Nobody mentions Mati, or what just happened in the yard.
After dinner, Janie passes out fortune cookies. Our tradition seems particularly frivolous tonight and my stomach’s somersaulting, but I play along for Janie’s sake. I put on a smile as she breaks her cookie open, then slides it across the table to Audrey. “What does it say, Mama?”
Aud gives her throat a theatrical clear. “‘Your fortune is as sweet as a cookie.’”
Janie grins. Through a mouthful of crumbs, she says, “What about yours?”
Aud splits her cookie in half, skims her fortune, then laughs. “‘You are the controller of your destiny.’ Yeah, right,” she says to her bit of paper. “My destiny is so far out of my control it’s not even funny. I’m just riding the wave.”
“You’re doing a good job keeping afloat,” my mom tells her.
She smiles. “Read yours, Jocelyn.”
I’m thinking about Aud’s fortune, about destiny and whether any of us are actually in control, as my mom reads: “‘If you have something worth fighting for, then fight for it.’” She laughs, too, waving her slip of paper like a white flag. “I’m fighting to finish my book, and I hope it’ll be worth it.”
Cookies and destiny and fighting … They’re not my fortunes, but they’re burrowing under my skin. I think of Mati and the way he looked at me earlier, wistfully, entreatingly, regretfully.
I wish … I wish I would have spoken to him, thanked him aloud, at the very least.
My chest constricts, and I shift in my seat. Bambi, who’s lying under my chair, nudges my ankle with her muzzle, a show of doggy support.
“Your turn, Auntie,” Janie prompts, pushing my cookie closer.
I open the cellophane with reluctance, feeling too old, too jaded for this game. Fortunes are malleable; we make of them what we want—what we need.
My cookie crumbles as I attempt to halve it, a bad omen. Apprehension skips across my skin. I read silently, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. My eyes swim with tears as I skim the tiny words again.…
Stop wishing. Start doing.
MATI
When the ringing begins, I am at the park,
in our memory-steeped turret.
The night is alight with stars.
I pull my phone from my pocket, filled with nerves,
with dread,
with hope.
I miss her like twilight misses the sun.
For a moment,
I can only watch her name as it blinks tirelessly against the illuminated screen.
Why now?
She is calling to tell me enough.
Enough calls, enough messages.
Enough wishes of goodwill sent on the breeze.
She is calling to tell me to stay away.
Now, we have a sense of how it will be when I leave America for Afghanistan.
Something like drowning, or being buried alive.
Sadness blacking out sensation.
Despair drawing hope away.
I am so scared.
I consider letting her call fade, unanswered,
into the night.
But I am not that strong.
elise
The eager hum of his voice makes me feel like I’ve been shaken out of a deep sleep: anxious, alert, awake.
It’s late. Audrey and Janie went home hours ago, and it’s long past my mom’s bedtime. Long past the time I should be asleep. Tonight … I couldn’t even lie down. I’m jumpy, full of worries, and questions, and doubts. I keep thinking about my fortune. It’s just a silly luck-of-the-draw prediction that means nothing, except …
It means everything.
He says my name, softly, almost like he’s sleeptalking. Sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed, Bambi’s head resting in my lap, I try to guess his mood based on his tone alone. But it’s been too long since our last conversation, when he was frustrated and tense, speaking sharply and imploringly. That’s the voice that’s tolled in my head over the last few days. Desperate and despairing. Hopeless.
Tonight he sounds … different.
“I’m happy you called,” he says, though happy isn’t how I’d describe his timbre.
I don’t know how to respond. I can’t even explain why I called—to feel close to him, I guess. I pet Bambi’s head, grasping for a calm that keeps slipping away.
“Elise,” he says. “Are you there?”
Cautious. Uncertain. Nervous. That’s how he sounds.
“I’m here,” I whisper.
“Are you at home?”
“Where else would I be?”
“On your way to the park? To see me?”
“You’re at the park?”
“In our turret.”
I lift my hair away from my neck, my skin too warm. Bambi groans, protesting my movement. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“I can’t sleep, either.”
I expect him to ask me to join him, and I’m glad when he doesn’t. I’m not sure I have the willpower to turn him down. “Thank you again for bringing Bambi home.”
“She was sitting in front of our cottage, wagging her tail. I was so glad to see her.”
A stretch of silence passes. I wonder if he’s been going to the beach the last few days. If he’s waited, looking for my dog and me. The image of him standing alone on the sand makes my breath shallow.
“How’s your baba?”
“Better. His last scan is tomorrow. Based on his recent progress, his doctors have high hopes.”
“That means…?”
“That our time in America is nearly done.”
In two days, he’ll board a plane. He’ll fly halfway around the world. He’ll land in Afghanistan and reunite with his siblings. It’s so simple, and yet … I can’t wrap my head around the idea of him not here—not with me.
“I bet you’re looking forward to getting home,” I say, cringing even as the words leave my mouth. This conversation is forced, falsely polite. If I’d known I wouldn’t have the guts to say what I want to say, I wouldn’t have bothered him with my call.
“Elise.” His voice, his beautiful storm cloud voice, sounds pained, like he’s stretching for something infinitely valuable, yet just out of reach. “I’m happy you called,” he says again, as if he’s trying to cement the notion in his head, “but why did you call?”
Stop wishing. Start doing.
I take a deep breath. It doesn’t keep my hands from shaking, but it does make me feel less like I’m going to throw up. “I called because I miss you,” I say. It’s the truth, but only a fraction of it. “I called because the other day in your yard, things went unsaid. I was shocked, and hurt, and so, so mad, and I didn’t listen when you tried to explain. I’m sorry for that.”
“You should not be the one apologizing.”
“It’s okay. I needed to get that out.”
“Do you feel better?”
“No. I feel terrible.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he says after a moment’s pause.
“Because I found out?”
“No. Because I didn’t tell you myself. My reasons for keeping Panra secret were wrong. What you said was true: I knew you’d think differently of me if I told you what waited at home. You, not a part of this summer … I couldn’t let it happen.”
“You were selfish,” I say.
He’s quiet, and I worry I’ve pulled the plug on his honesty. Then, softly, he says, “I was.”
I fold over to rest my head against Bambi’s, comforted by her presence, by Mati’s voice. Since he’s being so forthcoming, I whisper one of my truths. “I wish I could hate you. Life would be so much easier. I keep wondering … Why do I still care?”
“Have you arrived at an answer?”
I breathe through the ache behind my ribs. “Because I know now how it feels to lose you.”
“Gutted,” he says. “Like a snared fish.”
“I was going to go with hollow, like a tree left to rot on the forest floor.”
“And you think you’re not good with words.”
I laugh, tinny and stuttered. “You’re better. Have you been writing?”
“Page after page. Lines wrought with angst. I don’t think you’d be impressed.”
“Oh, I bet I would.” It feels good, this lightness after days of dark, but I can’t forget what’s next: the detailed reality of his future, and the terrifying blankness of mine. “So. Two days?”
“Two days. I’d give anything to spend them with you.”