by Carrie Arcos
My head is now throbbing, and I hope the pain medication I just took will kick in soon. Anything to dull my senses, to put out the fire on my back and the ache in my bones.
I turn over on my stomach and click on the TV. Every channel is focused on the bombings. The headline ISIS CLAIMING RESPONSIBILITY IN JULY 3 ATTACKS ACROSS U.S. crawls across the bottom of the screen. The number of casualties has risen from the initial eighteen to thirty-six. There’s footage of people running for cover. The smoky haziness after. Children crying. Why do they always show children crying? When a reporter interviews a woman who lost her sister, I change the channel. I need a distraction, something that doesn’t require me to think. I search until I find The Princess Bride. Classic.
Then there’s a knock on my door.
“Yeah?”
Aunt Evelyn opens it. She’s already in her pink pj top and bottoms. Her brown hair in a high ponytail. She looks like she could pass for my sister instead of Dad’s.
“You left this downstairs.” She places my camera on my desk.
“Oh. Thanks.” I can see the smudgy lens, the dent on the side, the dirty strap from here. It looks too heavy to hold.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just going to watch this until I fall asleep.”
She nods. “I’ll be in the guest room if you need me.”
“Okay,” I say. She closes the door.
My phone rings. It’s Audrey.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Hey. How are you doing?” She says it in this too soft, too sweet, overly concerned way that makes me upset.
“I’m alive.”
“Want me to come over?”
I don’t really know what I want. Part of me wants her here. The other part wants to hide from everyone. So I say, “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Okay. How’s your mom?”
I sigh. “Still in a coma. My dad’s at the hospital now.”
“Holy shit, Zara. I can’t believe it. I mean, if you had been right next to her, then . . .” Her voice breaks a little, and she’s crying.
I know I should feel sad too, but right now, I don’t feel anything.
“It’s just so crazy,” she says. “What did we do? Why would someone want to kill people like that? I don’t understand it. Did you know Christine was there with her family too?”
“I didn’t, no.”
Christine is an amazing tennis player, like, on her way to Wimbledon. But she’s more Audrey’s friend than mine.
I wonder if anyone else I know was at the market. I don’t remember seeing anyone, but the details are fuzzy; it’s hard to remember much of anything. Anything except those damn yellow shoes.
“Yeah, she was hurt too, but I don’t know the details. I’m just so glad you’re okay,” Audrey is saying. “Oh my gosh, I completely forgot, how’s Benny?”
“He’s fine. Sleeping.” And I’m suddenly so tired that, as much as I love Audrey, I don’t feel like talking to her right now. “Actually, it’s really late. I should probably . . . go.” My brain’s fighting to find the words.
“Okay. My mom is going to make you guys some food for a few days. And she wants me to make sure you know you can come here too. If you want to. And I’m not leaving for my dad’s until next week. I told him I need to be here for you. So I’m around if you need anything.”
My eyes water. “Thanks.”
“Of course. You’re my best friend. Love you, Z.”
“Bye,” I say.
By the time Buttercup pushes the Dread Pirate Roberts down the big hill and she hears the familiar refrain, “As you wish . . .” and realizes he is actually her long-lost love, Westley, I am overtaken by a sudden wave of nausea. I almost don’t make it to the bathroom. I throw up everything until my nose and throat are burning. Then I flush the toilet and lie down on the floor. But soon I feel another attack coming on, and I’m dry heaving into the toilet.
A pair of hands pulls my hair back off my face.
“Zara, poor baby,” Aunt Evelyn says.
She helps me to my feet. I take the small cup of mouthwash she places in my hands and rinse out my mouth.
“Come on. Let me help you get back in bed.”
I walk with Aunt Evelyn down the hall and into my room. The last thing I remember is her humming something and playing with my hair.
July 4
I WAKE UP in the dark. The clock on my nightstand reads 3:15. That must mean in the morning. I move slowly because everything hurts. The gauze covering my wound sticks to my back like a wet towel. I wince as I free it from the dried blood, or maybe it’s pus from the wounds on my back. When I sit up, my head spins. Whatever Dad left for me to take was powerful stuff. My throat is raw from throwing up.
I check my phone, and there’s a text from Dad saying for me to call if I need to. I text him instead because it’s so late and he may be sleeping.
A text immediately returns to me.
Glad you got some sleep. Sitting here with Mom. No change, but we are confident about her recovery. You feeling okay? Take one of the painkillers if it is too much, but make sure you eat something first.
No kidding, I say.
Rest easy. Be home soon. Love you.
I walk to my parents’ room, quietly. The bed hasn’t been made. Mom would never leave her room like this: half the covers on the floor, dirty clothes in a pile by the bed, drawers slightly open with their contents peeking out. In his hurry, Dad must have frantically packed a bag.
Something about the messy sheets, the way they stare at me, defying my mom’s cleanliness, bothers me. I make the bed, even though every movement is accompanied by pain. I place all her little pillows in a row, exactly how she does it every morning. I also pick up the clothes and shut the drawers. I sit down on the bed and look around the room. Better.
The jewelry box on her dresser catches my eye. A couple of her necklaces are sticking out like someone was riffling through it. Maybe Dad was searching for something. I can’t imagine Mom leaving them that way. I get up and begin putting the pieces back inside. One of them is my favorite necklace of hers, a choker with black stones—the one she never lets me wear. I start to put it on, but I catch my reflection in the mirror. There are cuts and scrapes and a large bruise that’s formed on my right temple. I lift the bandage.
That can’t be my face.
I touch my skin lightly. My upper cheek is all swollen and red with a large gash. I must have done a face-plant while falling. Fuzzy images return to me, a severed leg, Benny coughing and looking up at me, Mom lying unconscious, a child crying . . . I push them away. I don’t want to think about that right now.
I leave the mirror and open my parents’ closet, step into Mom’s side. All her clothes are neatly hung and organized. Her shoes all perfect in their racks. I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly. Maybe something beyond the cleanliness and order. Something that might tell me who she is.
There are several boxes way up on the highest shelf of the closet. I grab a chair and stand on it. The pain in my shoulders and back is intense, but I struggle through and carefully pull one down. The first box is full of sweaters, clothes for the winter. I put it down and look through another one, moving slowly. This one has paperwork in it, some forms and bills. I open another, and there are tons of soaps and bath oils. It’s a little hard to manage, and my back is killing me, but I shove that box aside and notice a small, pretty red one deep in the closet. There’s a thread tied around a knob on the lid, so I unwind it and lift it off gently. I sit with the box on the bed.
A small brown bear lies on his back looking up at me. He’s dirty and smells like ash. Underneath him are papers. Many sheets of lined paper like from a college-ruled notebook. The tabs have been picked off. They look like letters, I think, with a salutation at the top of the page—Draga Mama, Dragi Benjamin, Dragi Marko, etc. and Mom
’s name at the bottom. I pull one out and try to read it, but it’s in Bosnian. They all appear to be in Bosnian.
What I spy underneath the letters makes my breath catch. There are dozens of old photographs. My heart races, but I flip through them slowly, careful with the edges, studying the faces. In many of them the only person I recognize is my mom. They must be pictures of her family—of my grandparents and uncle. I’ve never seen these people before.
Mom is so young. Her hair is long, all one length and without bangs, not the layered look she has now. In one photo, she and her parents and brother are standing together on a bridge with what looks like a river underneath and a little town on both sides of the hills. Mom doesn’t look happy to be there; I know her irritated face. I smile, seeing it already there when she was a teenager.
There’s another photo with her and a boy sitting together. His arm is around her. I turn it over and read Nadja and Marko ’92. Mom would have been about sixteen or seventeen. The guy she’s with is really cute—medium-length dark, shaggy hair, that ’90s grunge kind of style. He’s got deep brown eyes. I wonder who he is.
Behind that is another photo of my mom; she looks about the same age as in the last one. The shot is of her standing in front of a large bridge. I think it’s the same one from the family photo. There’s a river to one side of her. On the bank is a single weeping willow just slightly out of focus. Her mouth is wide open in the middle of a laugh. Her hands are reaching toward the camera, like she’s trying to tell the person who is taking the photo to stop. She’s wearing a red scarf and beanie. She looks so happy. Nadja ’92 Love Marko is scrawled on the back.
I feel like I’ve just discovered the greatest treasure, and it makes me both sad and angry. I hold the photo of a family I never knew. How could she keep them from us? Since I’ll never meet them, I would have loved to at least know what my grandparents looked like. I stare at them. Mom looks like her dad, but she’s the same height as her mom. Her mom is pretty, with brown hair swept up on top of her head. It looks like the photo was taken on a warm day. They’re all in T-shirts and jeans. Mom’s brother, my uncle, is making a goofy face, like he’s purposely messing up the photo. It’s totally something Benny would do.
I want to ask Mom about them, about where she grew up, about her life before the war. But now . . . what if I don’t get the chance?
I study the picture some more. I try to pull out a smell or sound or texture, but I can’t. All I get is a feeling of immense loss that surprises me with its intensity. After all, I never knew them.
I keep searching through the box, and I find prayer beads, a small bottle filled with some dirt. There’s also a silver necklace with a glass heart at the end. Inside is a dried petal of some kind. What is it about these items that made them special enough to keep?
There’s a Superman comic, too, the pages worn like it’s been read over and over. Last, hiding underneath the comic, is a small sketchbook whose cover has drawings of superheroes like Spider-Man and the Hulk. It says Imovina Benjamin—Ne dirajte! and inside it’s filled with more drawings. Some heroes I recognize, many I don’t. I flip to the end, where there are sketches of men with shaggy hair and beards holding guns. I close it, suddenly afraid and unsure if I should be looking at all these things.
I knew Benny was named after Mom’s brother, Benjamin, but seeing something he owned, something he created, makes him come alive in a whole new way. Did they call him Benny too? The name suddenly becomes infused with greater meaning. The whole box does. If my Benny had died in the bombing, would I have kept artifacts from his life? His action figures? The Lego TIE Fighter he just finished building? Photos from my shoot of him the other day?
What if those pictures were the last I took of him? They seem so inauthentic now. Some imposter’s desperate attempt to make art. I’ll delete them later.
I put everything back where it was, place the lid on top, and walk over to the closet, ready to return the box to the back of Mom’s shelf, when I notice something on the bottom. A tiny little latch. I pull on it gently, and a secret compartment opens. Many precisely folded bills come tumbling out. I count the cash—two thousand five hundred dollars. Why is she keeping all this money hidden?
Why does anyone hide cash? What is she planning? Or did she steal it?
I don’t know what to think, but I feel uneasy somehow.
I refold the cash and put it back where I found it, tying the ribbon around the outside exactly like my mom had it. Then I place the box on the top shelf of the closet.
My head is spinning. I feel like I’ve just peeked over the cliff of some great abyss I didn’t know existed, and I don’t know if I want to venture into it.
It’s all too exhausting to deal with, so I pull back the freshly made covers of my parents’ bed and slowly sink underneath. The sheets smell like my mom, like the perfume she wears. I try to go back to sleep, but every time I close my eyes, the few images I can recall from the farmers market—the ones I keep trying to block out—parade behind my eyelids. The severed leg. The blood. My mother being pulled, lifeless, from underneath the rubble. Benny’s terrified face. The little girl crying on the news.
The longer I lie here, the stronger the images grow, so I get up and walk to the kitchen. I’m nervous that if I don’t eat, I’ll get sick again. But I’m also nervous that if I do eat, I’ll get sick. My stomach growls. There’s Chinese food leftovers in the fridge, but I don’t feel like eating them, so I decide to make some blueberry waffles. I tie Dad’s apron around my waist and get to work, which basically means I just measure some waffle mix, pour it into a bowl, add water and stir. I add the blueberries after the mixture has set in the waffle maker, just like Dad showed me, and close the lid.
While I’m waiting for the waffle to be done, the front door opens and Dad walks in. He leans one arm on the wall while he removes his shoes, his head resting in the crook of his arm, unaware that I’m watching him. He looks even more tired than before.
“Hi, Dad,” I say, worried what emotion he’ll let show on his face if he thinks he’s alone.
“Oh, Zara,” he says, startled. “You’re still up?”
I shrug. “Couldn’t sleep. You want some waffles?”
“Yes, actually. That sounds really good.”
He walks to the liquor cabinet and pours himself some vodka and tonic in a small clear glass and then joins me in the kitchen. He sits at the table, sipping his drink.
“How are you feeling? How’s your back?”
I don’t tell him about my reaction to the pain meds. I don’t want to give him something else to worry about.
“I’ll live.”
“Let me check your face.” He peeks underneath the bandage and pulls away, giving me a sad smile. I feel my heart crack.
“Why don’t you keep it covered for now until it heals some more.”
The light turns red, a sign that the waffle is done. I open it up and see a perfectly cooked waffle. I set it on a plate, grab the syrup and put both in front of Dad.
“Thank you. Mmm. Whoever taught you how to make waffles? He’s the best.”
“Ha.”
I prepare another waffle for myself and watch for the red light.
“How’s Mom?” I ask.
A small sigh. “The same.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means her body needs more time to recover. She’s going to be okay.”
He takes a drink. I stare at the waffle maker.
“She’s going to be okay,” he says again. But I’m not sure if he says it for his benefit or mine.
After a few minutes, the light turns red. Another perfect, crisp brown waffle. I put it on a plate and join Dad at the table.
He reaches over and places his hand on mine, and we hold hands while we eat.
I consider telling him about the small red box I found in Mom’s closet. B
ut what if he doesn’t know about it? Would he be upset to learn that she’s kept whole parts of herself hidden from him too? Even so, Dad knows more about Mom than anyone. I know the basics from when I did that school project, but this feels more urgent. I need to know more. And if there’s anyone who can tell me what I need to know, it’s him.
“Dad, what happened to Mom in the war?”
He breathes in deeply. “I’ve told you.”
“Not really. Just bits and pieces. Please?”
He finishes his drink.
“Please.”
He sighs. “I don’t know everything. She’s mainly spoken about her time in Sarajevo. When she lived there and it was under siege.”
“How did that happen again?”
“What—the siege?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s complicated. But basically, Sarajevo is located in a deep valley, and the Bosnian-Serb-controlled army surrounded the city. They wouldn’t let anyone in or out. It would be like if our military suddenly cut off Rhode Island from the rest of the country.”
I nod like I can imagine it, even though I can’t.
“Sarajevo didn’t have electricity, water, gas. No food. At the same time, they were continually shelled, bombed and shot at. It was very dangerous. Even though the United Nations was there. Mom called them the Useless Nations, among other things.” He smiles.
“What about before Sarajevo?” I ask. The photo of her family comes to the front of my mind. “Like where she grew up?”
“Well, she’s from Višegrad, a town in eastern Bosnia, near the border of Serbia.”
“Did she tell you what happened in Višegrad?”
He shakes his head. “Not in detail. I only know that she lost her whole family.”
“It’s crazy. Just because they were Muslim?”
“I know. It would be like if you were out walking around in Providence and someone asked what your name was, and then just by your last name, you could be taken away and put in a concentration camp or killed. Zara Machado would make you Portuguese, a Catholic, so if the government turned against Catholics, you would be seen as a threat.”