It is a Sunday. They are in a public library near their home, where Layla brings them on some weekends, especially when Rafiq is away. He left for a business trip earlier this morning and will return Thursday night. It is odd to her, how used to his absence they have all become, and odder still that she does not mind it. When she speaks to her father on the phone now she does not tell him when Rafiq is gone. Her father still worries for her in a way that he does not have to worry for Sara, who has stayed in Hyderabad, who has never driven a day in her life, who lives in the apartment complex next door and has someone to help her with the groceries and the cooking and cleaning. She realizes that her life has grown, and what she can now do with ease has expanded. Just years ago, Layla panicked at the thought of having to manage without Rafiq, but now it seems that her house is relaxed when he is gone and cautious when he is not.
Hadia is ten now but still, she cannot leave them unattended for long. Layla walks to the lobby where a librarian is typing fast on her keyboard without looking down once. She has short, black hair, coral tear-shaped earrings. Layla never gets books for herself. Maybe she should. The books she once checked out with Hadia are now in her home again, for Amar. She pauses to admire the familiar illustrations: caterpillars and bright fish, a fireplace in a darkened room, a child playing in the shade of trees.
What is surprising to Layla is that it is Hadia who picks them out for Amar. Hadia who has grand ideas of how he should move through the world. So important to her, that he reads the books that were her favorite at that age, that made her love reading. Amar should watch animal documentaries about tigers and lions and sharks. They should go as a family to the museums her school took her to. That these activities are good for Huda’s and Amar’s imaginations. These are Hadia’s words. Her decision too that Amar not watch violent shows or movies. Amar not spend too many hours playing video games. Because she did not. All by herself, Hadia chose not to do these things, and chose to watch dolphin documentaries, brought home books she read on the stairs, or upside down on their living room couch, her hair falling down the side. Layla is amused, but also astonished, only allowing him the movie Hadia deems too scary for him if he comes to her crying. Where did they come from, her children? And how did they arrive already themselves, and unlike anyone else?
“Can I help you find something?” the librarian asks. Her earrings sway when she tilts her head to one side.
Layla nods. Her children have not followed her here, and she has been away from them for no more than five minutes. She is unsure how to ask.
“Books on children.”
“Fiction? A novel, a child protagonist?”
“No, no. Maybe a book if you sense that, something might be…something might be a little wrong…”
“Healthwise? Or, a mental illness?”
“No,” she responds quickly. “No, nothing like that. At all.”
“I am not sure I understand, ma’am.”
She shifts from one foot to another. Looks at the cuticles of her fingers as she tries to explain. For example, if he gets upset about little things, upset to the point where you wonder if this is normal? He is louder about his hurt than the girls were, they were less irritable, but perhaps it is just that—that he is a boy? What kind of stubborn behavior is normal, and what is not? If he refuses to eat, for example. If he makes a decision and no one can shake him from it. And this may not be important—but say he began speaking at a later age? Say, for example, he is upset and he begins crying, he will do so until his voice is hoarse, he will kick his legs on the wall even after it bruises him, he will cry until he is exhausted, until he falls asleep. And it could be for the smallest reason—I lifted the shades up too abruptly without telling him. I poured milk when he wanted none. Or he says he did something when I know he didn’t do it, brush his teeth, for example. But he insists so adamantly I am certain he believes himself. The woman is nodding, slowly, her earrings moving too, and Layla cannot tell if she is concentrating or concerned. She is grateful her children are aisles and aisles away, and that Hadia cannot overhear her and become worried, or that this woman cannot see her son and know who she is betraying.
Before returning to her children, she places the books at the bottom of their book bag, knowing Hadia or Huda would see the spines and ask questions. The librarian was kind, left her post at the desk and led her through the aisles, gestured at entire shelves but pulled certain books out, discussed them briefly. Layla nodded, thank you, thank you, she said quickly, so that the woman would leave her to flip through the books and then return to her children having decided that she did not even need them. But instead, Layla found herself pausing at sentences and sections, and every sentence seemed applicable to Amar, while also feeling impossible it could be him. She feared she was doing what Rafiq often accused her of doing: worrying herself, finding something to be wrong only because she looked for it. But still. She would keep the books hidden in her bottom drawer, read them after her children were tucked in bed and when her husband was away.
Only if she, God forbid, came across a passage that was actually concerning would she bother Rafiq with it. It might only make it worse if she brought it to his attention. She wishes Rafiq would be a little easier on Amar, prays for a deepening in his patience. He is so easily angered, offended by little things when it comes to Amar. So what if he asked Huda to paint his nails too? It was no matter that he had no interest in the trucks that Rafiq bought him; let him play in the garden kicking up leaves, let him watch the shows his sisters watched. It was true he was a little sensitive. Layla’s own father had not been an angry man—he painted, showed Layla his progress every week—but he had only daughters to raise. Maybe what a son evoked in a father was different than what a daughter evoked?
It would be all right. She was only afraid that when time passed, it would not be these trips to the library he would remember, or his eagerness to learn how she made roti in the kitchen with him as her helper, but how upset he would become when Rafiq scolded him. When she sees her children again, her son is still leaning his head on her daughter’s arm. Her daughter is flipping the page of a book. Her hand is angled up a little so the cover is visible, and Layla can see it really is the same book they have checked out for years. Sometimes, when Layla reads them to her children, she opens up the cover and runs her fingers down the dates stamped onto the lined paper, wonders which of these dates of return have been theirs. If she had a camera with her, she would have pulled it out. Taken a picture of the three of them unaware of her watching. How calm they are. A Sunday in their public library.
How many times has she stood, as she is standing now, and looked at her children as she is watching them now? A way of seeing that magnifies her attention, deepens her love at the sight of them, and she notices them in a way she otherwise might not, the way the sunlight goldens the profile of their faces, the way Hadia scratches at her nose, adjusts her scarf that always looks a little big on her. Perhaps a hundred times, just in a single week. Huda memorizing a poem for her class and wanting to recite it for her, Layla smiling at the way she looked up at the ceiling as though the lines were projected there. What a little person she was and so poised. And how Huda decided, all by herself, to not wait until her ninth birthday to begin wearing a scarf, but to begin months early, on her Islamic birthday. Or Hadia reminding her that this week, eight P.M., a shark documentary was on television and they should all watch it together, maybe eat dinner earlier to make it in time. And that new favorite game of Amar’s, asking her, “Guess how old I am, Mumma?”
“Ten.”
“No.”
“Thirty-eight?”
“No!”
“Oh, I know,” she would say slowly, so he leaned in closer to hear her reply, “a hundred and fifty-six.”
Lots of laughter, and then, “No. I’ll give you a clue.”
“What’s that?”
“Five.”
She smiled every time. She did not have the heart to teach him the subtlety of a clue.
“Hm,” she paused, tapping all fingers on her cheek to mimic his thinking face, and he waited wide-eyed until she said, “Five?”
“Yes!” He clapped, took another bite of dinner, and then after a pause asked her to play a game, and the game was again, guess how old I am, Mumma?