Okay, so this is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Me, my little brother, and this guy Carlos on the road in search of some phantom uncle who will sign the form tucked in my backpack and save the day. Save us? What does that even mean? All I know is I can’t go back to the shelter. I steer our car out of its parking spot, up Coney Island Avenue, toward the Brooklyn Queens Expressway ramp. Kamal’s in the back, happily eating greasy pakoras he and Carlos bought while I went to the jewelers.
“We could pick up a few fares,” Carlos jokes, pointing to my mom’s decal.
“Yeah, right.”
“You know, I got a license too,” he says.
“How’d you get that?”
He smiles. “In Connecticut, where we lived before, it’s not so hard to get one. Comes in handy, right?”
“Right,” I say with a laugh. This Carlos guy thinks of everything.
According to my GPS, we should reach Stamford in an hour and a half. Carlos told me he’s along for the ride and then he is going to figure out a way to get to Boston, where his aunt has a friend. He doesn’t have an exact plan. He’s just putting one foot in front of the other. What he really wants to do is go to art school. When he lived with his aunt, he used to spend whatever extra money he had on sketch pads and pencils, and after watching a YouTube video, he started taking the train into the city to wander around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His aunt wasn’t sure what to make of him but she was just glad he stayed out of trouble.
I haven’t told Kamal where we’re going, as I don’t want to get his hopes up. About an hour after we’ve left the slow-moving Bronx traffic, we’re turning into the exit for Stamford, and then driving under the highway, bumping down a narrow road. The address I have brings us to a development of low town houses, grouped in small clusters. As we park, I can see, behind a fence, a small swimming pool, and a marina, boats bobbing at the dock. It takes us a while to find the exact town house where Salim lives, but no one answers—the bell just booms and booms. I try to peek inside the slender window but I can’t see much—what looks like an empty, long room.
“Hello?” A woman is coming toward us, dressed in a large straw hat, a thin cover-up, and flip-flops. It looks like she’s coming from the pool.
I take a step back, nervous. “Does Salim live here?”
She tilts her head, showing a sunburnt face sprayed with freckles. “He moved. A few months ago.”
“Do you know where he is?” I ask. Then I add, “I’m his niece.”
“Oh. I didn’t know he had any relatives here.”
“We lost touch.” I quickly add, “I’ve got some mail of his.”
She hesitates, as if she’s trying to figure out if this is true. But she’s friendly, chatty even. “He’s not far away, about forty minutes. I guess after the business with RBS, they had to move.” She sets down her straw bag and inserts her key in a door. “If you wait here, I can find the address he gave me.” A few minutes later she returns with a scrap of paper. “I do miss them. The boy and girl were so cute.” She smiles at Kamal. “You’re going to see your cousins?”
Kamal’s eyes widen.
When we get back in the car, he keeps asking, “Am I going to see my cousins?”
I wince. “I hope.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How many cousins do I have?”
“Two, I think. A boy and a girl.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
I swing the car out onto the road. “Yes,” I say. “That’s where we’re going.”
Family. Cousins. Why are these words so hard to say? Why do they always feel as if there’s a serrated knife cutting through my chest, leaving a jagged trail of half memories? I remember once or twice visiting my grandparents. A large bungalow set behind a gate, where a driver was busy flicking a rag on their car. Inside a big garden, there were many children, and we played a game where we had to sit on balloons until they popped, but the noise scared me, so I ran and hid behind my mother’s legs. “She’s scared, not like you were, Sadia,” someone said through laughter. I remember feeling angry but I didn’t say anything because Ammi told me to be on my best behavior when we went to Nani and Nana’s house. I only caught a glimpse of Nana—an older man at the end of a long corridor, with his hands cupped behind his back. He turned once, and I noticed the white brush of his mustache, his fierce eyes. He neither frowned nor smiled, but then turned back to his walking and disappeared into a room. Later someone told me he was watching us from behind the shutters but he never came out. I got drowsy from eating too many sweets and all I remember is being carried in my mother’s arms into a taxi, and my nani, who visited us sometimes, kept insisting that she let the driver take us, but Ammi said no, a taxi was fine. I could hear the clash and hurt in their voices. It seemed it was always this way, even the few times Nani came to visit, carrying a big bag full of long beans and potatoes and onions. “We aren’t starving!” Ammi would cry. “Naved makes a good salary.”
My phone has gone haywire with messages, all from Ms. Kaplan. She’s nervous, then angry, then furious. This is not funny, Rania. Are you with Carlos? Do you know what kind of trouble we can get into? I pull the car over and walk a few feet away to call Lidia, who picks up quickly, demanding, “Where are you?” I can hear honking in the background, the shuffling sound of her movement down a street.
“I’m on my way to my uncle’s.”
“Oh, Rania.” There’s disappointment in her voice.
“You said it! He can sign the paper, saying he’s a standby guardian. And maybe he can help us—”
“They’re frantic at the shelter!”
“Can you call them?”
I hear her sigh. “No, I can’t.”
“Please, Lidia. Just give me a little time. To find out more. About my uncle, about my—” I want to say family, but I bite the word off. I’m not sure what I’m looking for—answers, safety, a way to get my mother out of that gray detention center in Pennsylvania.
Another muddled sound as she moves the phone. “We can’t be having this conversation, okay? I can’t know anything. Not where you are. Not where you’re going.”
I swallow. “Okay.” My voice has shrunk small.
“I’ll have to tell your mother—”
“Wait. Please. Not yet.”
A long silence. “One day,” she says. “I’ll give you one day.” Then she clicks off.
When I return to the car, I try to put on a brave face. My whole body feels as if I’ve been rubbed hard with a washcloth; I am tingling, afraid. I’ve never done anything like this before. Maybe this is what my father used to feel, going on his assignments, chasing down a lead, a dangerous interview: dizzy-scared, but exhilarated too.
The street where Salim Uncle lives is sorry-looking: small boxy houses with worn-down metal fences. We pull up to a pale-green home with concrete steps, a tricycle turned on its side on the front lawn. A clothesline in the back, an orange shalwar fluttering in the breeze like a bright flag. The right place, I think.
Again I tell Carlos to wait with Kamal in the car, and make my way up the path and press the bell. When the door swings open, I’m facing a heavyset man who vaguely resembles Ammi, with thicker features. “May I help you?” he asks.
“I’m Rania,” I blurt out, then add, “Your niece.”
What was I thinking? That there would be bolts of lightning? A happy rainbow arcing over the backyard? Instead Salim Uncle looks confused. “Niece?” he repeats.
“Sadia’s daughter. I…got your address from Hema Auntie. She gave me the old place and—”
“You are Rania?” he interrupts. “I haven’t seen you since—” He puts a palm out to show a little child. I remember what Ammi said, He is the soft-hearted one, and for a brief moment I imagine a jolly man ready to scoop us up in his burly arms. Then he squints at Carlos, who’s leaning against the hood, and Kamal, staring through the open window. “Who is this?”
I swallow. “That’s Kamal. Your nephew.”
“Nephew,” he repeats softly.
“And…a friend.”
Poor Salim Uncle! He looks befuddled, as if he’s always in this disheveled state: wavy, unkempt hair, a wrinkled shirt over khaki pants, bare feet. I can see he’s struggling to make sense of me, of this moment. He squints. “Your mother, where is she?”
I rock back on my heels. If I blurt out where she is, what we want, I’m afraid he’ll just send us packing. Or will he? He’s still, rubbing his jaw, as if recovering from the surprise. “It’s complicated,” I say.
He gives a wary bob of his head. “Chalo. Come in.”
The house feels odd, in a state of disorder, like Uncle: suitcases are stacked in the hall and open boxes near the dining area, the walls stripped bare. He indicates the living room. “Please. Please sit down.” Then he asks us to wait and he disappears upstairs.
I can hear two voices, low and whispering, with a few phrases popping out. Typical, I hear. And this boy? Just like Sadia. We cannot have this now. Carlos, who has sat opposite me, mouths, Should I go? but I shake my head. This doesn’t feel like a family reunion at all.
A few minutes later a woman glides down the stairs. She is slender, her thick hair clipped back, her eyes heavily kohled, and she introduces herself as Shaima, Uncle’s wife. She seems young, shy, but also intimidated, glancing at my uncle for guidance, then smiling broadly at Kamal. “Hello there! You wish to give Auntie a kiss?”
Kamal, who’s been sitting quietly next to Carlos, obliges her, but he is stiff and awkward. “Uncle too,” Shaima instructs, and Kamal does his duty, and then quickly scoots back to me, pressing his head against my side. I stroke his hair. My stomach is hurting something awful. I don’t know where to begin.
Fortunately, Shaima has gone into the kitchen to put on tea and keeps chattering about this and that—how empty her cupboards, how the children are true power nappers, so it might be a while before they wake. Uncle is staring at Kamal and me, up and down, as if trying to place us. After Kamal crams his mouth with biscuits, she suggests he might want to play outside, where there’s a swing set. I take this as a strong hint—Uncle and Auntie want to see me alone—and so Carlos takes him by the hand, through the sliders and outside. For a second, I wish I could join them, be a kid.
“So, Rania,” Uncle begins. “You can imagine what a surprise this is. I have not spoken to your mother in a very long time. How is she?”
There’s a raw roughness threatening to spill out of my eyes. “Not great.” I add, “She’s in detention.”
“Detention?”
“I mean, immigration. There was this raid. Some kind of problem with our application—” And then I tell them in one long gulp: about the night the men came in their black vests; about my mother’s asylum application, Mrs. Flannery and her mean eyes, and about Carlos who has been the only person to make me feel normal since this all started. I don’t know why I tell them so much. It’s not like me. I’m used to squeezing everything shut, tight, like a jar top. Just the way Ammi taught me. But there’s something about sitting opposite these two who I am supposed to call Auntie and Uncle.
When I look up, they both are half-frozen, faces stricken. I wish I could stuff it all back inside, every one of my words.
I spend dinner snatching glances at Uncle: his thick wrists, his bushy eyebrows, looking for signs of Ammi and me. He is related, but there are holes, gaps. One part of me wants to yell, Why don’t you just help us? Why aren’t you in touch with your own sister? But I swallow the words down. I think of what Carlos said: The bull doesn’t get what they want. The cat does. Carlos has endeared himself to everyone, making silly faces at Roshaan and Maira, who giggle and beg for more. I like him so much right now.
Shaima keeps apologizing for the state of the house. The packing is going slow, especially with two young ones—Roshaan and Maira, only a year apart. The boy is energetic, barreling through the house like a little linebacker—it’s his tricycle in the front. Maira, who has her father’s curly hair and wide, round face, keeps clinging to her mother’s legs as she cooks. I feel a pang because I want to scoop her up into my lap, but I can’t tell what’s allowed.
“You’re moving?” I ask.
“It appears so,” Salim Uncle says with a sigh.
“We’re returning to Lahore,” Shaima puts in. “We’ll stay with my parents.”
“But I thought you lived here!” I bang down my fork.
Carlos, who has kept quiet the whole time, is appreciatively scooping up his food. Shaima is a good cook, unlike Ammi, who does it distractedly. He answered a few questions from Uncle, explained that he had taken the ride because he is on his way to a relative in Boston, that he hopes to live there and go to art school. We both know it’s a lie. Or a half lie. We’re running on faint vapors, fantasies of how to right this strange trip we’re on.
“I was here on a work visa. Analytics for the bank. But the position I received was—”
“It was below your qualifications,” Shaima snaps. “Back home—”
Uncle puts up a hand. “It’s true. It wasn’t what I expected. The place was very cut-throat. I expected something else.”
Pride. This soft man—underneath he has the same stubborn, hard pride as Ammi.
“When it came time for my renewal after three years, usually a routine thing, my supervisor said they wouldn’t be able to re-sponsor me. There were some problems. Word had come down that they needed to hire an American. Even though I’d built up the whole department.”
I remember Lidia’s office, the phones ringing off the hook, the noise of so many people, their lives abruptly put in limbo.
“We waited awhile, thinking the situation would resolve itself. But the way things are going in this country—”
“Salim,” Shaima warns. Clearly the talk is usually much sharper, more bitter.
“We decided we might as well leave.”
The children are restless, so we clear the table, load the dishwasher, and push open the sliders so Uncle and I sit out on the patio. Shaima has disappeared to do a load of laundry. It’s early evening and the tree leaves are lit up like bits of gold foil. Carlos has taken over with the kids, just the way he did at the shelter, letting them chase him around the yard. Whoops of laughter spin in the air. The neighbors are barbecuing and the smell of charred meat drifts over. I watch them in a blur of sadness. This scene seems so soft, so normal, and I ache to just remain here, to never leave.
With my heart beating wildly in my chest, I start. “You see, Uncle, with Ammi in detention, we need someone to sign for us.”
“Sign?”
“It’s a form.” I twist around and pull it from my backpack. “You can say you’ll be in charge of us.” I’m still holding the folded paper, between us, so I add, “You don’t really have to. It’s just a signature. We’ll go back to the apartment, wait for Ammi to get out. Lidia says it will happen. Any day now.”
Uncle does not say anything, but gazes off at the children streaking across the yard, squealing with laughter as Carlos flings himself down on the grass. They are clambering on top of him—his stomach, his legs, even his face, and he doesn’t seem to mind. Then I see the sad shadows on Uncle’s face. My heart is breaking. Because I can tell: he is going to say no. This was why it was so hard to bring up my request. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to come right up against his back, turning away from me. Exactly what Ammi used to say: They turned against me, Rania. All of them.
“Is it because of my grandfather?”
Uncle looks puzzled.
“Nana,” I continue. “He was so mean to Ammi.”
He sighs. Then he takes the form, looks down at it for a bit. “Rania,” he says. “I wish I could. But if I sign this, there might be problems. My own immigration. We leave in two weeks. And—”
Here he hesitates. The darkness is full-on, like a curtain that has come draping down, embroidered with the checkered windows of the other houses. There’s grit under my lids. Why, I think, is this so hard—something as simple as family?
“Rania…child. You are so lovely. So intelligent. Of course Sadia would bring such a girl into the world.”
The grit is thick on my lashes, so I see everything through wet clumps.
“It is best that the rest of the family doesn’t learn that I have seen you.”
“But why?”
“It is for your own good.”
“My own good!”
“If your father would know—”
I gasp. It’s as if the air had turned solid, slammed into me. I start to shake. Abu—alive? A flood of memories rush up, hurtling against me: Abu, leaning over me as I’m curled in bed. Abu at the table, correcting my spelling—he was as strict as Ammi. Abu, beneath a blue cloud of cigarette smoke on the balcony, then rushing away after a phone call came in. I’ve stuffed it all into that lockbox of memories, a time that can’t exist.
Then I look at Uncle. He seems crushed, his shoulders bowed.
“What do you mean?” I ask. I can hardly breathe. “My father?”