expecting child number two.
Amar had begged his mother for an eye patch like Raian’s and was convinced that his playmate was pretending to be a pirate. Juhi finally agreed. There was no easy way to explain a whole lot to a five year old. We sprayed our wriggly pirate kids generously with bug spray. They eyed a rabbit and took off after it, leaving us yelling after them to
be careful.
“They do make our lives complete, don’t they?” sighed Juhi, lying on her back on the blanket.
I lay down beside her and closed my eyes. “I guess so. Sometimes not in the way we imagined. Maybe it’s wrong to see perfection as the key to bliss.”
A kingfisher took off in the distance, and its loud, dry rattle disturbed the calm air just as the afternoon sun decided to hide behind a veil of clouds. I breathed in the sweet scent of the fresh wet earth. It had rained earlier that day. Amidst the hummingbird’s melody and the fragrance of the myrtle trees, I heard a full-throttled laugh. I looked up to see a woman in a headscarf and a tall man pass by, the woman’s hands barely touching her companion’s. She turned to us apologetically, embarrassed at the intensity of her joy. I saw my past in her. In my present, I am a century old. Some notions had vacated, some dreams redesigned, thoughts regrouped, new plans drawn. Moments had moved on, echoes lingered, captivated by environs. I heard the thud of the past in my heart, the jingle of the have-beens, and weaved them in deftly with the soft tinkle of the present. After all, sound is what makes life a cheerful place. The unabashed sun shed its cover and shone in its bold splendor if only for a minute as Raian emerged from the bushes and hobbled toward me. He stood directly in my line of vision and held his hand to sign.
“You’re shining, Mama,” he conveyed with a grin.
Signs make the world livable, I thought as I pulled him close. He might not be a product of someone’s saffron dreams but he was definitely the answer to mine.
About the Author
Shaila Abdullah is an award-winning Pakistani-American author whose work focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of Pakistani women and their often unconventional choices in life. Her work also deals with the Asian experience in America, the conflict between the two worlds and the culture of her adopted country.
Abdullah received a Hobson Foundation grant for Saffron Dreams. Her debut book, Beyond the Cayenne Wall, is a collection of stories about Pakistani women struggling to find their individualities despite the barriers imposed by society. The collection won the Norumbega Jury Prize for Outstanding Fiction and the DIY Festival Award, among other accolades.
Abdullah was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1971. She has published several short stories, articles, and essays for various publications, including Women’s Own, She, Fashion Collection, Sulekha, and Dallas Child. She is a seasoned print, web, and multimedia designer as well. Abdullah lives with her family in Austin, Texas and is a member of the Texas Writers’ League.
More information about the author and her work is available on her website at www.shailaabdullah.com.
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