I draw away from Mati as our friends crowd into the room, bellowing reassurances and sympathies, which Mati accepts amiably, if not wearily.
Not a minute later, Hala and Rasoul arrive. It happens so fast: She gives Ryan and Xavier inquisitive glances, and then she turns toward where I sit beside her son, my heart drowning in the pit of my stomach. Her mouth falls open as she observes my body, inclined toward Mati’s, my palm, aligned with his, my face, cloaked in a passion-induced haze—like his.
“Matihullah!” she cries.
I snatch my hand away as she unleashes a string of Pashto as rapid and sharp as machine-gun blasts. Rasoul touches her shoulder, but she doesn’t quiet until she’s said her piece, punctuating her tirade with an arctic glare aimed right at me.
Thank God she didn’t see us kissing.
Mati looks like a snared animal—cornered, fearful, humiliated. “Elise, maybe you should…”
He doesn’t have to finish; he needs me to go. The regret saturating his voice is the same as a thousand hailstones, pelting my skin.
“Thank you for coming,” Rasoul says, gracious. His hand lingers on his wife’s shoulder, equal parts cautionary and reassuring, making it clear that he sees the world in loops and curves, while Hala only perceives hard lines. Because she’s still looking at me like I’m depraved—like it’s my fault her son was attacked.
Her judgment seeps into my flesh, making me cold with shame.
Mati watches as I back toward the door, toward where Ryan and Xavier wait, toward escape from Hala’s harsh gaze.
“We’ll get her home safe,” Xavier says before stepping into the hallway with Ryan close behind.
I keep my shoulders back and my head high as I pass Mati’s parents. They say nothing, but his curiosity and her animosity, their combined concern, overwhelming in its intensity, make me wonder if I shouldn’t have come here after all.
MATI
She leaves with my heart in her hands.
Mama does not talk to me for what remains of the day.
She listens to nurses and doctors, and is attentive when Baba translates words she does not know.
She purses her lips
and makes muted tsking sounds as she puzzles over diagnoses and prescribed treatments.
But she does not talk to me.
I wonder …
Should we return to Afghanistan early?
Should we flee America,
and the monsters who lurk
in its idyllic towns?
Because what if it had been Mama, beaten because of her flowing hijab?
What if it had been Baba’s frail body, dragged into a dark alley?
I raise the topic aloud, and Baba reminds me:
“Leaving America early
is the same as succumbing to fear.
Leaving America early
means prejudice has won.”
I am not surprised by his response; he is stubborn and he is righteous.
I long to be more like him.
He and Mama stay with me until the sun ducks behind the horizon.
As they ready to leave for the cottage, Baba promises they will return tomorrow.
Mama looks relieved to be on her way.
She is disappointed because I have sinned, and because I have been attacked.
I am disappointed, too, for the very same reasons.
Finally, I am alone with my pain.
While the whole of my body aches, my chest is hurt’s epicenter.
Breaths and coughs
bring lightning bolts of agony.
I am caught in a vice,
squeezed slowly, as my ribs begin to knit back together.
To distract myself, I think of her.
She balked earlier
when I said I was fortunate, but there is nothing truer.
It could have been worse,
there in that alley.
It could have been worse,
this year in Cypress Beach.
I met her, after all.
She is fire: bright, hot, consuming.
All the rest is smoke on a breeze.
For three more weeks, she is mine, and I am hers.
elise
Mati makes a relatively swift recovery—I know, thanks to Ryan’s updates.
He spends two more days in the hospital, where doctors monitor his injured kidney, where he’s deluged with fluids and curative medicines, where he practices getting around, carefully and slowly, so his ribs will continue to heal.
He returns to his cottage three days after the assault, where he spends more time recuperating. We talk on the phone often, thanks to Ryan’s generosity and a little sneaking around, though I’m still going bananas, worrying about him, lamenting the loss of my own phone, wishing I could drop by and check in on him. But I haven’t forgotten the way his mother looked at me when she walked into his hospital room. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel comfortable sharing space with her again.
I want Mati healthy; I want to see him, hug him, kiss him.
I want to stop thinking about how at summer’s end, all I’ll have left to do is miss him.
Ryan knocks on our cottage door a week after the alleyway attack. My mom answers, a rare reprieve from her library and her manuscript, and spends a few minutes chatting him up. She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek as she heads back into the cottage, which appears loving but feels manipulative. She’s been super nice lately, but only because she thinks I’ve omitted Mati from my life, thanks to her crackerjack parenting.
I haven’t talked to her about what happened last week, the thugs who pummeled him because of where he’s from, how he looks, what he believes. I let her go on thinking what she wants to think, because she won’t hear me. She doesn’t want to.
Ryan waves me into the yard, where we sit on the cool grass close to the box hedge. I ask him about Xavier, and he goes incandescent, talking about his air force boy. “He told me Lackland Air Force Base is on his list of possible duty stations when he’s done at the MLI. That’s in San Antonio, which means we wouldn’t be inconceivably far from each other.”
I smile, happy for them, but rueful, too, because soon, Mati and I will be inconceivably far from each other. “You guys are going to live happily ever after,” I tell him.
He gives my arm a sympathetic squeeze. “Mati’s gonna be home alone this afternoon. He wants you to come by. His parents are headed to San Jose for one of his father’s appointments, and if you go over after lunch, y’all should be good for a few hours.”
My impulse is to resist a secret meeting. It’s shameful—not being with Mati, but the way we have to be together. Still, time with him outweighs my moral hesitancies. “You really think it’s okay? I don’t want to get him into trouble with his parents. His mother.”
Ryan rolls his eyes. “His mother will never know. But I can call him and double-check.”
“I’d rather call him myself, and I’d like to visit him without feeling like a sneak. I want him to come to my cottage and hang out, talk my mom’s ear off like you just did. I want the world to let us be.”
“Sucks, Elise. Truly. But at least you guys will have this afternoon.” He pulls out his phone and taps out a text. “I’m gonna tell him you’ll see him later.”
I should be excited—this reunion is a week in the making. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t rushing headlong toward inevitable separation. I can’t stop thinking about how hard it’s going to be when he leaves the United States, because thanks to days of unavoidable distance, I know how much it sucks—how much it hurts—to be away from him.
I spent most of last night awake, watching for shooting stars through my open bedroom window, trying to decide if being with Mati is worth the worry and the stress and the feeling of pending doom that won’t let me be. His mother’s reaction to us at the hospital flung seeds of doubt through my conscience, and they’re taking root. As often as I try to weed them away, they’re invasive as thistle. I’m barely speaking to my mom, I haven’t seen Audrey or Janie in ages, I haven’t picked up my camera in days.
I feel sad. All the time.
I wonder if I should treat this last week’s time apart as the beginning of our end—if I should break things off now, today, before the task becomes unendurable.
My heart might be better off if I don’t allow it to fall further into him.
Ryan tweaks my hair. “Cheer up, okay? I’m only willing to be the bearer of good news. I’ll quit playing courier if you’re gonna be bummed.”