Chapter 5: Salma (2007) - The Daughters of Rosebud

My father’s call has disrupted my ghosts, calling them forth to take care of their unfinished business. I, who have been so good at keeping my history in its place, am now having difficulty doing so. The past is seeping out.

I know where Abu now lives because he told me. But what about Ami? How has she spent the last generation? Did she get help?

I walk around my house, tidying things that are not out of place, dusting surfaces that have no dust on them. Leonora paces, meowing discontentedly.

I thought the event had severed the memories of my family, literally burned them from me. For a long time, I felt nothing. There are photos, of course. The image tells me the long-ago day happened, but I don’t remember having lived the experience. It is not an actual memory with an emotional echo, just a curious absence as though I am watching a token of someone else’s history. The photograph documents something that happened to some people. I am a stranger, and the people in the pictures are strangers.

Except. The side-eyed expression, the tilt of the head, the slight furrow of a brow. These are coded messages understood only by me. The one-dimensional piece of paper is not able to hide the shadow of the person inside. It is understanding a stray bit of dialogue in Urdu in a movie. It is hearing a conversation in English at the next table in a restaurant. I do not have to try and decipher the language or glean meaning. It is automatic and below conscious thought. With no effort on my part, I understand the feelings of the people in the picture, as clearly as if it was captioned.

Here, Asma, hair flying in the wind, eyes crinkled, coming off a roller coaster. She looks free—the sun highlights the red in her hair—but by the way her head is pulled back, I can see that she is annoyed and the smile on her face is fake. Here, Ami stirring a pot on the countertop griddle we used as a stove. She is uncomfortable, worried. I’m struck by how she peers over, barely able to see its contents. Here, Abu in a rare photo with Ami. They are at a botanical garden with life erupting all around them. They stand at a distance apart from one another. It is plausible that they are two strangers walking next to each other. Abu’s head tilts to the ground, and Ami is turned away from Abu, as though looking behind her. There is something about the way Abu’s hand is open that I can tell he is motioning Ami to follow.

In this time of my remembering, the memories—the real ones—come with no warning. The events feel as though they happened yesterday. The memories are as sharp and painful as cut glass, possessing the same intensity and fervor with which I have been suppressing them all these years. They have cut through the fabric in which I was ensconced, drawing blood and gasps. In a perverse way, I am relieved; the bleeding makes me feel good. It reminds me what it is like to feel again. Rife with frustration, laughter, misunderstandings, corporeal presence, the memories come like a deluge of rain, slipping through my fingers. They come so fast, so many, I cannot capture them all. I can only hope to gather a few before the rest wash away in a silvery rush. And in their wake is the thing I have managed to avoid. The guilt. The crippling, corrupting, sense of responsibility. For what I did and for what I didn’t.

* * *

We hurtled back to Rosebud in Abu’s taxi, the darkness of the road ahead snuffing out all feeling. My forehead tipped against the cold glass of the window, and the heat blasted on my feet; the fifty-seven-mile trip had never felt so long. The stars became clearer and brighter as we pushed deeper into the interior.

I pretended to be asleep, but Abu was having none of it. Was there alcohol at the party? Was there dancing? Were there boys? My monotone, one-word answers insufficient, he started asking questions that required me to string a sentence together. Who did Asma talk to all night? What were these people like? Was she with me the whole time, or did she disappear? How did she hurt her hand? The man missed nothing. I mumbled strictly factual responses, too tired to protect either of them. I had questions of my own. What was Asma thinking as she ran up the steps to her dorm? Was she blaming me for my father’s comments? And what was the deal with that Ruby woman?

Only a few hours before, I had been driving on the other side of the highway, annoyed at my mother. She had picked me up from school, parked in the middle of the sea of school buses. Asma and I handled Ami’s small breaches of protocol—the things that American parents understood without needing to be told—differently. Asma would be furious, impatiently explaining the rule to Ami, again, or making a snarky comment. I thought that the emotional expenditure was rarely worth the time or headache. She had little to no long-term memory. Plus, I felt guilty when I saw how a hard word crushed her spirit.

I had only been driving for six months but was already a better driver than her. Ami had learned to drive as an adult and never lost her discomfort and fear behind the wheel, using her brake as frequently as the accelerator. But that didn’t stop her from talking nonstop about the dangers lurking on the road and how to avoid them. She had chattered away without saying anything, wondering aloud if Asma’s hair was growing out and whether she had enough warm clothes at school and if she was studying hard or wasting time with other activities. I had tried hard to tune her out just like I was trying to tune out my father.

The night’s natural illumination radiated, the corn stubble otherworldly. Watering ponds gazed back at the immense night sky with a glassy stare.

To listen to Abu, Asma was selfish and a narcissist. But that wasn’t true. Her sin was one of an overabundance of drive, not a lack of empathy. She was singularly focused on getting what and where she wanted; the impact on us, her family, was secondary. He told me about some Pakistani girl who was in medical school and had just gotten engaged to a Pakistani boy from Portland, like that was some huge achievement. At first, I thought it was an urban myth—every Pakistani immigrant’s model female child—and then I remembered the girl.

Aisha was one of the girls from the broader Pakistani community who were not part of our mosque. She was into horses and, at least when I knew her, resembled one. Big-boned and square-jawed, she was one of the few nice girls from that group of wealthy families. I don’t know how Ami and Abu met them, but we started visiting them the summer I was in the sixth grade, driving into the city every weekend for get-togethers at one of their oversize homes.

The kids were a different variety of Pakistani American than Asma and me. They took piano lessons, played soccer, had horses, and possessed the clueless confidence of wealthy children everywhere. Their mothers piled their plates high with food, and they ate a fraction of what was placed on it; the rest went into the garbage. And at the same time, they wore salvar kameez, spoke in Urdu to their parents, and had memorized sections of the Quoran. The fathers were all doctors, and none of the mothers worked.

The adults socialized in gendered cloisters, the fathers in one room, or sitting outside in warm weather, and the mothers in another room. The discussion among the women was a combination of gossip about people we didn’t know and backhanded shows of wealth. “I told Pervez to not get me that Mercedes coupe, hai? I already have the Mercedes SUV.” Sniff. Look at ground in boredom. Elicit sounds of sympathy from the other women in the room. Ami was out of place in every way. She didn’t know the people they were talking about and had nothing to brag about. She looked lost, looking at people as they talked but entirely not there.

At first it was unclear why we were traveling an hour each way to spend time with people with whom we were all so clearly uncomfortable and had so little in common. We may have eaten the same food, understood the same language, and worn the same clothes, and even though, through the eyes of Americans, we were interchangeable, we were very much not the same. It was still an open question whether the vestigial social hierarchies from our homeland could be flattened in the benign American Middle West.

One day, Abu said, “How hard can it be? It’s making sure nurses come on time and people pay their bills.”

And then I understood. He was looking for a different way to make a living. A steady income not dependent upon the generosity of strangers and ambiguous tipping norms, one where his physical safety was never in question.

Growing up, Ami often suggested getting a job to help. We were at school all day, and she didn’t have that much to do. She could easily work part-time at the local market. Mr. Miller needed help. But each time Abu refused to give his permission. They would manage. His wife’s job was in the house. This went on until he took that job as an office manager in one of the doctor’s offices. It didn’t last long, and soon enough Abu was back to driving taxis. But in that window when it wasn’t clear if we were moving forward or backward, Abu relented and let Ami get a job at the local tailor’s shop, where she sat side by side with Louise and got an education in all things American.

Seeing through the eyes of other people is one of my character flaws. I sat next to Abu and felt sorry for everyone. I felt sorry for the poor girl named Aisha and her looming nuptials. She had somehow agreed to bear the weight of her parents’ expectations. But was she happy? Was she being forced into this out of a sense of loyalty or fear of a loss of love? I felt sorry for Asma and myself. Abu’s criticisms of Asma felt like a personal attack on me. At the same time, I felt Asma’s betrayal when Abu talked about protecting me, like I was to blame. I even felt sorry for my parents. One minute we were their children, obedient and living in the microcosm of our family, where all cultural and religious and linguistic rules were known. The next, we were strangers, living in a world they barely understood, not needing them or wanting them around. Their influence had waned, if it had ever been there.

Ami returned home late the next morning, her eyebrow nearly denuded from the long drive. Abu’s voice cut her down, laying the blame for Asma’s permissiveness at her feet. She was too lax. She had given us too many privileges. Why did she let me go stay with Asma? Did she know we were going to a party? What did she think was going to happen? Of course Asma was going to do something bad. Of course she was going to taint me, as though Asma was an infection and I was the body being infected. Ami just stood there, her brow getting heavier and heavier. I could detect one of her migraines descending.

One day, not long after our return, Abu asked me to go get my Quoran. It had been years since Asma and I sat on the couch, reading our primers timed for Abu’s return home. By then, we had moved on to reading the Quoran, awkward and stilted because we had no idea of the meaning behind the words we phonetically sounded out. During middle school, the periods between studying the Quoran grew more infrequent until, eventually, we had stopped reading entirely.

I stayed still, unsure what to do. Abu suggested we read his copy together, and I sat down stiffly next to him on the couch. I stared at the characters and tried to derive meaning from the words, but it felt pointless. Then, maybe because he sensed my discomfort, Abu started reciting passages aloud in the soulful, singsong way that the Quoran is recited. He did not ask me to join him. It was like he just wanted me to bear witness to him. And in that space, at home, without anyone expecting anything of me other than my presence, I found it beautiful. The meanings of the words were beside the point.

Was his reading haunted and plaintive, or was it his voice that carried the weight of his burden? I don’t know. All I knew was that I was still needed by my parents’ side. I resolved to do better by them. To honor them and be a better daughter. Listen to them and make them feel not so alienated.

This is why I must approach my memories with caution, because I don’t know what I’ll come upon.

The me of then picked up my copy of the Quoran, the green leather warm to the touch.

The me of now is repelled at the feelings of tenderness I feel at the memory.

* * *

Against my better judgment, I have started to look forward to pickup and seeing Marlene. Since our dinner, since we’ve started becoming friends, I find myself saving little incidents to recount to her later, to make her laugh her big laugh. My inner voice tells me to be careful and not get attached. Asma tells me to ignore my inner voice.

The other day, a group of stay-at-home moms stood in a circle at pickup, voices rising. These stay-at-home moms don’t argue. They are educated, rich, hyperactively engaged with their children’s education, and generous with their time, and can be a bit clueless. But they are never impolite. One strong and authoritative voice emerged. “Amanda, it is all about the wainscoting.” They are also concerned with things like design and the many ways to spend their money. Amanda apparently disagreed, and the heated voices returned.

Marlene and I caught each other’s eye and had to turn away, shoulders shaking.

Curriculum night is next week. Doors open ten minutes before the evening’s activities are scheduled to start. If the doors opened earlier, parents would arrive earlier, their worries and uncertainties rising off them like mist. Parents, especially those of only children or oldest children, will want to pull me aside and ask about how their children are doing in reading, writing, or playing with others. I will remind them that parent-teacher conferences will be held next month and they are always welcome to come before or after school to discuss their child, but that the purpose of this evening is different. Parents are welcomed in the gym by the principal and have the opportunity to attend three thirty-minute sessions in their children’s classrooms or one of the specials over the course of the evening. I will be waiting in my classroom, ready to welcome them. As assured and as confident as I am speaking to a classroom of children, I am deathly nervous to talk in front of a room of adults. I am not a public speaker, and standing there, speaking for fifteen minutes, feels like an eternity. Doing the same thing three times is punishment. My remarks are generally the same every year. I will reference the state’s curriculum standards, the enhanced goals of our high-achieving district, and my general philosophy about how children at this age learn—in small chunks of time and not always consciously. I take some questions, and then it’s time for the next session. It is not so hard, yet every year, it looms. I prefer the company of children over adults. But on curriculum night, I must cater to the grown-ups. It is so easy to see the tiredness and brokenness in them. There are parents I am certain I would have been able to help if they had been my second-grade student.

On Monday, I ask Kirsten V. and Kristin B. to stay in from recess for a few minutes to help me. They preen like they have been chosen for a special privilege. They are not inherently mean or bad kids. They have simply been led to believe that they are more special than everyone else and that they deserve the best of everything the world has to offer. That they, and those who look and act and dress like them, deserve the first, second, and third piece of pie. Everyone else can fight over the fourth and final piece of pie, and if they don’t get the same amount, well, it is only because they aren’t as smart or hardworking. They are the embodiment of the stereotype of people born on third base who believe they have hit a home run. I wish I was conjecturing. I had Kirsten V.’s older brother two years ago, and I know her family too well. Her mother is the type to talk about “those kids.” I have thus far resisted the urge to tell her that I am one of those kids.

“What do you need help with, MissCh?” asks Kirsten V.

We assemble our chairs so we are facing each other.

“I wanted to get your thoughts on something. I know that you two hear everything that happens in the grade and on the playground.”

The girls share a glance. They are so proud.

I go on, “I’ve heard that some kids are calling Poppy a not-nice name.”

“Oh no! What are they calling her?” Kirsten V., the leader of the two, asks so falsely that I wonder if her faux innocence works on anyone other than perhaps her parents.

“Some kids are calling her Poopy. The people who are saying this probably think it’s funny, but it’s not. Imagine being a new student in a new school and not knowing anyone. And now imagine if people were to call you something that they knew would be embarrassing. This is incredibly hurtful.”

I remind them of the exercise we do the first week of school where we get to know each other’s names and deconstruct the names by vowels and consonants and learn whether people have been named for a special person in their family. I do that on purpose to build a sense of community, teach respect and awareness for where they each come from, and establish a baseline so that no one can ever say they didn’t know.

“I haven’t heard that, MissCh,” Kristin B. says nervously.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. But I’m going to ask you two to keep an ear out for this in the cafeteria, in the bathroom, on the playground. If you hear someone calling Poppy a name other than her own, I expect you to behave as a leader.”

They both look at me dumbly.

“Kristin B., what are things you could do?”

She is the more sensitive of the two, but sensitivity means little when you have been taught from the beginning that you are better than others. She thinks awhile and says, “I could hug her.”

“That’s very empathetic. What else?” I look at Kirsten V., who sits there smug.

We engage in a staring contest. Finally, she looks away and makes a noncommittal sound.

“Have you heard anyone saying this, Kirsten V.?”

She shrugs.

“Perhaps, Kirsten V., this is one of the kind things you could add to your journal.”

“I could tell kids to stop,” she offers sullenly, which is like her telling herself to stop.

“True. Any other ideas?”

They stay silent.

“It would be very powerful if you corrected the person and said, ‘Her name is Poppy.’ It would be even stronger if you said that and then stood next to her. See, in that situation, you have the power, and she doesn’t.”

I see a light shine in Kristin B.’s eyes, a connection being made. I love this moment when a kid figures out what they are capable of. She recognizes that she has agency, and I have given her a script. I want to reinforce this feeling in her so it’s not forgotten and perhaps build a little muscle memory so she can say it to her best friend if the need arises.

“Let’s playact. Kirsten V., you be Poppy. Kristin B., you be yourself. I’ll be the kids who are saying not-nice things.”

I hoot and walk around Kirsten V., pointing at her. “Your hair has a twig in it, Poopy. Do you even have any friends? Where’d you get a name like that?” I’m on the edge of pushing a line, but I think of Poppy and how much these girls have hurt her. “You’re ugly.” I am definitely going too far.

Both the girls stare at me aghast. “No one does that, MissCh,” Kristin B. says, her eyes misty.

I break character for a second. “You’re supposed to practice what you would do, right?” I go back into character, laughing and pointing. I can see it is disconcerting to Kirsten V. to be at the end of ridicule, even if it is fake.

“Stop! Her name is Poppy,” says Kristin B. with real feeling.

I stop immediately. “Very good. And what would be the cherry on top?”

Kristin B. gets off her chair and, chest puffed out, stands next to Kirsten V. and says, “This is Poppy. Use her proper name.”

I clap and say, “Brava! Exactly!”

Kristin B. looks very proud of herself. Kirsten V. just looks confused.

“Well done! I’m sorry to cut into your recess, but I’m feeling pretty good about you two being my eyes and ears when I’m not there. We want to welcome Poppy and have her feel safe in our classroom community.”

Is feeling safe the same thing as being safe? I don’t know, but I don’t think either is ever a foregone conclusion, not even in your own family.

I think of Asma and the series of events all those years ago. I am a perennial explorer, quietly searching my memory for the thread that will pull apart the frayed and torn fabric that binds me tight and keeps me safe.

Sitting in the car with Abu heading back to Rosebud, maybe I thought if I waited out the upset, it would blow over and that things would go back to normal. Unfortunately, by the time we saw Asma perform in Pippin, I understood there was no normal to go back to.

* * *

On a late-night call, when the seasons were slowly slipping into one another, Asma told me that she was going to invite our parents to the play.

“Why? They already know you’re doing it. Leave it alone.”

“I told you. I’m done hiding from them. I don’t care if they’re uncomfortable. Oh, by the way, Ronny thinks you’re gorgeous.”

Which details the brain chooses to remember and which it discards is a mystery.

I wish I could go back to that moment, the turning point for everything that followed. If I had known what was coming, I would have pushed Asma harder and insisted that she not invite them. I would have pretended like I was sick or had terrible cramps, unable to go. I could have slashed a tire. Instead, I took no position. I went along as I always did.

As performances go, Pippin was confusing. The main male character engaged in a lot of lewd and suggestive behavior, but it was mostly comical and nothing worse than what was on television. Mamoo periodically leaned over to Ami and Abu explaining in a hushed voice what was happening. The play dragged on without Asma appearing on stage. I kept wiping my sweaty hands on the velvet seat, overcome with relief and dread.

Act two opened on the promise of noncontroversy with Asma appearing in the part of Catherine, the main character’s love interest, dressed as a peasant in a modest and unbecoming gown. Halfway through the scene, Catherine and Pippin started gravitating toward each other until finally, Asma and a boy I recognized from the party started kissing each other.

Once, when watching Sam and Diane kiss on Cheers, Asma had explained that actors weren’t actually kissing like real couples and that there was a technique to it, just like in a fight sequence they weren’t really fighting but going through a series of choreographed steps. But from where we sat, the kissing looked pretty real. The lights on the stage dimmed, and a bed appeared. Asma and the boy got in the bed, pulled the sheets over themselves, and kicked their legs in the air. After a few minutes of the under-the-sheets action, the boy popped his head out, hair disheveled, eyes popping, face alight, and then dramatically dove under the sheets again. If embarrassment and shame were a perfume, my parents’ fragrance filled the theater.

My culture, my religion, is driven by sex. It is something to be ashamed and afraid of. Denying female sexuality and treating it as an abnormality takes the same amount of energy as a sex addiction, a single-minded focus and a prism through which all other beliefs and actions are filtered. The female body is supposedly so powerful that it drives men to actions that are out of their own control. Consequently, it must always be hidden.

Once, Asma fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon, her shirt pulled up exposing her stomach. Ami shook her awake, hissing, “Your father’s home. What if he’d seen?” If we weren’t permitted to let our guard down in front of our own family in our own house, how could Abu be okay with Asma displaying sexuality, even just playacting it on a stage?

There is a polite way to leave a theater mid-show and there was the way Abu left. He barreled down the row without regard to anyone in his path. He pushed forward, unapologetic for knees or toes. Ami might have followed in his wake if the audience members Abu had just trampled weren’t between her and the aisle. Eventually, the lights went on. I stayed huddled in my seat, anxious about Abu, anxious about Asma, and anxious about what would happen when they saw each other. By an unspoken understanding to spare Ami’s discomfort of being jostled in close proximity to male strangers, we waited until the theater emptied before walking out.

We couldn’t see Abu in the lobby, so we awkwardly milled about the backstage doors, waiting for Asma to come out. Aunty held a bouquet of pink roses. Ami and I exchanged looks. She, jumpy. Me, hoping we wouldn’t see Asma.

After a while, when Asma didn’t come out, we went outside. The air was cool and crisp, and the smoky smell of autumn leaves filled the night. Abu was pacing next to our station wagon. I wrapped my arms around myself as we approached. I did not want to be there and reminded myself that none of this had anything to do with me. I was simply flotsam, floating along on the surface of our life.

“Yar, it’s just a college play,” Mamoo said as we walked up.

“Get in the car. We’re going back home tonight,” Abu said to me.

“Musharraf, it’s simply acting. Don’t make too much of this.” Mamoo tried again.

“When you have your own children, you can raise them any way you want. But these are my daughters, and I decide what’s too much for them.”

Mamoo’s jaw tightened. He took the flowers from Aunty and silently handed them to me. He looked long and hard at Ami, who was twisting her dupatta in her hands, and then he and Aunty disappeared between the rows of cars. Everyone else could walk away, but not me.

“Did you know this was going to happen? Huh?” Abu glared at me over the roof of the car.

“Me? How would I know?”

“You two talk about everything. Your sister didn’t tell you?”

I stayed silent. What could I say?

“She didn’t think this was something to tell us? That she would be . . . be . . . doing sex, in front of an audience? In front of her parents?” he whispered.

I wanted to say it was called having sex, not doing sex. I wanted to clarify that Asma wasn’t actually having sex and that it was called acting for a reason. I wanted to say we weren’t kids and I was quite certain that she wasn’t telling me everything anymore. I wanted to say that I was sick of being the one to help them process whatever rebellion Asma was seeding. Instead, I slid into the back seat, frustrated that despite my resolution to stay an impartial observer, I was stuck here answering for Asma’s misdeeds.

Abu settled himself behind the wheel, and we almost got away. But before I closed the door, I heard Asma’s voice and saw her run across the parking lot.

“Sal! Sal!”

It was impossible to miss her jubilance. My basic operating platform was that if Asma was happy, I was happy, and for a split second, it worked. I caught her elation. Maybe there was a second where I could have told Abu to drive away. Maybe I could have waved Asma back. But it was too late. Abu heard her and stepped out of the car, drawing himself to his full height. And then she was upon us.

“Did you see me?” she asked, her eyes shining.

I got out of the car. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to give her the affirmation she so clearly wanted. Abu stood next to me, and I could feel his agitation. Unable to be the person I needed to be for my sister and unwilling to distract my father by drawing his ire, I just stood there like a stump.

“What was that?” Abu’s mouth barely moved.

Asma stopped abruptly. Every pore in my body dilated, waiting for something. It felt dangerous.

“It was the play.” High from the thrill of the performance, she smiled brightly and looked around, waiting for a word of praise or connection. Her expression held no guile or rebellion. Perhaps it was the vulnerability that came from performing or the buoyant mood of the cast and supporters in the lobby, or maybe, for a moment, she forgot who our family actually was.

The bouquet of flowers in my hands felt heavier by the second.

“Where did we go wrong with you?”

The hopefulness and light slid off Asma’s face, and the bitter knowledge of who she was, who he was, the limitations of who we all were, hardened her features. “I love performing. Why can’t you understand that? Why does everything always have to come back to you?”

“What are you teaching your sister?”

Asma barely glanced at me and said clearly, “Me doing this performance has nothing to do with Salma. Other than I hope she can find what she loves to do.”

His head craned toward her like a street thug picking a fight. He was trying to incite a fight or a defense. “How do you not know who you are?”

There it was again. That question. As much as a question for himself as it was for Asma. I think Asma always knew who she was. It was just the rest of us who didn’t understand.

Asma stood rigid, fists at her side, shaking. “I live in this world, too, and sometimes I get to do what I want.”

He stepped toward her. “That’s what you want? To do that? In front of . . . all those people?” His voice quiet and loud at the same time. What kind of a person sees their child shrinking inward and smells blood in the water? Is impelled to attack even more aggressively?

Asma stepped back one foot and then caught herself. “It was just a play.”

“I told you to not do it. Why do I say things and you not listen?” He breathed hard through his nose, trying to regain control.

All around us, people were leaving the theater. Dots of red, brake lights blinked on and off. Cars slowly trickled out of the parking lot, the smell of exhaust fumes mingled with the lonesome smell of autumn and roses. We stood in that pool of darkness, caught in the light cast between two lampposts. Caught between cultures. Caught between the before and the after.

“Not everything has to do with you,” she said.

“All the people . . . boys and girls switching with each other . . . it was . . . filthy.” He started and stopped, struggling to find the words that could express the full range of his emotions. He looked around as though questioning how he had gotten there. “You bring shame down on our heads.”

Ami looked at Abu and then turned to Asma. “Everybody is talking about it.”

We all turned to Ami, confused.

Instead of asking her what she was talking about, Abu said, “This is because of you. You allowed this.”

Asma shook her head in disbelief and shook off her defensive posture. She spoke slowly, enunciating every word. “This is not Ami’s fault. There is nothing wrong with me.”

Sound travels faster than the mind’s ability to process. One moment, Asma was braced for an argument, and the next there was the curiously flat, thudding sound of impact on soft tissue, followed by the sound of a quickly deflating balloon. Like a black hole, it sucked in all the surrounding sound from cars, hustle, and people. Time stopped, and just like that, we slipped into some other place. I thought I had understood the fault lines. I thought that we were living in a new world. I learned that night that my father had never left the old one.

Ami screamed.

Abu’s left hand fell away from Asma’s shoulder, and his right fist unclenched and fell to its rightful spot at his side. He looked confused, glancing down at his hands as though they were someone else’s. Muted, delayed sounds returned as if from a long distance. A car honked. A light flickered. The face of a little boy, mouth in an O, peered out from a passing car. The roses fell from my arms in a heap.

“Asma.” I swiveled to see if anyone else had seen.

Asma gripped her stomach, her eyes as shocked as the child in the passing car. She pulled herself up shakily. She appeared old and frail, the darkness seeding shadows under her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She staggered back one step and looked at me blankly, like she didn’t know who I was. Abu reached out, his arm suspended in the halfway space, as though he was going to pull her to him, but Asma had already pivoted and started back toward the building.

We sat in the car for a long time. I shook uncontrollably. Ami kept clearing her throat like she had something to say, her hand moving back and forth from eyebrow to hairline. Abu sat, unmoving. Later, a long time after the parking lot was deserted, we tentatively pulled out, Abu’s hands at ten and two on the steering wheel.

The drive home was pitch-dark, as if all the lights and stars had been extinguished and littered with each of our regrets. For Abu, it was everyone else’s fault. Mamoo’s, for promoting ideas like getting involved in the theater. Aunty’s, for marrying Mamoo. Ami’s, because wasn’t it her entire job to raise obedient children? Asma’s lack of judgment and disrespectfulness could be traced in a direct line to Ami’s permissiveness. Ami needed to get Asma under control. They should have brought Asma home with them. Mine, because I should have known what Asma was up to and, presumably, told them.

I should have stayed with Asma that night and refused to go home. That would have set a boundary and taught them a lesson. From this vantage point, when the consequences of my complicity are so easy to see, it sounds like an excuse. But back then, in that long, dark drive home, I still thought I could middle-road my way to family peace. What does a rule follower do? She follows the rules. It never occurred to me that I could rebel, that I could act like Asma and overwhelm their defenses, normalize Asma’s actions. Would the end result have been different if I had challenged the facade that I was the good one? Would it have been enough to change the trajectory?

I don’t know what was going through Ami’s mind, only that she eagerly nodded along in rhythm with Abu’s complaints, trying to get back in his good graces. Periodically, she interjected with “Bilkool.” Exactly. More and more she reminded me of a child seeking the approval from a parent, saying anything to win a favor or a soft look.

“We should have brought her back home with us,” Ami said.

“She has school tomorrow,” I muttered.

Ami turned her head to look at me in the back seat. Her eyes had no discernible pupils. The only light for miles around, from an oncoming car, reflected off her black, flat orbs. She hissed, “It’s not her choice.” And then, as though speaking to herself, she said, “Something has to be done. Otherwise they’re going to just keep talking about it.”

Early the morning after Pippin, I woke up to the phone ringing over and over, stopping, and then starting all over again.

I heard Ami yelling and stumbled upstairs, still disoriented from a restless sleep and in fear for Asma.

“Salaam aleikum. Musharraf! Musharraf!”

In the twelve years we had lived in America, not once had we received a call from Pakistan. It was a time of firsts.

Abu held his salvar up with one hand and took the phone from Ami. In the harsh overhead light, his pale skin appeared thinner, almost translucent. I could only hear one side of the conversation, Abu’s Punjabi delivered rapid and brisk. But it was enough for me to understand that Abu’s father, my Dadaji, was dying, and it was his final wish to see his only son once more.

Abu sat down in his chair, his head in his hands.

“Maybe Javed can help,” Ami said, her hand subconsciously traveling to her eyebrow.

“Your brother already has too many opinions. He doesn’t need anything else over us.” Instead of sounding nasty like he had the night before, he just sounded tired.

The rest of the day was surreal. We all steered wide paths around each other. It felt like everything was distorted, like we were underwater. I found myself questioning whether the occurrences of the prior night had really happened. And then the full, resonant sound of Asma’s oof hit me. We had returned home from the play different people than the ones who left. The rules by which we lived—built for another time and place—had immutably changed.

At lunch, Ami said, “Javed said the tickets would be no problem.”

The clock on the broken stove ticked.

“I told you not to ask him.”

She stood at the opposite end of the table, out of his reach. “You need to see your father.” Her voice verged on being whiny. “I knew you wouldn’t ask, so I did. This is important.”

“I don’t need his help. Why do I bother telling you what to do when you don’t do it anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter how many extra shifts we work. Your father may not last long enough.”

I watched incredulously. Ami arguing with Abu was a rare sight. I felt the urge to call Asma.

Almost conversationally, Abu asked, “What do you mean ‘tickets’? You don’t need to go back. You don’t even have any family.”

Ami hung her head, and for a moment, I thought she was going to cry. And then in that slow, hesitant way she spoke when she was unsure of herself or trying to drive the listener crazy, she said, “They think we should find a rishtha for Asma when we’re home.”

So much was happening so quickly. I was still reeling and couldn’t take in this new dilemma. “Who is ‘they’? She’s only nineteen!” I blurted out.

The entire week had been off-kilter, so maybe Ami’s offering the bold idea of marrying Asma off should have blended right in. But it didn’t. It horrified me. I don’t know if it was a spontaneous moment or a premeditated one. But either way, it was a peace offering, a way to get back into my father’s good graces. I thought of the girl Abu had told me about in the car. This was not how things were supposed to go. This was not how our lives were supposed to look.

Abu took a long, slow drink from his glass of water and looked at me over the lip of his glass but didn’t say anything.

“You’re a good girl. You understand this,” Ami said flatly and started clearing the table.

After lunch, Mamoo called to talk to Abu. I crept downstairs and picked up the extra phone quietly, depressing the hang-up button slowly so as not to signal my presence.

“Yar,” Mamoo was saying. “This is important. You can’t let this opportunity to see your father one last time pass by. Trust me.” Mamoo sounded so sad.

Now it was Abu’s turn to consider what Mamoo was saying. He was clearly anguished. “No gift.”

“Fine, it’s not a gift. It’s a loan that I expect you to pay back. You can do it over time.”

Abu grunted.

“But”—Mamoo spoke quickly, reminding me of Ami, trying to press her advantage when she sensed an opening—“I feel very strongly that it would be good for my sister to go back. She needs to visit. She’s missed home.”

“We can’t afford even one ticket,” Abu started to say.

Mamoo cut him off. “Musharraf, let me finish. Your ticket you can repay. My sister’s ticket is a gift. I insist on this.”

* * *

It is the day of curriculum night. It will be a long day. I rouse myself to get out of bed. Increasingly, in that moment right before I wake up, when I become aware that I have a body and I am arriving back into it, I find myself trying to place myself into when I am. My sleep, such as it is, is not restful.

After school is over, we will prepare rooms for visitors. School provides a hot dinner catered by the company that provides the food service to the school. I usually don’t go to that dinner, afraid I may burp or throw up in the middle of the parent presentation. Plus, it’s not any good, and after a lifetime with Mamoo, I enjoy a good meal. It is Emil’s and my tradition to go for a quick dinner after curriculum night is over.

I inflate the hot-air balloon and direct a floor light to illuminate it. I organize the books in the Nook and fan out a few on the floor, like for a photo shoot. I arrange the potted plants I brought from home to make the room look warm and inviting.

Parents arrive and enter the room shyly, appropriately impressed with the magic of the room. I welcome them and smile through my awkwardness. The bell rings for the first session. Thirteen parents sit in the small chairs I have arranged mimicking morning meeting. This group is usually full of parents of only children and oldest children. They sit straight up in their seats, somber and serious. At the end of the session, the bell rings again, and there is a ten-minute passing period for parents to go to a specialist’s class or leave. The bell rings again to mark the beginning of the second session, largely consisting of parents who have been in another class for another child or parents who couldn’t get away early from work. The bell rings to mark the end of the second session.

I nibble a cracker and sip a little bit of water, not too much. I don’t want to have to go to the bathroom. Ever since the call, I have not been eating well, but tonight, I am ready to eat. I wonder where Emil is going to want to go.

The next set of parents starts filtering in. This is the third and final session and is filled with parents who have multiple children and a better sense of the forgiving arc of childhood. They have all known each other a long time and don’t take themselves or school too seriously. There are no difficult or annoying questions at the end of the talk. No alphas that want to tell me what or how I should be teaching. They are simply appreciative.

Marlene walks in and appears to be as jittery as I feel. She is overly enthusiastic. I feel her arms have the shakes as she hugs me. She is acting falsely happy and keeps running her hands over her freshly washed head of hair, as though she is trying to smooth it down or make it not so shiny. She comes close to me and says, “The room looks amazing!” Her eyes dart around.

The bell rings again to signal the start of the last session. People settle in their seats. I start my rote talk. Only one more time to do this and then I can shut off the lights. I might beg off dinner with Emil. I am starving and feel like home cooking. Mamoo has a woman that makes him prepared meals, and he always has some extra made for me. I think it is a vegetarian lasagna. It’s funny that Mamoo has stayed vegetarian after Aunty passed, even though he grumbled about it for so many years. Only two more minutes before the Q and A.

I turn my back to the classroom and am demonstrating the map software and point to the countries that we’re going to “visit” in our hot-air balloon when something solid and big hits my metal desk. I hear an “Oof,” followed by a collective gasp. I turn to see a woman splayed on its surface. She must have tripped. I walk toward her to help. Her arms flail, messing up my perfectly ordered desk. I am irate. She is about to push my books and papers onto the floor. We are less than two feet apart when she lifts her head.

Before the room falls away, I think, Man, Ruby has really let herself go.