“You… you didn’t have to do all of this,” I stammer, the heat crawling up to my cheeks. “Amal, this is a lot.”
“Wow, you’re easy to please.” She laughs and turns the ignition. “Let’s get you to school.”
I take a sip of the coffee, trying not to smile. “Hey, what color is my hijab?”
She glances at me. “Gray, right?”
“Thank you.”
“Is it gray? Or is it a fancy artist color name?”
“No, it’s gray. You know I can’t see colors.”
Amal sighs. “You’re on that again? Then how did you choose this hijab?”
My skin prickles. “I guess I remembered where I put it. Do you think I’m lying?”
She shakes her head. “I think you’re still living in Mama’s dreams. They were just stories, Jihad. You know, I researched this ‘sudden loss of color,’ and nothing came up. Not with what happened to you. We did tests. You weren’t exposed to fertilizers or styrenes, whatever that means. Then you said it’s the blessing gone wrong. I believeyoubelieve that. But it’s not reality.”
Amal stopped believing a long time ago. I’m not sure when her turning point was or what made her change her mind, but I could tell she was humoring Mama when she would tell her stories. And after Mama died, Amal completely gave up.
Still, it makes my throat tight and my hands clammy when Amal dismisses it. Dismisses what I believe. What I can and can’t see with my own eyes. The bagel is too heavy in my hands, and the coffee too sweet. I wish I could throw them away.
Amal sighs. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you on your first day. I’m sorry.”
I glance out the window, biting my tongue. “There’s nothing to apologize for. You believe what you believe.”
Amal rolls up the windows and blasts the air-conditioning, thesummer heat still sticking to the air like tar. Her hijab, which is square shaped, unlike mine, fits her perfectly. With her large black sunglasses, she looks like one of those 1950s movie stars in a convertible.
“How’s Baba?” Amal asks after a while.
I fiddle with my fingers. “He’s… he’s okay.”
“Really?”
I shrug. “I mean, we’re not like how we used to be back in the day. We don’t sing Fairuz, and he doesn’t tell me about Syria and stuff anymore.”
Amal gives me a sideways glance. “He still doesn’t talk to you?”
“There’s nothing to say.” My mouth feels heavy. I don’t know how to tell Amal that because she left, Mama’s ghost doesn’t haunt her like she haunts Baba and me. Mama isn’t in her apartment in SoHo, but Baba and I see her sitting on the old maroon sofa with the peeling leather at the back, her legs tucked under her while she reads a book. We see her standing in front of her vanity, touching up the blush on her cheeks. We see her everywhere.
So, of course, we don’t have any words left to say to each other. Baba’s voice is gone, muted along with Mama’s. She took his imagination with her.
“Jihad, this isn’t right,” Amal says quietly, and I slide my hands into the pockets of the slacks and grip my thighs tightly.
I breathe through my nose so I don’t explode in her face. This isn’t the time, and I don’t want to start the first day at my new school with my blood boiling.
I let the emptiness take over.
“You both need to face what—” she continues.
“No offense, Amal, but I don’t want to talk about this, okay?” I say in a measured tone that sounds like a scream in this car.
The air between us turns icy, a white fog that hides us from each other. She doesn’t say another word the whole drive. We’ve hit the quota of almost fights before this one turns into a real one.
Since Mama died, Amal has been handling me with kid gloves. When we shared the same room, fights between us were the norm and usually ended with me backing down because she was older and stronger. Now she lets me get the last word.
“I suppose you don’t want to tell me if you’ve painted anything lately either,” she says casually, turning the icy atmosphere between us into a different type of chill.
