After a while, things calm down.
My grandfather isn’t back from services yet.
I ask my father if I can have a key to the shop and wait there
where it’s quieter.
He barely looks, just hands me the key.
Outside I see Mrs. Li weaving between
excited baseball people on the street.
She cleans pumpkin guts,
exploded tomatoes,
and smashed eggplant.
I unlock the door to the shop, grab the broom,
and I help sweep ruined fruit into compost buckets.
It takes forever, and it’s getting darker,
long after sunset now;
my grandfather must be coming back soon.
And even though the world
has become a baseball game,
I still have to go to school tomorrow.
So much mess, Mrs. Li says.
Thank you, Etan. I stop sweeping. I look at Mrs. Li.
She’s always been here,
around us, our whole life.
She used to come sometimes to Shabbat, even Hanukkah.
Mr. Li came here with them all on the Calypso.
My grandfather told us that it was hard for him.
Angel Island was different for them.
Mrs. Li said they had a “half-open door,”
where they could see San Francisco
but had to wait for months to be free.
She sometimes talks about poems carved onto the wood walls
by people who had to stay for a long time,
and some who wished they hadn’t come at all.
I guess Mr. Li was one of them; he didn’t last long.
For Mr. Li,
there were too many ghosts.
Etan, how is Malia?
Worse, I whisper.
Mrs. Li looks at me, stops sweeping,
takes a deep breath,
walks over,
puts her hands
on my shoulders.
I can tell she understands
without needing me to explain,
like my mother would.
Her eyes shine in the streetlights.
What can we do for that girl?