“It was a hard lesson, Hadia Baji. It made me feel sick.”
He only called her sister when he needed something from her.
“Don’t go.”
Why do things always sound sadder in Urdu? Prettier too. She likes that they speak to each other in Urdu, how even speaking it feels like access to their secret world, a world where they feel like different people, capable of feelings she could not experience let alone speak of in English. She turns around and faces him. He looks worried and scratches his cheek. He is only six. First grade has just begun and he has had a hard time adjusting to the longer hours.
The year before Amar started kindergarten, there were three days when Mumma disappeared and Baba took them to a family friend’s house. Amar was almost four and it was his first time being away from Mumma. Hadia remembers asking Baba where Mumma was as Baba packed a duffel bag of their clothes and toothbrushes, but Baba gave her a silent look that said, Don’t you ask me again. They had never spent the night in anyone else’s home before. It was not allowed. Then, as if Baba regretted his look, he told her Mumma was fine, everything would be fine. His face was serious like it always was but this time it was sad too, and when he dropped them off at Seema Aunty’s house, even she looked so concerned when Baba passed her their duffel bag that Hadia felt even more alarmed. Hadia watched Huda and Amar follow Seema Aunty into her big house. Even the fact that it was so big frightened her: what if they got lost, and Baba could not find them when he came back? Baba placed a hand on her shoulder. He told her he would be back to check on them tomorrow evening after work.
“It’s your job as the big sister to take care of them,” he told Hadia. “You are like their mother when Mumma is not here.”
Hadia held on to her arm and pinched her skin so tight she had no space to feel sad about what Baba was saying.
“I know you will do a good job, Hadia. I am certain,” Baba said, then he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
She had the ugly thought that she would be okay not seeing Mumma for a day or two if it meant that Baba believed in her. But when Baba pulled his car from the driveway, Amar realized he was not coming back, and that Mumma was not coming that night either, and he latched onto Hadia fiercely and screamed if she tried to pry herself from him. But he did not ask for Mumma once, and Hadia wondered if he understood something that she did not.
The next day, Hadia couldn’t go to school because Amar cried when she put her socks on, and screamed when she zipped up her backpack. He even threw things and Hadia was so embarrassed because now Seema Aunty would know about his misbehaving. Seema Aunty called Baba and Baba told her Hadia could stay at home with him. So everyone went to school—Huda and Seema Aunty’s sons—but Hadia stayed back with Amar and Seema Aunty’s baby girl, who was almost two and learning how to speak. If Amar watched TV, he looked at Hadia every few minutes, as if he were afraid she too would disappear if he looked away for too long. When she went to the bathroom, he waited outside in the hallway until she emerged again. Seema Aunty let Hadia play with her son’s video games. Amar threw a little ball that squeaked at the baby girl and the baby girl laughed. Hadia liked to pick her up and point to things and name them, and the girl repeated the words back to her: light, fire, tree. Amar pointed to his nose and said his name, and the girl tried to say it, but said mar instead, and that was the first time Hadia and Amar laughed, knowing it was the Urdu word for hit, or hurt.
In the evening when Baba visited, Hadia watched him carefully for signs of what was going on, but he just looked tired, or like he was just pretending to be there with them. When Baba got ready to leave, he hugged Hadia and Huda and stood for a long time watching Amar sitting on a couch, his back to Baba. Hadia tried to look at Amar’s back too, tried to see what Baba was looking at there, but saw nothing special.
“You should be so proud of Hadia,” Seema Aunty said to Baba. “She helps so much it is like I hardly have to watch them at all.”
Hadia waited for Baba to react, but instead he nodded and said he had to go. Hadia watched the headlights of the car pull away and all the terror she had felt the night before came rushing back, even though she knew that Seema Aunty was nice to them, that her baby was cute, that the food tasted like Mumma’s, and the boys in the house shared their toys with them.
Those days were the first times she really felt like a sister. Like it was a job she had to do, and that she would do her best at it. And after, she never stopped feeling it. She took the job as seriously as listening in class or cleaning the kitchen counter when Mumma passed her a dishcloth. When Amar cried and shook his head if Seema Aunty tried to spoon rice into his bowl, Hadia sat up in her chair, took the spoon, and served him, remembering what Baba had told her. She did not let Huda tease Amar. She thought of games they could play together. She told them stories before they went to sleep. The one they liked about when the Prophet split the moon, or the one about the two children who get lost in the woods but find their way home by sticking together and by dropping breadcrumbs.
“You’re good at telling stories,” Seema Aunty’s oldest son, who was Hadia’s age, told her. He was nice, but Hadia kept forgetting his name.
“My Mumma tells good stories,” she told him proudly, and that was the first time she missed Mumma, and she felt bad that it had taken her so long to miss her when Amar missed her every day.
By the third day, Amar was calmer. Maybe he knew that whoever else left, Hadia would not, or maybe he was bored with her and wanted to play with the toys that filled the big house. Hadia left his side and spent the whole day playing with Huda and Seema Aunty’s three boys. She took breaks to check on Amar, and he was fine, helping Seema Aunty by carrying snacks to them outside, or playing with the baby girl when Seema Aunty was busy cooking. The baby girl followed Amar around the house. And when she reached across to scratch his face, leaving a long red line that raised instantly, Hadia was impressed that Amar, despite having not spent time with many toddlers, knew not to hurt her back, and he just laughed.