PAPA, HIS WIFE, and my half-brother are visiting the United States. I haven’t seen Papa since his trip to New York. Their last stop is LA. He flies me out to spend a week with them.
Walking to their hotel, I feel my fear spread. My skin turns warm, then cold, then prickly with adrenaline, my body tensing for defense and flight.
I use a trusty tool, inspired by these pages. I speak to myself as a little girl. I tell her she is kind, loved, and has value in this world. I gently press those words onto her heart like memories saved in a baby book. I come down onto my knees and hug her close, cheek to cheek, pulse to pulse, past to present. We sway and breathe as one. I remember I am her guardian. I forget to feel afraid.
The elevator chimes. I follow the signs to their door. Knock, knock. I hear the patter of small feet running like rain drawing near. The door flies open and here stands a little boy. He is 6 years old. He has big eyes, full cheeks, and a 1,000-watt smile. Features identical to mine. He is my half-brother. We are meeting for the first time.
WE ARE AT Manhattan Beach. It has been a blissful week. We have laughed, told stories, walked long walks, eaten wonderful food. I’ve brought my laptop with me to LA, of course. Where you and I go, so do our words. We have been writing now for five months.
My little brother is pretending to be a very loud airplane. His feet kicking clouds of sand, he makes the airplane noise all little boys make, flying in circles with his arms out wide. He has been doing this for a half hour. Oh, the inspiring ease and frequency with which children find delight. Papa is on the beach blanket next to me. The air is perfect, the temperature a divine hand massaging my skin back to life. I look at Papa, astonished that he has flown me toward him.
My little brother continues to fly, confident in his faith that he won’t fall or be told to quiet down or stop. The sound he makes to emulate the plane, the unbridled joy on his face, the song of his feet on the sand, Papa’s laughter as he watches his son, all is gorgeous to behold.
A few days before arriving in LA, I received one of Papa’s harsh emails. My insides froze with familiar sorrow.
But there was something new. From his letter rose a sentence, the one that ultimately matters.
“From age 12, you stopped seeking my advice.”
He wants me to lean on him. He wants me to treat him like a father. All this time, I have wanted him to treat me like a daughter. We hurt from missing the same thing. Closeness.
I replied to his letter with why I don’t ask him for advice. I wrote that from now on, I will respond only with kindness, and only to kindness. I wrote, “It is okay. There is profound love, and we have a lifetime to learn.”
It is the most forthright I’ve ever been with him, in honor of my vow to speak to everyone the way I speak to you. Writing this book has nurtured the clarity and strength needed to voice such words. It’s initially terrifying but ultimately liberating. I don’t know it yet, but from here on, Papa and I will be purely loving, weaving an indefinite harmony. We will speak and text often, getting to know each other anew, bit by bit. A hard-won miracle that will thrill me daily. A few months into our newfound closeness, I will tell him about this book, warning him there are things that may feel difficult to read.
He will reply, “We’ll celebrate our story all the more. Look how far we’ve come.”
My Papa. His truest self is as sweet and gentle as the purest harp and dearest lullaby. I look at him now, his face painted with the setting sun. All my fear has left. A haunted house is scary until we turn on the lights. Once we see how the pulleys, wheels, wires, and trapdoors connect, the fear demystifies and disappears.
“Papa.” His eyes are closed. “I was quite the teen tyrant, wasn’t I? With my purple hair and piercings, continually challenging your every turn.”
He opens his eyes, looks at the ocean. He takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, and laughs, a soft, warm sound that is as much a sigh as it is a chuckle.
“Yes. You questioned me on everything. From the time you could talk.”
I smile.
He continues. “You weren’t a tyrant, jaan. You’ve always held us all, and yourself, to unwavering standards. Pushing. Probing. Peering into life. I could see that inside you lived a formidable tomorrow.”
I’m too moved to reply. He puts his glasses back on.
“I tried to quiet your fire. It scared me, as a father.” He sighs. “The world isn’t kind to women who dare to question and speak.”
Papa looks at me.
“But you were born to do precisely that. My formidable tomorrow.”
The sunset drapes us in orange, gold, and pink, enfolding thousands in the same embrace. All our faces are peaceful, free of pain. It is senseless to hold onto anything but gratitude when faced with the majesty of life.
“Thank you, Papa. I love you.”
“I love you, amanjee.”
He smiles. He touches my shoulder lightly. His hand feels like a cool washcloth on a fever-stricken heart.
WE ARE IN our sixth month. It is 6 a.m. The sun has yet to rise. I bolt out of bed, beaming. There are few things in life I detest. Despite how many times I have done it, waking up while the sky is dark is one of them. Growing up, I hated every dark morning. The saving grace was that Momma’s voice was our alarm clock. In New York, I loathed dark mornings even more, for leaving the house at that hour meant being greeted by a still-warm pool of vomit hissing with steam as it sank into the snow, a discarded syringe or condom on the front stoop, or a pack of belligerent hipsters teetering their way home.
I leap to my feet, for today is different. Today is my first day as a part-time reading aide for first, second, and fourth graders at Momma’s school. I put on the clothes I laid out the night before. Momma and I will leave the house at 7 o’clock in the morning. I have crossing-guard duty from 8 to 8:15. I’ll assist Momma from 9 to 9:45, then a second grade teacher from 10 to 10:50, followed by a fourth grade teacher from 11 to noon. It couldn’t be more ideal. Children and books. Two of my dearest treasures. The school is three and a quarter miles away, so I’ll run home after classes and have the rest of the day to write. I’m presently revising my childhood years. It’s remarkable what my child-self is teaching me. She’s one tough pebble.
I open my door. Momma calls out, “Good morning, Reemani!” Just like she used to when I was a young girl.
When we arrive at school, although it’s my first time meeting everyone, I’m greeted like a returning war hero. Never have I experienced such a reception, bubbling with hugs and warmth. I imagined Momma was somewhat of a celebrity. I was wrong.
She is a god. Every teacher and administrator rushes over with unrestrained affection. They retell all the stories they’ve heard about my siblings and I. They exclaim how incredible Momma is.
“I know she is,” I say. “She’s been my teacher for three decades.”
The principal and I hadn’t met for an interview. He hired me off Momma’s reputation, recommendation, and the fact she raised me.
Momma walks tall through these buildings. I’m thrilled to witness her in her element, to feel my enormous admiration deepen. We’re visited by numerous teachers. Everyone remarks, “Your mother is so beautiful.”
“Oh, I know. I’ve known this face for nearly thirty-one years. It amazes me still.”
She introduces me to her class. The kids grin and stare like I’m the messiah returning. “You guys look the same!” they squeal. Momma encourages them to ask questions about who I am and where I’ve come from. They raise their arms so high I fear they’ll pop right out of their sockets. I take half the class for their lesson while Momma leads the other.
On to the second grade classroom, to be met by gasps. The older children know Momma as their former teacher or because she is who she is. A rainbow of emotions paints their faces. Joy first, thinking she has walked into the room. Then, curiosity and surprise like when opening a Christmas present. Lastly, amazement from having figured out the riddle. The teacher introduces me by name and as Mrs. Brown’s daughter. The children forget my name quickly but swoon over the second moniker. (Yes, Momma’s last name is now Brown because that is Dad’s name. The plaque on our front door reads, “The Browns.”)
In the second grade, I recognize one boy immediately. Let’s call him Lyon. Lyon was in Momma’s class last year. Every year, a few of Momma’s students become family. We grow to feel for them, loving their idiosyncrasies, hurting with their struggles. Sometimes we cook and deliver meals for them on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember Lyon’s gentleness. I remember the assignment that asked the kids to make three “feeling sentences” using their list of spelling words. One of his sentences was, “I get scared when Daddy yells.”
The school has been looking into this family for years. Lyon is the youngest of three. All three have spoken about their father’s temper. Aside from words, each child is walking proof of the neglect they face. Whether it is intentional or from a lack of resources remains unclear. Pale, thin, in clothes threadbare and too small, in shoes that are too big or too tight, each child is behind in every subject, with no one to encourage, guide, and support them at home. Sometimes they come to school without a jacket or socks in the dead of winter. Every teacher connected to these children has reported these facts.
In Oregon, as with many states, child services laws are so strict that sometimes it’s the system itself that delivers further harm to a child. Unless a child is in near-mortal danger, they won’t be shielded from potential pain at home. Public school teachers will invariably feel furious helplessness from collecting, documenting, and reporting these stories, to no avail. What they do in the meantime is everything else possible, to give the child some semblance of constancy, love, comfort, and nourishment at school, emotionally and literally.
Like many public schools, Momma’s has free breakfasts and lunches available for any child who needs them. There’s even a weekend meal package, sent home every Friday with the kids who need them, to ensure their meals are covered during these days as well. There are numerous clothing drives for new and gently used clothes. They’re organized in a separate space known as the Caring Store. The school sends letters to the families who may need this service and each family can schedule a visit to the store. Each appointment is private and timed so that the families don’t encounter one another, inside the store or even in the parking lot. They can maintain their dignity.
Lyon now sits across from me, his eyebrows raised with delighted anticipation. Once or twice a week, he visits Momma to deliver a hug. He recognizes her face in mine.
“I know you,” I smile. “You were in my mom’s class last year.”
He looks at me like angels have descended from the sky. Acknowledgment turns him incandescent. He has light blond hair, the bangs cut short on his pale forehead above enormous blue eyes, and is wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt a few sizes too big. Across his forehead and cheeks are the nearly washed-away remnants of circles and letters written in green marker. I take this as an adorable, mischievous act on his part.
I tell his teacher about the green markings, how cute he looked.
She shakes her head. “No, that’s his oldest sister. She writes on him while he’s asleep. One day he came to school with the word ‘Stupid’ written down his arm.”
My heart fumes. If Mom and Dad aren’t looking out for him, and neither is his oldest sister, what chance does this boy have? He needs Johnson & Johnson.
From the first day, a handful of kids give me goodbye hugs at the end of every class. Lyon is part of that handful, but he is also the only one who gives me a hug hello, without my initiating. I’ll be gathering books and I’ll feel a light, little arm slip around my waist.
I make sure to choose Lyon to be part of the half I take for reading time. The first day, he says, “I don’t like it when things are too loud” in reaction to a burst of laughter and shouts from the other side of the room. He covers his ears tightly.
“It makes my head hurt,” he says.
My heart somersaults from his words, his pained face, from time folding into itself.
He is without question the most polite, thoughtful child I have ever met. I sense him on the lookout to see how he can help others, by lending a pencil, helping with a tough-to-reach book, rescuing a runaway crayon. While the others rush out of class, he tucks his chair under his desk, and circles back to do that for a few others. He returns everyone else’s discarded pencils to their rightful baskets. He slides the books back where they belong, trying to create order in the ways he can.
After the lesson, I lean over and whisper, “I can tell you’re a very special, very nice person.”
He smiles so wide his rows of teeth fail to touch. He inhales a deep gulp of air as though emerging from a long swim.
The next day I tell him, “I think you can be anyone you want to be when you grow up. You can be a scientist. Or a firefighter. Or a doctor. You can be the president!”
He grins and puffs with pride.
The following day I say, “You know, you’re very important in this world. You’re one of the kindest people I know.”
He nods with mirrored solemnity.
I am not filling him with lies. I am filling him with courage. His daily pages reflect mine.
It takes much more than words though. During my first week, every day, I come home and weep. Huge, violent sobs of helplessness and abject fury. Starting in the second grade, the kids all have iPads given to them by the school. But Lyon’s brother took his headphones and his parents haven’t been able to replace them. Many of the spelling tests are taken on the iPad. The electronic voice tells the child the word, he or she types it. All these seemingly little things add up. Lyon may know how to spell the word, but if he can’t hear it, he won’t know to type it. He’ll fall further and further behind.
In my third week at the school, winter arrives and the temperatures drop suddenly. Lyon’s lips have cracked. They’ll begin to heal, but then tear and bleed again from speaking and smiling. The skin on his arms and legs is parched, flaking in a way I’ve previously seen only on darker-skinned people like myself. Then comes the day when he can barely keep his head up. He’s smiling and courteous but moving very slowly.
“Hey buddy, are you okay? Did you get enough sleep last night?”
He nods.
“Well, you look a bit tired, sweetie.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, looks down at his hands.
“I didn’t have breakfast today and yesterday. And I didn’t have dinner last night or the night before.”
He is 7. It being illegal is the sole reason I don’t scoop him up and carry him away right this moment. I’d already decided to get him headphones, lotion, and lip balm. Now I vow to bring him little meals.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Gween.”
“What if I got you some green headphones? Would you like that?”
He looks at me incredulously, blinks once. He nods slowly.
God bless my parents. They drive me to a few spots before we find green headphones. If I’m trying to bring a morsel of accountability into this child’s world, I must darn well find green headphones. We find the perfect pair. They’re neon green earbuds, the same shade as his backpack. I get two kinds of lip balm, the classic and one with sunscreen. I get a lotion that’s moisturizing but also smells good. Nothing medicinal, something comforting, what I’d give my own kids, if I had any.
The next day, I ask Lyon’s homeroom teacher permission to borrow him for a few minutes. I want to give him these things without the other kids seeing lest he feel embarrassed or shy, especially with the lotion. I ask him to bring his backpack, and we duck into the hallway. I sit on my knees. He stands on tiptoe from excitement. With most kids, to speak to them, I lean down from the waist to meet their eye level. With the troublemakers, I gauge when they need me to be authoritative, and speak from full height. When they’re in a place that’s best served by a gentler, compassionate voice, I bend down, let them fess up or vent, and let them reclaim their dignity. With Lyon and a few others, I get down on my knees to give them the taller height. These are the children who aren’t struggling with surliness, meanness, or tantrums. Their trial is the lack of respect and attention.
I take out the headphones. His face lights up like a sunrise.
“They match!” He holds the headphones to his backpack.
“Yes, honey! Let’s try them on. The earbuds can be three different sizes. You can use them as you grow bigger and bigger!”
He giggles. He tries all three sizes but I see they make him uncomfortable. The buds may feel claustrophobic for a child already sensitive to sound and spatial relations.
“Buddy, how about you keep these for later and I get you some that curl around the ear, like this? Or the kind that’s like a headband?”
“Yeah, I like the headband kind. They stay on.”
I am so proud of him and relieved; he is voicing what he wants.
“Awesome. I may not find green ones. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” he grins. “I’ll still have these ones forever.”
“Okay, good. And do you know what this is? Lip balm?”
He shakes his head No.
“It goes on your lips, to keep them from getting too dry. Put this on at night and in the morning, okay?”
He nods. He carefully peels away the plastic cover on the lip balm with a patience rare in a child, rarer still in children accustomed to plentitude. The kids you see in stores demanding more, more, more, who tear open their birthday, Christmas, and spontaneous presents only to forget them within seconds. The way Lyon holds this 99-cent lip balm makes it seem like a bar of gold or a stick of dynamite. He cradles it in his tiny palm with reverence before carefully tucking it away in a pocket he calls, “the safe one.” We nod earnestly.
We have been in the hallway for longer than I anticipated. I don’t want him to miss too much of class. We return to the classroom, hang up his backpack.
“Do you know what this is?” I whisper, lugging out the family-size bottle of lotion. It was the biggest size available, with a pump top, easy for a child to use. I show him how the pump unlocks by sliding counterclockwise, the way it slowly rises. He gasps, giggling like it’s a magic trick.
“This is for your skin, your legs, face, arms, anywhere, especially where it itches.”
Immediately, in front of everyone, he scoots up his pants’ legs to his knobby knees, and begins rubbing lotion onto his thin, bony legs. He rubs and rubs away the ashen white. He rubs lotion onto his neck and wrists. He must have been itching so badly, he isn’t the slightest bit concerned what the others may think. Or, maybe he’s just too young to be embarrassed about anything yet. At this age, children have yet to pick up on their differences. In a year or two, he’ll understand the stark contrast of his world and a classmate’s world. In a year or two, some kids will tease and bully, “You don’t have a Mooo-om!” or “You’re so poor you’re clothes don’t fit!” or “You’re so stupid your Dad hates you! That’s why he left!” But for now, they have yet to learn prejudice.
He sighs from relief, then holds a hand up to his nose.
“It smews nice.” He grins.
We high-five. I thought I knew gratitude. I didn’t. I look at his face, alit like a birthday candle.
This.
A few days later, I notice that the boy who sits beside Lyon during homeroom is using the green headphones.
“Sweetie, did you lend Joe your headphones?”
“Yeah. He chewed on his. They don’t work anymore. I have two, so I gave him one.”
The child has next to nothing and here he is, sharing. This, again, the enduring marvel of his heart.
I start smuggling peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and sliced apples for Lyon, delivered every morning in a brown paper bag. Inside I include a note like, “I think you’re awesome. Have a great day, buddy.” Slowly I stretch the notes longer, to encourage his reading. I write, “You can do anything you set your mind to.” I compliment the way he treats others with kindness, especially a girl distanced by most other children. She has Down syndrome. The other kids treat her with affected preciousness or tease her. But not him. He gives her sincere warmth.
The other day she wanted to show the class every single grape she brought for a snack. She lined them up on her desk and said, “This is a grape. This is a grape. This is a grape. And this is a grape.”
The other kids began to snicker. But Lyon nodded and affirmed each grape, saying, “Yup, that’s a grape.” The other children quieted down and gave her their respect and attention. Such was the ripple effect of his kindness. I make sure to comment on it, wanting him to know softness is revered in this world, not loudness or aggression.
He is one of the few who understands humor. He’s among the slowest readers, for he doesn’t get much practice at home. But he picks up on the subtleties of language. I Google “jokes for kids” and start writing on the bottom of every letter, a joke of the day.
I ask his teacher, “Are the sandwich drop-offs disrupting your class? I hope not.”
She looks at me for a solid few seconds.
“He reads every letter to me and to the class,” she says. “The kids take it all in, then comment on the trait covered that day. They say things like, ‘Oh yeah, you are kind. And so are you. You too!’ Then, they repeat the joke, all day. Initially, I had to help him read the letter. But now,” she chokes up, “He can do it himself.”
She squeezes my arm. “Keep them coming.”
Stories travel quickly in schools. The teachers whisper sweet messages when we pass one another in the hallway. One says, “It has been only a few weeks but I can see him sitting a bit taller in his seat, smiling a bit brighter, and answering questions more confidently than before.” Another says, “There’s been a noticeable change in Lyon. He wants to improve now. Someone cheering for him makes him want to grow.”
One day a few teachers bring it up while we wait in line for the photocopier. “It’s so nice of you,” they say.
I blurt the first reply that comes to mind, a bubble blown and popping midair.
“I got married at 26 because I loved him, I wanted to be married, and I wanted kids. Had I a child when we imagined we would, that boy or girl would be a mere year younger than Lyon. Making him a sandwich is a privilege.”
On my run home, I meet a sentence that buckles my knees, sending me onto the sly asphalt.
I am a voice for the souls and stories silenced, after all. I return to standing and run home.