Drita, My Homegirl

by Jenny Lombard

“Sorry, Daddy,” I tell him. Out of his pocket he pulls a clean handkerchief so I can blow my nose.

  “Now, tell me, if you were in the middle of this situation now—what could you do differently?” he asks, when I’m done.

  “Nothing,” I tell him.

  “Think, Maxie,” is all he says. So I do.

  “Well. I guess I could have run and gotten a grown-up,” I say after a minute. “I could have told them what Brandee was doing. But then Drita would have gotten beat up.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not. That’s true. But if you hit someone, that only make it worse.”

  “So, I should just stand by and watch it happen?”

  “No. You’ve got to think of some other way to make Brandee stop.”

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “Not impossible. Just hard.”

  “Okay, then. Very, very, very hard.”

  “Yes. It is very, very, very hard to walk away from a fight when you know you’re right. But that’s what you have to do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the only way to stop the fighting. Between two people or between two armies for that matter. One side has to stop and say ‘we won’t do this anymore.’”

  “And let Drita get her butt kicked?”

  “If that’s what it takes. Because you know what? We’ve got laws for people who act like Brandee. What’s the consequence in your school for hitting?”

  “Losing your recess time for two weeks. Plus they call your house.”

  “Then that’s the law. The law of the school yard. That’s what civilization is all about.”

  It all seems so obvious, but at the same time, so big that I just sit there a moment on my daddy’s lap, thinking about stuff. Finally, my daddy says:

  “Now about Saturday…”

  “Yeah?” I say, holding my breath.

  “You can go,” he says slowly, “but otherwise you’re still grounded. And your grandma has to come with you. Now you better go finish your homework. It’s getting late.”

  I’m not about to argue with that. I put my hand on the doorknob. But then I remember something else I want to say.

  “I’m sorry I was rude to your friend Lisa and her son,” I tell him, and I mean it too. “If you like her, I guess she can’t be that bad.”

  “She isn’t that bad,” he says. “I like her a lot. And I want you to try to like her too.”

  “Okay. I will. And I’m really sorry about her son too,” I say. “I am really sorry for calling him a chump.”

  “That’s all right. Everyone makes mistakes. Even my beautiful daughter,” he says, grinning at me.

  That’s when I notice the T-shirt that he’s got on, the one I gave him for Christmas last year.

  “World’s Best Dad” is written right across his chest. I think to myself, You can say that again.

  23

  DRITA

  WHEN SATURDAY COMES, I am so excited, I wake up too early, at 7:00. Today feels like a special day already because in the kitchen, there is my father, still eating his mëngjez. Usually my father goes to his taxi job when I am still sleeping.

  “Are you ready for your visitor, Drita?” my father says. He is reading an Albanian newspaper, and drinking the thick, brown kafe my grandmother makes.

  “Baba, I feel like it is Ramazan,” I tell him. Ramazan is a holy time for Albanian people. When Ramazan is over, this is the best time for me because I always get too many presents.

  “Silly girl. Eat your breakfast,” my grandmother says. I do not know why she is so grumpy.

  Miss Mirfue arrives just after my father leaves for work.

  “Zot!” she says, coming into the kitchen. “There are too many stairs in your building.” Her breath is hard like someone who is running too much.

  “Do you have it?” says a voice. I turn around and there is my mother standing in the doorway. For the first time in many days, she is wearing regular clothes instead of just a dirty old nightgown.

  “Good morning, Dashi, would you like some breakfast?” my grandmother says, as if there is nothing strange in this, but my mother doesn’t answer her.

  “Do you have it?” she asks again.

  “Here, Dashi,” Miss Mirfue says, holding out an envelope. “Qofsh mirë!” For good luck.

  Every Saturday, Miss Mirfue comes to my house bringing many things for my family, like clothes and food. But today she is also bringing a special paper. It is a list with all the names of the Albanian people who have left Kosova and have reached safety in Macedonia. On this list, my mother hopes to find the name of Cousin Zana. Now my mother is taking this paper from Miss Mirfue.

  “Kasamin, Kajim, Keku,” she says, reading the names quietly. One hand is in her hair, and she is pulling on it.

  “How is she?” Miss Mirfue says to my grandmother in a soft voice.

  “See for yourself,” says my grandmother. “No better. Worse, maybe.”

  For one moment, it is like something is happening to the air. I am dizzy in the head and my stomach is squeezing me hard. Now I know why my grandmother was upset with my friend coming. It is not because she did not want to know Maxie. It is because my mother is ç mendur—not right in the head.

  My grandmother was right and now it is too late and my friend is coming to visit.

  Suddenly my mother starts to yell and cry.

  “Thank God, thank God! Zana! Oh, Zana is safe!” she shouts, trembling all over.

  We rush to her to see where my cousin’s name is printed on the paper. This is happy news and good for us, but still my mother will not stop her crying.

  “Please try to calm down, Nënë,” I say and rub her arm.

  “No, no, no!” my mother yells, falling against the table. Crash! Some plates fall on the floor. Pieces of them go everywhere.

  My mother is lying on the floor, crying and crying. She won’t get up.

  Then I hear a terrible sound. The bell on the door is ringing again. My friend Maxie is right on time.

  24

  Maxie

  “YOU SURE YOU WROTE THE RIGHT ADDRESS DOWN?” Grandma asks, leaning on the doorbell again. “Yes, yes,” I say, but now I’m not so sure. I swear, we’ve been standing there so long, we’re just about to give up.

  “Well, I guess we can always eat this pie ourselves,” Grandma grumbles, picking up her shopping bag. My grandmother is the type of person that believes that when you visit someone, you should never go empty-handed, so she brought along a nice apple pie to give to Drita’s family.

  We’re just about to go back down the stairs and get back in the car when suddenly, we hear the lock turning. Someone opens the door just a little tiny crack.

  “Chfa?” a woman’s voice goes from behind the chain.

  “I’m Maxie and this is my grandma,” I say. “I’m visiting Drita this afternoon.”

  At first when my father said Grandma had to come with me to Drita’s house, I wasn’t too excited about that, but now I’m glad she’s here. The door closes again, and we hear a lot of noise and yelling in another language.

  “What the heck is going on now?” Grandma mumbles, and I know she has to be pretty upset to say heck.

  “Yes, hello?” says a middle-aged lady with a chubby face. The chain is off, but she only opens the door about an inch or two wider.

  “Are you Mrs. Kelmendi?” Grandma asks.

  “No. I’m a friend. Mrs. Kelmendi is resting.”

  From inside it sounds like anything but resting to me. In fact, it sounds more like a zoo with a lot of crying and screaming going on.

  “Well, we were expected,” says my grandmother to the half-closed door.

  But finally, my friend Drita pops out.

  “Maxie, come in!” she says and swings the door open wide.

  Lying right in the middle of the kitchen floor is a lady. She’s got light brown hair just like Drita, but instead of two neat braids, hers looks
like a dirty cloud around her head. She’s crying her eyes out, rocking all around like she’s on one of those supermarket horses you got to put a quarter in to make it go. It looks like she’s been throwing things too because all around her are a bunch of cups and broken dishes. Over by the sink is a wrinkled-up old lady, who I bet is Drita’s grandma. She’s got a scared little baby pressed to her. He’s crying too and she’s talking to him real quiet like. If you ask me, she don’t look too good herself.

  “Mrs. Kelmendi is not well,” says the chubby lady.

  My grandmother steps over a broken plate and sets the pie down on the table. For a second nobody says anything. Then she rolls up her sleeves.

  “What can we do to help?” she says.

  25

  DRITA

  FOR ONE MOMENT, when the doorbell rings, I don’t know what to do. My mother is lying on the floor like a little baby, crying and crying with broken plates everywhere. The doorbell keeps buzzing like an angry bee.

  Outside the door, I hear Maxie’s voice. She will go away if I don’t answer.

  She will go away.

  For one moment, this thought pushes everything else out my head, even my grandmother, standing by the sink looking old and tired, even Miss Mirfue’s frightened face, even my mother’s tears. But then Miss Mirfue opens the door. I go with her.

  Standing in the hall is my friend and a big woman. It must be Maxie’s gjyshe, Mrs. Nichols. Mrs. Nichols is younger than my grandmother, and her skin is darker than Maxie’s, but there is no surprise on her face when she walks into my house. Instead, she acts like it is a normal visit. She walks into the kitchen, picks up a plate off the floor and hands it to my grandmother.

  “Thank you,” Gjyshe says in English.

  Miss Mirfue whispers something to Mrs. Nichols. Then Mrs. Nichols goes to my mother and says something to her in a quiet voice. She pats her head with her hand, calming her.

  After a minute she turns to Maxie.

  “Get the coats, Maxine,” she says.

  Down the stairs and out of the building we all go, and into a big blue car that smells like vanilje. Now Mrs. Nichols is driving us somewhere. All the while, Mrs. Nichols talks, talks, talks like there is nothing wrong or nothing strange about this. Mrs. Nichols even holds my mother’s hand while she drives, like an old friend. Later on, I find out that for a long time this was Mrs. Nichols’s job, to be a nurse at Roosevelt Hospital. Well, we are very lucky, I think, because she did a good thing for my family. She acted the right way not to scare my mother but to keep her peaceful.

  Soon the car stops in front of a large white building. My heart starts to beat when I see the sign for the hospital, but as soon as we go inside, my fear goes away. The hospital is a big clean place with so many serious people. Two doctors come to talk to Nënë; one of them is quite pretty. They are talking to Miss Mirfue now, and Mrs. Nichols. Maxie and Hashim and I go into a special room they have for children there. It is like a playhouse with slides and toys and coloring books. Maxie is being very nice about everything that’s happened. She even draws me a picture of a cat.

  At last Miss Mirfue and Mrs. Nichols come into the room with us. In Albanian, Miss Mirfue tells me the hospital will take care of my mother for a few days. Hashim starts to cry, but I do not. For me this is good news. I think the Americans will take good care of my mother.

  When we go home, we are all very tired and hungry too. My father is there waiting for us. I am surprised when I find out that my grandmother has called him from the hospital. My father even has a special dinner ready for us, a big paper bucket of chicken KFC. This food is very delicious to me, but even so, I am so tired, I can’t finish. I put my head down on the table to rest. That is when I fall asleep.

  Then I feel my father lifting me. It is a long time since my father carried me this way. He puts me in my bed while my grandmother tucks me in. It feels so good, I don’t want to wake up.

  “It’s not good for the children to see their mother suffer so,” my grandmother says.

  “I suppose not,” my father says.

  “Don’t worry, Adem,” my grandmother says. “She will be home soon.”

  “I know,” my father says. He puts his hand on my head and smoothes my hair.

  “I think Drita chose the right friend,” my gjyshe says.

  “Yes, she did,” Baba agrees and kisses me on the head. Softly, my father closes the door. In the darkness, I can see the picture Maxie drew for me, hanging by my bed. My gjyshe is right. Because of Maxie, now my mother will be better.

  I hope so, anyway.

  26

  Maxie

  WELL, DRIVING SOMEONE’S MOTHER to the hospital may not be the most normal thing to do the first time you get together with a friend, but that’s exactly what happened. Me, Drita and her mother, the two grandmothers, Drita’s baby brother and Miss Mirfue all piled into our SUV and drove on over to Roosevelt Hospital Emergency Room.

  Those doctors took one look at Drita’s mother and you could tell it’s something serious because suddenly they’re all over her and she’s going down the hall in a wheelchair. Then me and Drita and her brother and my grandma spent a long time in this special room they got for kids there. I know my friend was pretty worried, but she seemed okay to me and wasn’t crying or anything like I would be if it were my mom. And even though it wasn’t exactly fun, we still had a pretty good time there drawing pictures and stuff like that.

  Now today is Sunday and I wanted to go visit Drita’s mom in the hospital as soon as I got up, but my grandma says no, not yet, she needs time to rest. She says we can visit her soon, and in the meantime she says maybe I can go shopping and buy Drita’s mom a present. She says people need a lot of things when they go into the hospital and maybe we can think of something that will make her feel more comfortable.

  “Maybe a nice housecoat,” my grandma says.

  “Grandma, you can’t buy Drita’s mom some funky old housecoat!”

  “What’s wrong with a good housecoat?” she asks. “I wear them all the time.”

  “Housecoats are okay if you’re a grandmother. But Drita’s mom is young,” I say. “She’s gotta have some style.”

  “You know, I think you’re right, honey.”

  I have to say, I’m surprised that she’s agreeing with me. Usually me and my grandma get in our biggest arguments about clothes.

  “We need someone who’s young and pretty and got some style to help us shop. Now who do we know like that?”

  The way she asks that question, I can tell she’s already got someone in mind.

  27

  DRITA

  FOR THE FIRST TWO DAYS we are visiting her, my mother is only sleeping. Now today, on the third day when we come, I think she is asleep too, with her face turned to the wall.

  My grandmother notices the empty food tray by the side of my mother’s bed.

  “It looks like your mother ate something! I will find the nurse and return the tray,” she says as she leaves the room.

  As soon as she’s gone, my mother stirs in the bed.

  “Oh,” she says, opening her eyes. “Water.”

  My heart is beating so much. I run to the bathroom and fill her glass with water. When I come back, Nënë is sitting up in her bed.

  “Here, Nënë,” I say, handing her the glass. She drinks it right away.

  My mother looks around. For a moment, she seems confused.

  “Where is Baba? Where is the baby?” she asks.

  “They are home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes, Nënë. You have been in the hospital two days already,” I tell her.

  “Two days? How is that possible?”

  “You were sick, Nënë. We brought you here. Don’t you remember?”

  For a second, I am worried that maybe my mother doesn’t remember things anymore. But then a look passes over her face and I know she does.

  “Oh, yes. Of course.”

  Now my mother looks at me. “Drita, come here
,” she says. I go to my mother’s bedside.

  “Were you very frightened?” she asks.

  “Yes, I was. I was afraid you were going to be sad forever.”

  My mother touches my head.

  “Zemra e nënës. Të keqen Nëna.” she says. “Mommy’s sweetheart.”

  “Are you sad now, Mother?” Because I see her tears.

  “No, I am not sad. I am happy, because I am back with you, my love.” More than anything, I hope my mother is right.

  Just then Gjyshe comes hurrying back into the room.

  “Ah, the sleeping beauty is awake,” my grandmother says in a cheerful voice. She pulls back the curtains. Outside, the day is cool but sunny. In the light my mother’s face seems younger. Not so tired.

  “Did you show Nënë your pictures?” my grandmother says.

  “What pictures, Drita?”

  “I drew them for you in school. Do you want to see them?” I ask her.

  “Very much,” she says and opens the envelope I brought.

  Already, I can tell my mother feels better because she studies the pictures carefully.

  “Your drawing is very nice,” she says finally, but then she points to one. “But who drew that?”

  “My friend, Maxie.”

  “Oh, yes. One of your friends,” my mother says. “The one who came to the house. I am so happy you are a popular girl, Drita.”

  Now my grandmother looks at me. Her eyes are asking a question: Well, Drita, will you tell the truth?

  I want to tell her I am not really popular. But then I worry—what if I ruin everything. What if my mother cries again?

  On the TV, I hear the happy music of a funny American show with a big cartoon dog. In Kosova, my mother and I used to watch this show together, when I was little.

  “Look, Nënë! Scooby!” I say. I am very glad that now there is something else to talk about.

  “Oh, the silly dog! Turn on the sound, Drita!” she says, so I do. I climb into the bed with my mother and put my head on her shoulder.