Love from a to Z

ODDITY:
PHOTOS TOO
As I folded my own prayer rug, I saw what Hanna had seen when she’d
looked up after prayer.
On the wall behind Dad’s head was the photo of Mom sitting on a swing.
In our backyard in Ottawa.

---

The same photo Hanna had clutched so tight yesterday while I shared the
story of Mom and the jar with her.
Reminders of loved ones, of love, in words, in picture form, were
supposed to be good. . . .
Anyway. At least now I know I can’t even bring up anything with Dad,
my diagnosis, anything, until after Tuesday, the anniversary of Mom’s
passing.
Spring break goes like this. Solemn at first, and then, after the
anniversary, as Dad remembered us, Hanna and me, he would get chipper,
eager to do things together as a family.
I’ll just wait for him to be ready for my news.
Lying in bed, I looked at the photo of Mom, the same one of her on the
swing. I brought it into my room so Hanna wouldn’t see it and remember
the jar again.
Mom looked like she agreed that both of these decisions of mine were the
right course: stop Hanna from thinking about the jar and put Dad off
learning I have the same disease Mom had.

---

ZAYNEB
MONDAY, MARCH 11
ODDITY:
TRAUMA
E
XHIBIT
A: M
Y ANKLE, THE
right one, throbbing with trauma as I sat outside Auntie
Nandy’s building waiting for an Uber.
An Uber to take me to the dogs that Google showed me when I searched
“saluki.”
Dogs.
I had initially thought they were lizards.
When I said yes to going with Adam to the saluki shelter, I’d pictured sad
lizards. Sad lizards being bottle-fed, actually.
Like the desert lizard he’d sent me a picture of on the bus ride yesterday.
The dinosaurish dub dub who looked like he minded his own business,
unlike dogs, who wanted to know everyone’s business.
I felt the phantom stitches ache on my right ankle. So it was true what
they said about old war wounds. How they flare up now and then.
But I was bitten ten years ago.
Trauma.
I lowered my phone. What was I going to do?
I mean, the dogs that turned up in a saluki image search were sort of nice
and kind-looking, with their long, pointy, slightly pretty faces sticking out
of the middle of long parted hair.
But then there were some pictures where their mouths were open, sharp
teeth ready.
I shuddered and tapped a photo of a kind-looking saluki to enlarge it.
Maybe if I imagined this dog’s face everywhere at the shelter, I could get
through the experience intact.
Without revealing to anyone—well, to Adam—that I was terrified.

---

I was supposed to let things unfold, not let myself get in the way today.
I was supposed to be poised. Zen.
Meanwhile, there was screaming happening in my brain: I DON’T WANT
TO GO SEE SALUKIS.
THEY AREN’T EVEN LIZARDS.
I lowered my phone again and tried to take my mind off dogs.
Across from Auntie Nandy’s place construction was happening on a new
plaza.
Men in blue jumpsuits moved to and fro, carrying tools and materials.
Something was different about them, though. Different from construction
workers back home.
One guy turned this way to pick up bags of cement, and some other men
came over to help, and I noticed the difference.
All of them were brown like me.
Not one of them was the other brown, Arab, like the people of this
country.
I had never seen so many brown construction workers in my life.
With what I hoped was discretion, I lifted my phone and took a picture
and messaged it to Kavi.
Yup.