Chapter 10: Salma (2007) - The Daughters of Rosebud

At last, there is a connection to Asma. It is so unexpected and the potential so great that I can barely take it in. I thought I was the steward of her memory, the person who loved her most, her sole receptacle. But no, there is a diary, written in her hand, into which she poured her heart. There is a recording of her moving, talking, breathing. My sister remains of this world. Remnants of her linger like dust particles in the air. She has left something of herself for me to discover.

Of course I have known that there are things about her life I do not know. There are events and incidents and memories I do not have in my memory bank because I wasn’t a part of the experience. To know that there is a memorialization of Asma’s private moments fills me with something like hope. It is a chance.

Ruby wrote me letters, all those years ago. A week, a month, a year later—who knows. Time was elastic back then, possessing a disconcerting way of being out of sequence, putting events up close and far away at the same time. Maybe I read one—I don’t even remember. But then I started throwing them away unopened. I think. In my recollection, they just disappeared. Those years are a blank.

What did they say? What did she want to tell me? For the first time, I wonder. Did she tell me that she had these mementos of Asma? Was she offering them to me because she knew they belonged to me? That Asma belonged to me.

It is Sunday night. I am returning to school tomorrow after ten days at home recovering from this concussion. I am ready to get out of the house.

Emil made a white chicken chili, cornbread, and a homemade ice cream cake. My nausea has abated, and I am eating again. Before he leaves, Emil says, “I’m sorry you bumped your head, doll. But I’ve not had so much fun in a long time.” Sweet, sweet Emil.

Mamoo keeps asking if I’m really ready to go back, that the impacts of concussions linger and it is better to take a few extra days than to have a relapse. He probably thinks my pensiveness is due to the concussion.

“Mamoo?”

He is dozing in the reclining chair, pretending to read The Economist. “Mmm.”

“What happened to all of Asma’s stuff?”

The magazine falls to the floor. I can see him trying to make a connection between my question and anything that happened tonight. There is none.

His voice goes funny. “Darling, it was so long ago.”

“Do you remember Ruby?”

There is a long pause. “Yes, of course.”

“Do you keep in touch with her?”

Again, it takes him so long to answer that I wonder if he hasn’t fallen asleep. Finally, he says, “No.”

“Do you know that she wrote me letters? Afterward?”

“Hmm.”

The past sits heavy between us. We are not used to keeping things from each other, and I can sense his withholding.

“What are you not saying?” I ask.

He gets out of his chair stiffly and walks around the room putting on all the overhead lights. He gathers himself and then sits down on the coffee table immediately in front of me. Our knees touch.

“Yes, I remember she wrote you letters for a good long while,” he says slowly. “What’s this about?”

So I tell him everything, one revelation followed smoothly by another. Why I passed out and hit my head. That the Poppy I so frequently speak about is Ruby’s child. That the Marlene who has befriended me is Ruby’s wife. He about falls off the coffee table when he hears that. I tell him what Marlene told me, about Asma’s diaries and tapes.

“What are you going to do?” His voice is thin and raspy.

“What should I do?”

Aunty’s presence looms large. This is the sticky emotional situation she would have known exactly how to handle. I lean into his shoulder, and he kisses my dirty hair.

“Well, I would like to meet this Poppy and Marlene for one thing.” Of course he finds the silver lining.

“And what about Asma’s stuff? I want it. It belongs to me.”

“About that.” He hesitates. “I don’t know if that’s actually true.”

The first week back to school is physically exhausting. My kids bring me little gifts expressing their affection and vying for my appreciation. A drawing of a sunflower. A huge moth discovered on a front screen. A dozen cupcakes. They are exceptionally behaved and focused.

My class is still on track. Much of October will be spent studying the Amazon rainforest. English, science, history, math, and geography will all be taught through the lens of the Amazon rainforest and the countries it sits in. This is not school curriculum; this is a me curriculum. It takes monumental effort to modify mandatory curriculum and have it washed through the lens of another culture. But the level of student engagement and the connections it fosters in their minds make it worthwhile. In addition, the children will pick topics for their research project. They will give their presentation on their research to the class and share their projects and presentations with parents at the capstone event, Rainforest Night, where parents will learn about the rainforest through the eyes of my second-grade class.

Whatever little independence Poppy was experimenting with before my accident seems to have evaporated. I send Ginger, the class intern who is staying on for a few weeks while I continue to recover, outside for playground duty because I need the break. Poppy trails her lethargically.

What did she hear at home after curriculum night? Did she overhear the discussion between Marlene and Ruby about me? There is a part of me that is afraid she now knows my story, and I try to maintain a professional distance, which is difficult given my role and her attachment. I hear from the school nurse that Poppy spent half of the last week in her office with stomachaches. I want to protect this child from the ugliness of her parents’ turmoil at the same time as abiding my long-held belief to stay away from drama. But she reminds me so much of how I was as a child, trying to make everyone else happy, that I can’t help but want to support her.

Decorating the room to become a rainforest is a substantial undertaking. In the past, Mamoo, Emil, and I have transformed the room overnight. But this year, I told Emil I had plenty of helpers, and besides, he deserved a break after the last week of taking such good care of me. And I told Mamoo not to come. We are not yet back to normal.

Mamoo told me that after everything, he and Aunty went to Asma’s dorm one time and took some of her clothes and pictures. And then, he said, “I think we told Ruby she could take what she wanted.”

“You think? How did I not know this?”

“I don’t know that I entirely knew what was happening. Those were terrible, terrible days, darling. I was barely hanging on. I tried to be there for you, but other than that, everything from that time is a haze. Still.”

I know exactly what he means. I experience it every day. There is my day-to-day life in which I function moderately well. But when I venture to the past, my emotional state regresses to who I was then, and panic, grief, and abandonment quickly overtake me.

“Why didn’t you ask me? It wasn’t yours to give.”

He just cried in response.

It doesn’t feel right to be friends with Ruby’s wife. It doesn’t feel appropriate to feel so much affection for her child. The randomness of our lives being thrown together falls under the adage that truth is stranger than fiction. Or is it fate? Has Poppy landed in my class through some cosmic intention?

Since the discussion on my patio, I have tried to maintain my distance from Marlene. I can’t get over the fact that she knows my history. I am so curious about the specific details of what she knows. Like a game of telephone told over history, what has been imparted to her and how close it is to what actually happened.

But as is her way, Marlene saw an opening and has squeezed herself into it.

She called me at home midweek, and without even a greeting, she said, “You really need to get a cell phone.”

“That’s what you called to tell me?”

“Ha. No. I’ve organized a bunch of parents to help set up the rainforest.”

Converting the room into a rainforest to support the curriculum is no small feat. We will cut trees out of construction paper and hang them everywhere. We ask parents to lend us any tall tropical plants they have at home. We have blow-up bananas and coconuts and monkeys and snakes, which we glue onto the trees or hang from the ceiling. We hang plastic vines that look like they could double for cheap feather boas.

When the children walk into the magically transformed room, their faces will reflect their surprise and wonder. The line between real and make-believe is still thin at this age. It is one of those moments in which I know I am doing exactly what I’m supposed to.

Marlene arrives before everyone else with snacks and bottles of wine for the volunteers.

“Marlene! You can’t have alcohol here.”

She looks genuinely confused. “Why?”

“It’s a school.”

“That’s ridiculous. There aren’t any kids here.”

Honestly, I don’t know what to do with her. “Then make it discreet. Put the wine in something else. I don’t want Betsy all over me about this.”

Out of her large tote bag, she pulls out a stack of little paper Dixie cups decorated with jack-o’-lanterns and ghosts and dances a little jig.

God, she makes it hard to keep at arm’s length. Tonight, it will be me and Marlene and a bunch of enthusiastic moms talking about wainscoting and other important topics. And despite my own misgivings, I can’t wait.

Poppy has chosen to study “family units” in the Amazon rainforest. It is quite a sophisticated topic for second grade. Unlike facts and figures that are easily researched and documented on poster board, she is looking at the nature of families. The component parts, the roles each parent plays, the role of elders, how children spend their time. I have never had a child pick this as their topic. She continues to delight me.

Since my return, I have been dissuading her from sitting next to me at all times and trying to integrate her back into the wild.

She comes to me in the middle of the day and whispers, “Can I stay and help you clean the room after school?”

Her lower lip trembles, and her large brown molten eyes look like she might dash away at a sound. She is venturing out on a limb. Marlene is always late anyway. The afternoons are getting chillier. It would be easier to wait in the room. I, of all people, know that children are not responsible for the sins of their parents. “Let’s make a deal. You do research while I clean the room. You can read to me about what you’re learning.”

Oh, the way her eyes light up. She throws her arms around me, and I squeeze her back. This child is braver than I have ever been. Taking a chance and asking for exactly what she needs.

Observing Poppy’s small acts of bravery inspires me, and that day when Marlene comes for pickup, I tell her, “From now on, when you’re late, just come inside and pick Poppy up. I’ll have her in class with me. I have too much to do with Rainforest Night approaching, and I’m still slower than usual.”

“Oh, MissCh! I’m sorry.”

“No, no. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad. I just think it’ll be easier for me, and Poppy can do homework or read until you get here.”

“I don’t know what to say other than thank you, thank you! This is a huge help.”

“It’s not a big deal. But listen. There is one other thing.”

Marlene tilts her head to me like she is all ears.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I feel a little weird for asking.”

Marlene steps forward farther into my space. I resist the urge to step back. “Whatever you need, Salma. You know that.”

I look up at her. Her eyes, which, in another, could look cold and steely, draw me in, encouraging me with their crinkly corners and eagerness.

Either the lingering effects of the concussion have made the feeling of vulnerability manageable or there is some part of me that’s relieved that there is a person with whom I can let my guard down. A person around whom I do not have to carry the mantle of being a normal person. I exhale. “I really want Asma’s diaries and video.”

“Oh.” Marlene steps back.

“You say you know everything, right? Well, you can imagine how much this means to me.”

Marlene looks worried. “Oh! I don’t know, Salma. I just don’t know.”

“Can you please try?”

“Okay. I’ll try,” she says unconvincingly.

How quickly Poppy and I fall into happy habits. For those extra fifteen to twenty minutes after school, it is easy to forget that she is Ruby’s child. She’s just a wise, old-hearted little kid with a wry sense of humor, who reminds me at times of myself and at times of Asma. Just a kid trying to figure out who she is and how to fit in.

I walk around on my tiptoes, feeling like I might take off. I can’t wait to see the video. I will hear my sister’s voice again and not just in my head. I can’t wait to read the diary. I’m going to get a part of Asma back, see parts of her that are new to me. Maybe the diary talks about how much I meant to Asma, articulates her love for me in ways that I have come to doubt over the years. Perhaps this is the key I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve needed all along. This will give me closure. If facing the past is the cost of reclaiming a part of her, I will gladly do it.

Quickly I learn that Poppy loves strawberries, peanut butter crackers, and popcorn. She hates grapes and blueberries, something about them being small and round. In the mornings, I make sure to pack a diversity of snacks for our after-school hangout. She sits in the hot-air balloon, legs up on the side of the basket like she owns the place. It is getting darker earlier, so I light up the hot-air balloon to give her more light for reading, but really just to make her feel special. Everyone else has to earn their time in the balloon. Not Poppy.

She reads out loud to me in her gravelly voice, sometimes stopping to ask questions about what something means or telling me an aside. It has only been a week since we have started this routine, but she is already more confident during the day at school. She takes a book to the playground and sits and reads on a bench. Sometimes, I see her watching the soccer kids, sometimes the imaginary-play kids, and sometimes the jungle gym kids. Eventually, she will start participating in one or two of these groups and start figuring out around whom she is the most comfortable and, from there, finding friends.

The one group she does not observe or try to join is Kirsten V. and Kristin B.’s, whose moms dress them as mini versions of themselves and are training them in the art of doing whatever it takes to draw attention. I am proud of Poppy for showing no curiosity about them. Trying to be seen by the Kirsten V.’s and Kristin B.’s of the world is a long path of misery and feeling less than. No, I would rather Poppy be with the kids who run at experiences and fun and dirt without regard for how they look to others.

One day, Poppy confesses. “I don’t want to talk in front of everyone.”

“You mean your presentation in front of the class?”

She nods. “Or at Rainforest Night.”

“Can you tell me why?”

Poppy shrugs.

“I think other kids and parents are going to be really interested in how kids and parents live in other parts of the world,” I say.

“Maybe.”

“Is it what you’re going to talk about or the idea of having to stand in front of people and say it?”

Poppy breaks apart her peanut butter cracker and licks the peanut butter out. I need to bring Oreos. She’ll love those.

Finally, she says, “I just don’t want everyone looking at me.”

“I have the same thing!” I say.

Poppy looks shocked and then immediately skeptical, like she thinks I’m just telling her this to make her feel good.

“I’m serious.” And all of a sudden, I remember being in seventh grade and freaking out about having to do a class presentation. And Asma, already a performer, telling me to take deep breaths and that she was going to help me. “And guess what?”

“What?” she answers with a pout, like she doesn’t want to be talked out of her feelings.

“I have a trick I sometimes use that helps. Do you want to learn?” I stand up and climb out of the basket and go to the center of the room. Asma is in my mental periphery, cheering me on and clapping with delight.

Poppy stays in the basket side-eyeing me.

I hobble around the room as though I’m a monster with my arms stretched wide and my face in a grimace. Periodically, I stop and growl. A few steps later, I shake my leg out like a dog after peeing against a fire hydrant. A few steps later, I hit my belly and shake my head and yelp. Poppy is in stitches, pointing and laughing. I stop with my hands on my hips and look at her and smile. “Want to join me?”

Poppy runs to the middle of the room to join me being weird. “What are we doing?” she asks.

“We are practicing at not being perfect. So what if you don’t say everything perfectly? So what if people aren’t interested in your topic? So what if you feel embarrassed? You’re still you. You’re still the most amazing Poppy—the only Poppy I’ve ever known.”

Poppy and I are crawling around the room and acting like gorillas when Marlene walks in to pick her up.

And then, because one memory begets another, I start remembering other things, events that have been blocked for a long time.

* * *

The weeks at Mamoo’s were a balm. I had no school, no homework, and no parents, and I missed none of them. In the absence of the daily weight of keeping others happy, I felt untethered and directionless. The sound of Asma’s oof never far out of my reach.

I read romance novels on Mamoo and Aunty’s couch with Mippy lying on my feet. I ate countless boxes of mac and cheese and hurried to pick up my mess when I heard the garage door open. Aunty and I went to the video store every few days and picked out movies that we all watched every night. It felt like vacation without any sense of escape or respite.

I knew our parents loved us. But this wasn’t an issue of love. It was an issue of honor and duty and pride, and the formula for my parents’ had been written long ago. All it required was that we live our lives on their terms and within the dictates they set forth. By definition, their happiness meant our unhappiness.

I was coming to realize that the sense of responsibility I felt to make peace among my family wasn’t actually dependent on my parents’ presence. It traveled inside of me like a dormant illness.

I had assumed that after spending time with Asma the first weekend at Mamoo’s, whatever upset was between us would work itself out the way it always did. But it hadn’t turned out that way. I hadn’t been prepared for her extended coldness, her unwillingness to talk about what had happened, and her seesawing emotional signals. Even more surprising, I was shocked at my own sense of ambivalence toward her. I was increasingly resentful that I was left to pay the tab in the wake of her transgressions.

I had always thought that Asma just felt things too strongly. When she was unsettled, because of friends or school or our parents, she projected her inner turmoil into the world, which my parents interpreted as a direct confrontation. My mother referred to it as “Asma’s moods.” But from what I could see, Asma was pretty normal in her reactions. If she received a grade lower than she expected, she was disappointed. If she wasn’t allowed to play basketball despite the basketball coach calling my parents to get permission, she was angry.

At the time, I was starting to consider if Abu was right after all. Maybe Asma did always think of herself first. The way she had suddenly decided to go back early to school with no regard to Mamoo, Aunty, or me felt impulsive and self-centered. The offer to visit her on campus, a bone thrown to distract me and have me return to my factory setting of loyal, unquestioning little sister. I couldn’t figure out if I had failed her in some fundamental way or whether she was failing me.

But when I think back on that time now, I wonder whether her attempts at breakage weren’t necessary. She needed to separate from our parents, because that is the way of growing up. But maybe she also needed to separate from me.

Or maybe, she had just been consumed by thoughts of Ruby, in the thrill and torment of new feelings. Maybe she didn’t want to burden me with what she was carrying. Maybe it was too much for her to reconcile the knotty thread that had always bound us with all that was new.

As my time at Mamoo’s drew to a close, I was desperate to talk to someone about what had happened in the parking lot. I needed to unburden myself of what I’d witnessed and mistakenly thought that by sharing it, I would be freed. Alone, it ran circles around my brain.

Mamoo was making French toast for brunch. He handed me a carton of eggs and a bowl.

I broke egg after egg. “Sorry if I’ve been difficult. I know you don’t like talking about the past.”

“Don’t say sorry, Sal. These are my own issues. I figured your mother told you some of these things.”

It reminded me of what Abu had said so cruelly to Mamoo in the parking lot. That Mamoo could tell his future children whatever he wanted. Mamoo assumed our parents told us certain things. Meanwhile, we, the next generation, received no information about our history of culture.

Mamoo heated up the flat griddle and slapped a piece of battered bread on its surface.

I shook my head. “Did Asma tell you about what happened after Pippin?”

“No,” he said, elongating the o. The rising smell of caramelized sugar and cinnamon filled the kitchen.

I didn’t say anything.

“It was terrible the way the night ended. I regret that we left without seeing Asma. Did you give her the flowers?” he asked, flipping the French toast.

I saw them spilled on the dark pavement and grunted noncommittally.

“Did she see your parents?”

I wiped down the counter.

He lifted the toast from the griddle and tucked it in the foil-covered plate. “So are you going to tell me, or do I have to keep guessing?”

“Asma hasn’t told you anything about that night?” I asked.

“Nope.”

I knew I was about to cross a line but figured that if Asma was already upset with me, what was one more thing? I blurted out, “She came out to the car, and Abu punched her.”

Mamoo made a strangled sound, part gag and part cry. The toast fell off his fork on the floor.

“He hit her. In the stomach,” I whispered. I violated our primary rule—never break each other’s confidence—and it felt sickening.

Mamoo leaned heavily against the stove. The muscle at his jawline undulated like a monster was just below the surface. His mouth worked trying to find words. The griddle had been forgotten, and the acrid smell of burning batter filled the air.

“What are you saying? Why?”

“The sex scene.” Now that the dam was broken, I felt clinical. I turned the stove off and moved the griddle off the stove. “He hit her in her stomach. She bent over clutching it. And then she ran back inside.”

Mamoo gripped his head with both hands. “No, no, no.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I picked up the slice of toast on the floor and threw it away.

“He punched her? He didn’t slap her?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“And your mother. What did she do?”

I had to think about it because in the auto-loop of my memory, it was only Abu, me, and Asma. Ami was in the background somewhere muttering nonsense that no one paid any attention to.

“Nothing. You know her. She just stood there and kept suggesting that Asma should come home to talk about it.”

“Did she see what happened?”

“Yeah, she was right there.”

“She didn’t, I don’t know, step in the way or something?”

“No. But, Mamoo, it came out of nowhere. Asma and Abu were having their same old argument and then, oof. That’s the sound she made.”

Mamoo leaned against the kitchen countertop. His head hung between his arms like it was too heavy to hold up.

I wiped off the floor and convinced myself that it was Asma’s fault that I was forced to tell Mamoo. She refused to talk about it, so what was I supposed to do? As much as Asma was an open book in one way, I knew she couldn’t face negative emotions. She would rather pretend like nothing had happened and was resentful of being forced to confront difficult things. Mamoo needed to know, and it was down to me to tell him.

Mamoo turned his head, his face bright red. Was I wrong to have said something? He pulled me into him, holding me tight. I exhaled and let myself go limp. Through the scratchy wool against my cheek, I could hear his heart hammering. Would Mamoo say something to Ami and Abu? Would he have not lent them money to return to Pakistan if he’d known this? I had unleashed something I didn’t fully understand and outed Asma. But sitting side by side with my doubt was the unmistakable sense of relief that I was no longer the only one who knew.

“Mamoo? Don’t tell Asma I told you. She refuses to talk about it, and every time I try, she gets mad at me.”

He took the twisted towel from my hands gently and nodded.