The Thunder Beneath Us

by Nicole Blades

  “What did you believe?”

  Fatima keeps her eyes on mine, but says nothing for a long while, maybe sixty seconds of complete quiet. I notice a twitch, left side, just above her top lip and rippling up to the bottom of her nostril. The movements are tiny, but near constant. The silence allows me to zero in on the spasm.

  “I believe that my father was a very scared man,” she says. There are tears gathering at the base of her eyes, but we’re in it and I can’t break now.

  “Scared of what?”

  “Of everything. Of being here lonely, without his wife, trying to move along in a world too fast and foreign. He was scared of losing control of the life that he understood. Losing his children. Life here was like a bright light beaming on us, drawing us away from him daily. He didn’t know how to fight against that light. He didn’t know where to even stand in that light. Instead, he retreated into himself, afraid and unraveled and leaning on these wild, unbalanced ideas about what he needed to do in order to survive it.”

  “It almost sounds like you feel sorry for him. You’re a thoughtful person—I mean, that’s clear—but do you? Feel sorry for him?”

  She pauses.

  “Do you forgive him?”

  Fatima pauses again, but this one isn’t as heavy or long, and the twitch has all but disappeared. “I forgive the man who was my father,” she says.

  “What about the man who tried to kill you—do you feel sorry for him?”

  “I don’t know him,” she says. “I don’t feel anything for that man.”

  Now I’m the quiet one; not sure what to say next. I can’t string anything together to articulate what’s bubbling up in my gut: anger, confusion, sadness, pity. It’s all there, when it shouldn’t be. I want to grab Fatima by her bony shoulders and shake her, remind her of Aliyah, Hafeeza, Mariyah—Christ—even that corrupted brother Majid. How can she forgive all of that, forgive all of those lives snatched from being, so cruel and cold?

  “I know what people think about Islam, about Muslim families like mine,” Fatima says. She’s sitting taller as she speaks, and the frowsy covers are off, piled up at her feet. “I know how the world sees us, but it’s not like that, you know. There’s honor in us, and goodness and decency. The truth is, a Muslim’s faith rests in things like mercy, peace, and forgiveness. I chose to forgive so that I can be free of fear and suffering. I didn’t want to be afraid like him. I didn’t want to carry it around, shackled to my leg, like him. There’s no guilt or terror or shame growing inside. I’m free.”

  I didn’t feel them coming. They were just there, tears, sliding into the corners of my mouth. She’s crying too, but her tears seem happy and light, and she looks relieved. We catch ourselves at about the same time and do that girl-giggle while patting the water away from our eyes with fingertips and backs of hands.

  Fatima smiles at me. “Are you okay?”

  I nod and smile back.

  “Do you want to take a break?” she says, and drops her crushed hat back on top of her head. “I have an idea”—she grins—“we can go outside, to the playground. Who cares about the cold; we don’t have balls, right?”

  CHAPTER 20

  I’ve written fast before, to meet a deadline, to spit out all the details on paper and clear my head of whatever this expert said or that study showed, so I can move on to something else, something more important and preferably not involving a vagina. I’ve stayed up stupid late to write before too, finish the term paper or type my way through a hangover. But I’ve never written like this. Furious, barely blinking, pausing only to briefly smooth away a relentless, thin streak of sweat from the nape of my neck. The sweat wasn’t because of any heat, not the external kind. The hotel room was near freezing and I was wearing a bra and the complimentary, chintzy white-cotton bathrobe wrapped at my waist. This heat was coming from inside. It sounds like a cliché, I know, but it’s the truth. I was burning up, a fire inside of me pushing its way out, blistering my fingertips, singeing everything in its path. This Fatima story was raging through me. I had to get it out, start to finish, and it had to happen immediately.

  It started the minute I left Parveen’s home. I was writing it in my head driving back to the hotel. It got so wild and crazed in there, it all jumbled together and basic skills like concentrating on the road and figuring which gear to shift into were pushed to the darkest back corners, beginning to leak through my ears. I had to pull over at the closest Tim Hortons and pour whatever I could into my notebook. I know how I looked to anyone walking by my car, crying and scribbling, shaking my head and nodding, but I didn’t give a shit. Go eat your doughnut, lady, and leave me be.

  The way I asked the front-desk girl to check me back in, tossing my credit card at her like some spoiled mall rat. Just rude. She cursed at me under her breath, in French too. I heard it, but I didn’t care about that either.

  And let’s not get into the other poor front-desk dude, who I berated into bringing the printed pages up to my room from the business center at two in the morning. You can’t even call it a bark that I unleashed on him for—what I perceived as—having molasses in his ass. Yes, I actually said: Is there molasses in your ass, guy? I know. But I needed those pages like it was life or death, because it was, and it is. My job at James, my overall magazine career is hanging in the balance. I’m thisclose to redeeming myself with Nik, JK, the Singh sisters, Robot, Susie, just everyone with this one story. Surely, had I a spare minute to explain myself to Mr. Slowy McSlowerson, he would understand what all the rudeness and bluster was about. (I did apologize to the guy for the molasses thing, though, and for snatching the stapled stack from his pale hands too. When he returned with the second-edit printout, I gave him forty dollars, plus let him take a generous gander at my boobs each time, since I never bothered to pull the robe up. That peep show alone is atonement by definition. It’s fine. He’ll be fine.)

  Reading my story over and over, the tears come each time, at the same line. I can hear Fatima’s voice, explaining plainly how and why she’s forgiven the man who once was her father. I see her, with her fucked-up hairdo and concaved upper body melding with that droopy couch. She’s somehow pushed her hand through my gut, squeezing my insides and twisting in a way that will leave marks. I can’t shake her, and really, I don’t want to.

  I know Nik will love this story. I do, I know it. But he thinks I’ve gone rogue, a crook committing one of the top three crimes against journalistic integrity. There’s plagiarism and fabrication, and then there’s me, rounding things out with misrepresentation—which I still think is wildly inaccurate.

  He will love this story and he will champion it, get it into the best open space for it to shine. Definitely not in James. They’re too fool for school. No, it’s got to be a more legit pub, one that is all about the big, ambitious deep-dive.

  I attach the polished document to the e-mail and start typing, quickly pounding on the keys before I have a chance to talk myself away from the narrow side of this burning bridge.

  To: Nik Steig

  From: Best Lightburn me@bestlightburn.com

  Subject: BL_Filing: “Forgiving Dr. Jekyll, Forgetting Mr.

  Hyde”

  ____________________

  Dear Nik,

  I know I have much to explain. And I will.

  You believed in me before. Please grant me an extension on that and read the attached Fatima Imam story. This was all possible because of you, because of your kindness and trust. I haven’t wasted any of it. I can’t thank you enough for all of your generosity. Know that I will make it make sense, if you let me.

  Always,

  B.

  I’m open. The thin film that’s been resting on top of everything is gone. I need to keep this going. Another e-mail.

  I include my mother in the salutation, even though I know she won’t ever see it. I was supposed to be back at their house already, and running out—literally—the way I did wasn’t a good look. They’re both worried. I can feel it. At this time
in the morning, my dad is already up reading his international papers and newswires. I keep it brief, skipping limp apologies, sticking to facts instead:

  There was a delay with the assignment. All clear now. I’m at a small hotel near Mississauga. Home on the early AM train tomorrow. Grabbing cab. Please don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about me either.

  Good news: A) Story filed, B) Bringing guava jelly from Nick’s Bakery with me.

  Always,

  B.

  The minute I hit send, her name rings in my head like a bell. If anyone would offer a sympathetic ear right now, it would be her. My office mom—former, anyway. And if things crash and burn with Millhause-Steig, she’ll probably have a couple leads for me too.

  I start tapping away at yet another e-mail.

  Susie!

  Yes, it’s me Best, coming at you from my personal e-mail account (so you know something’s kinda up, right?). I’ve been meaning to get back to you, but it’s been . . . uh, the same at the mag, which you know means it’s borderline batshit over there. Plus, there’s the added “I think I’m already fired” bit topping the deep-dish crap pie like the worst whipped cream ever made. I’ll have to fill you in on the details on all of that in person at a bar. I’m actually in Toronto right now . . . in a faux boutique hotel . . . wearing half a flimsy bathrobe . . . while writing the story of my career. So there’s that.

  Anyway, let’s catch up soonest. I’m sure you’re out doing something fabulous in a city with big lights adding more bright stories to your already brilliant life. Happy, Merry, Joy!

  B.

  Before I could blink away more sleep, I hear the soft chime. The flickering in my heart stops when I see the reply is from Susie. I feel silly that I actually thought for a half-second that it was Nik writing me back, telling me he still believes in me and that my story ironed out all the knots between us and that it was okay to come home again. I know. It’s like: Get some sleep, Lightburn; your dreams are seeping out.

  To: me@bestlightburn.com

  From: Susie

  Subject: WHAAATTTT???!!!!

  WHAT IN THE HOT HELL IS GOING ON?? Forget the bar, I’m calling you now. Up with the dogs. Answer your phone!

  SDW

  I turn on my cell and put it back on the desk faceup. I’m ready to talk to Susie. The rest of the world can keep waiting.

  CHAPTER 21

  Montreal

  My mother doesn’t like driving. She’s been riding shotgun in every car for the last seventeen years. She doesn’t like waiting. Be on time or be left behind, that’s one of her top three rules of life. From all that I’ve gathered, my mother barely likes me. Her ovaries force her to tolerate me. So walking out of the train station and seeing her sitting there in the driver’s seat of my dad’s car waiting, I’m immediately worried.

  “Mum? Are you all right? Where’s Dad?”

  She waits for me to close the car door before she loosens her grip on the steering wheel and looks over at me.

  “I’m glad you reach home safe,” she says. Her voice, like her face, is bare. I wait a beat for her to say something more.

  Nothing.

  I quickly scan her torso, buttoned up tight in her oversized wool coat, searching for a hint, for any clue about the strangeness of her being here with me alone. But even her body language is mute.

  “Is everything okay?” I nod, trying to coax her into doing the same.

  “I don’t want you to panic,” she says. “I have a lot of information to say at once, but if you panic, you won’t hear anything.”

  “Mum, please, just tell me. You’re driving and you’re here to get me. Panic is already with us. Just say it. Where’s Dad?”

  “In the hospital. Montreal General.”

  “What? Oh my God! What happened—is he—”

  “Please don’t start panicking.”

  I’m already crying. It’s too late. She knows that. “Just say it, Mum.” My breathing is choppy. “Is he gone?”

  My mother rushes to touch my arm. Her hand is gloved in black leather and the sleeve of my coat is thick, but I feel it: warmth.

  “Oh, no, no. He’s not. Thanks be to Jesus. He’s not,” she says, gently patting my arm. “He’s stable, but the situation is grave. It’s his liver. All the drink . . . it caught up. There was bleeding in the esophagus. He passed out yesterday evening and got rushed in by ambulance.”

  “Jesus Christ”—she stops patting me—“I’m sorry; I’m upset, Mum. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s taken me a good while to get here this morning,” she says. “Would you be all right to drive instead?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I can drive. I can do it.” My nose is running and I’m sniffling and gasping like a sick baby as I move to open the door. I feel my mother’s grasp again.

  “Here.” She hands me a handkerchief. It’s white and starch-pressed into a perfect square. I recognize it, the baby-blue swirls of the calligraphy monogram running off toward the bottom right corner. It was Bryant’s. We all had our own handkerchiefs in our own assigned “signature” color. Benjamin’s is forest green, and mine, red.

  I take it from her, but can’t make myself rub snot in it, and instead use my sleeve when I walk around the back of the car to the driver’s side. She went around the front and we meet back inside in our swapped seats.

  “Here,” I say, and push the folded white napkin into her yawning coat pocket. “Thanks, but I didn’t need it.” My breathing starts to steady itself and I adjust the mirrors, strap in, and turn the heat down a little. “I’m not all the way clear on how to get there from here. Can you navigate me, if I start struggling?”

  “Of course I will,” she says.

  I watch her for a handful of seconds—her head is already swiveling, checking my blind spots, clutching her seat belt—and I wish she would reach for my arm again and hold me like that for the rest of the drive.

  There’s a very distinct, disturbing smell that typically wafts through the air of North American hospitals. It crawls into your nostrils, digs into your sinuses, and settles in the minute your foot exits the elevator. Taking the stairs is no way to escape it, either. The stench is stuck to the brick and plaster walls, soaked into the resin flooring. Honestly, if you can get out of life without once ever having to inhale the funky cocktail of sick, sadness, and disinfectant, then you’ve won.

  Aside from the extra-short, older black nurse who greeted my mother by first name and told her she’s saying a prayer for us all, we get to my father’s room quickly and with no interaction or detours. He’s awake, reclined to less than 45 degrees, and looking over at the neighboring empty bed. Except for his swollen belly protruding through the sheets, he’s so very thin. He looks exposed and frail, like a bug caught without its hard shell. I don’t want to cry, but have nothing else to offer.

  “Go on in. He’s up,” my mother says—another soft touch, this time to the top of my back. “He knows I went for you. He’s there waitin’.”

  I rush in to him, throw my arm wildly around his neck and shoulder and squeeze. It’s not until I feel his weak tapping that I realize this hearty hug is not only unusual for us, but also possibly too much for him right now. I peel myself off and make sure to look him in his eyes, bleary as they are, because I want to see him and I want him to see me. With my hand still resting somewhere near his heart, I smile down at him. He attempts one too, but his lips are dry and cracked, especially the bottom one, and it comes across like a grimace.

  “Daddy, are you . . . okay?”

  He blinks but takes a long while before opening his eyes again, and gives me a light nod. “It’s my liver,” he says. It sounds like he’s gargling small stones.

  “Yes, Mum told me,” I say, cutting him off so he doesn’t have to drag more words through the sandpaper in his throat. “She told me about the bleeding and the ambulance. I’m sorry, Dad. I wish I was here when it happened.” My tears are back once again. I let them race down my face, free at last. Miles flashes into my
mind. What would he say about this, this brand of the human condition? It’s not fair. My father is a good man. He doesn’t deserve this; he’s already suffered enough for twelve men. I shove my hand into my pocket for my coins and my heart is no longer beating out of my chest.

  My father inches his hand toward me and drums two fingers—the most agile ones—on the side of the bed. My mother steps out of the corner where she sat too quietly, as if called by way of the Morse code of my father’s finger patter. He turns his head slowly to look at her and she nods. I don’t understand what’s happening despite my front-row seat to this weird show.

  My mother hustles over to the door and closes it. And she’s back by his side in a blink, raising his bed slightly, while I stand here confused. She’s moving so quickly.

  “Your father wanted to talk to you,” she says. He taps the bed with his full hand and winces. “And me too. Me and your father, we both want to talk to you about the plan for tomorrow.”

  “Wait, tomorrow?”

  “Yes, the memorial for your brothers.”

  She says this as if she’s reminding me of something simple and everyday, like I forgot that the recycling goes out tomorrow.

  “Wait, I don’t understand.”

  “Your father and I were talking, before he took sick, and he said instead of having you go to come back in a few weeks, we would just do the ceremony tomorrow. That’s what we were planning.”

  “How are you planning anything when he’s in the hospital? You’re in the hospital, Dad. You’re in the hospital barely able to talk, with a bleeding liver.”

  “My liver ain’t bleeding,” he croaks.