My brother, I save for last.
I stand in front of him and hold on tight to his hand. Seven years stretch between us. Our conversations have been awkward and uncomfortable, as if we don’t speak each other’s language, but there are times when we don’t need language to speak. I remember the times his warm back comforted me when I most needed it. I remember his weird snorting laughter when I told a joke no one else would laugh at. I remember fighting over the last fry in the box. I remember him singing me to sleep once.
I have been trying to learn the planes of his face, afraid that I will forget it and him. Afraid that I will forget the scent of him that I define as brother: the smell of sunshine, sea, and a sweetness I haven’t been able to find elsewhere.
I have been running away from this moment, but time has caught me in its grasp and refuses to let go until I live through it.
You see, I have been haphazardly saying goodbye to everything—even to the stones in the backyards—but only at this moment do I realize the immensity of goodbye. Only at this moment do I realize the brutality of it. What is goodbye? Does it mean I will see you again? Or perhaps I love you? Or perhaps it means hold on to me and don’t let me go, because I am not certain I will be myself anywhere but here. I don’t know. I haven’t lived long enough or experienced enough to have the answers.
My father says we need to go, but I cling to my brother harder, scared because the hurt in my chest is far more severe than anything I have felt before. Perhaps this is the prelude to some kind of death I do not yet have the language to articulate. My brother puts his arms around me and hugs me back as I cry. I cry as I have never cried before. I cry as I never will again.
Finally, even though I am not ready, my brother pulls away. He tries to wipe my tears but more keep falling. He attempts a smile and fails. His eyes are wet too.
“I will look after your flowers,” he says. “Your hibiscus flowers. I will take care of them.”
I blink hard and nod. “I will come back,” I promise. I might not be the same person when I do, and my family will change with time, but one thing will always remain the same no matter what: This place is, and always will be, home.
“We will be waiting,” he says, and lets go.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
My parents and I moved to Canada from Fiji in August 2001. I was seventeen years old and not at all willing to leave behind my entire life and everyone I knew. In Fiji, we lived on a sugarcane farm in a small village called Vitogo. In “All the Colors of Goodbye,” I give you a fictionalized version of what my goodbyes looked like.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nafiza Azad is a self-identified island girl. She has hurricanes in her blood and dreams of a time she can exist solely on mangoes and pineapple. Born in Lautoka, Fiji, she currently resides in BC, Canada, where she reads too many books, watches too many Kdramas and writes stories about girls taking over the world. Her debut YA fantasy, The Candle and the Flame, was released by Scholastic in 2019.
THE WEDDING
Sara Farizan
“You look wonderful, Darya,” Mom said as she pushed back my shoulders so that I would stand up straight. She was always lecturing me about my posture and how important it was that I carry myself like a lady. For the sake of the family and the photos that would be taken of us, I was wearing a dress to my cousin Shayla’s wedding. I still hadn’t quite figured out how to be comfortable with, as my mom would say, my “burgeoning womanhood.” I felt like a neon-pink sausage, waddling around in high heels that squeezed my feet. I could feel a blister forming on my pinkie toe already.
“I still can’t believe you’re wearing this,” my sister Tara said, pointing her phone in my direction. I didn’t smile for the photo, but she was grinning from ear to ear. Tara liked to glam up, put on makeup, wear dresses, and today she’d gone all the way with a lavender dress and popping bright-red lipstick. She looked good. She did it for herself and not for anyone else’s approval, but it wasn’t really my bag nor did I think it ever would be.
“If you put that online, I will never forgive you,” I said through gritted teeth. The most I did in the grooming department was tweeze my eyebrows, and even that could be dangerous. Sometimes they were uneven or too thin, as I never knew when to stop plucking. Lately, I’d let them grow and do their own thing.
“Look at my beautiful daughters,” Dad said, approaching us in the hotel lobby. He was in good spirits but had dark circles under his eyes. He’d done most of the driving from Boston to Montreal the day before, and we’d arrived later than the GPS had said we would. So far, Montreal felt like Europe and North America had gotten together and had a baby that wore a lot of denim and liked hockey. This was, of course, a generalization as I’d been in the country for less than twenty-four hours, but most people at the hotel had been very friendly and polite, so that stereotype about Canadians seemed to hold up.
Dr. Hamid Sadeghi, my grandfather, stood beside my dad, a little shorter and more fragile than his son, whom he once towered over. My grandfather
