suna
SHE WALKS ALONE IN the rain. The faded pink pajama bottoms and oversized T-shirt clinging to her small frame, heavy with the weight of water. Her breath breaks inside her chest in an upward heave that strangles a cry escaping from her throat. Gulps of air. Her shoulders rising and falling. How much time has passed? She presses the heel of her hand against the tears that blur her vision. Though her chest still throbs, demanding air, she begins to run again. Looks down at her feet and urges them to fly faster, skim across the pavement.
The city, a dusty camouflage of grays punctuated with dots of colors from traffic lights and swirling neon signs, stretches awake in the early-morning drizzle. In the distance there is the slam of metal gates being pushed aside, revealing cluttered storefronts and display windows. The heartbeat of the city thickens with the heat of summer rising as steam from the streets, with the noise of cars speeding across the freeway, with the multitude of voices and languages rising up to greet each other. The day begins, yet all Suna can see is the memory of a face framed by night. A face so familiar, so loved, she can name each imperfection, each mark as though they are her own.
In the distance, a lone figure walks through the rain. Mina returning. For her. Suna runs forward without a glance, without a thought. To the car rounding the curve of the freeway off-ramp. The road slick with oil and rain. She pumps her arms and wills herself into the light.
Suna steps off the curb.
mina
IT WAS ONLY DURING the unguarded moments, reaching for a hanger in the closet, searching for a spoon in a drawer, when the memory of Suna stepping off the curb invaded my body and forced me to hold my breath until the moment had passed. The what-ifs like a plague compelling me to check and double-check on Suna. Safe.
Still, even as I smiled and waved at her sitting with Apa watching TV, and Uhmma standing off in the distance enveloped in the fog that surrounded her love for us, I imagined what could have happened. The enormity of what would have happened. If I had not gone back.
Suna’s eyes had been narrowed in determination as she ran down the street, no sense of sounds, the approaching car rounding the curve of the freeway off-ramp. Her eyes solely focused on the path that led her to me. I had screamed for her to stop as I ran toward her.
Wait for me!
Suna stepped off the curb.
My heart coiled in terror. I ran at the car. Locked my eyes on the driver, willing him to brake. I punched the air. STOP.
The scream of tires. Suna’s horror. The realization, the glimpse at another fate skidding past, knocking her down to her knees. I closed my eyes. An awareness of time passing and the muscle of my heart working like a fist. Open close. Heart beat. Mina. Suna.
As I walked with Suna back to the apartment, I glanced behind us, at the street. At the intersection where the ghostly figure of me stood marking a place and time. That moment when I stepped through, and though I may have looked and sounded exactly the same, I knew I could never return to who I used to be. And I grieved for her then. For what she had missed, for the people she had hurt. For the lies she had told herself to make it all worth it.
I set out with Suna, the sun breaking through the clouds, the light resting on our shoulders. For above all else, through all the deceit, there had been this love. Our love. I had to know that Suna would be all right when I finally left. That there was peace in the family, the suffocating past set to rest. It would be one fight after another, but I knew there was no other way. I had to face the truth. I couldn’t lie anymore.
There’s never a clean cut, running from one life for another. There was always devastation. I just wouldn’t have seen it if I had left. Suna was only beginning to discover her voice. I would not see it extinguished before it even had a chance to gain momentum. I reached for her hand. Caught it up in a swing that raised our arms to the sun.
I thought of Ysrael then. I could hear the faint sounds of his music in the rustling trees. His voice lighting on a breeze. And I could feel my own voice rising up inside, deep and light, free yet weighted with an honesty that could only come from taking on the obstacles, the responsibilities of living a life that was true. The street hummed right along to my song.
epilogue
HE CALLS HER in the late afternoon, at the one time when he knows only she will answer. He can picture the front counter phone ringing loudly next to the cash register. His hands slick with sweat, a nervous rush of blood to his ears. He calls her to say that he can’t let her go. That he is sorry for having asked her to choose.
He can’t move forward or backward or sideways. Can’t do anything but sing as though she is sitting next to him, her shoulders turned slightly in a thoughtful gesture of privacy. The way she did on the beach. That first time they were together. He still goes back to that evening. Places himself on the beach and sings her a song. It’s the only way he knows how to play now. He calls her to tell her all this, but when he hears her voice on the other line, hears that familiar catch, that soft sleepiness in her hello. He can only say quietly, “Hey.”
She registers his
