Love from a to Z

MARVEL:
MOM
Before I fitted my keys in and turned the handle on the apartment door, I
took a deep breath and said bismillah.
Mom was sitting on the big couch beside Auntie Nandy, her scarf around
her shoulders, her hair in a ponytail, her tired eyes immediately widening
on seeing me.
I could practically feel the rise and fall of her body relaxing, then the
stiffness of it tensing, so I made my way to her.
Auntie Nandy instinctively moved aside to open up a spot beside Mom,
between them.
I laid the paper bag from the museum café in my lap before unfolding the
top. Adam had secured it for me—it was in these thin, accordion-like pleats
—and I smiled and calmed as I opened the bag to reveal two madeleine
cakes.
Madeleines are Mom’s favorite.
I held the open bag out as a peace offering.
She put her hand in and took one out and passed it to Auntie Nandy
before taking one for herself. “Thank you.”
I crumpled the empty bag between my hands. “Mom, I’m sorry for
yelling at you. Really very sorry. But . . .”
Her body went through that relaxing-tensing thing again.

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“But I’m not sorry for trying to do this thing, take my teacher down.
Because I’m going to. Because if I don’t, I won’t be free to show myself. To
say the things I think and believe and feel. Because he’ll always twist it due
to his views. So I’m choosing to be free of him.” I remembered the breeze
going through my abaya sleeves yesterday morning, how it felt to be free in
front of Marc. “Like, why be different, why be Muslim, why be anything
that society tells you isn’t normal if you can’t actually be it freely? Why do
we have to suffer to be us?”
She didn’t say anything for a bit, just looked at the cake she held in her
hand. “Honey, I’m not saying you can’t be yourself. I’m just saying that the
way you go about it can get you in trouble. And I don’t want to see that.”
“Leesh, I’ve got to interrupt here, but trouble is part of changing things.”
Auntie Nandy put the rest of the madeleine in her mouth and finished it off.
“Since when have you seen a trouble-free change for the better?”
“I don’t want Zayneb targeted.” Mom flashed Auntie Nandy an angry
look. “And I’m sorry, but you don’t have kids of your own. That’s why
you’re talking like that. You don’t get that it’s making things worse for her.
For her future.”
Ouch. I didn’t dare look at Auntie Nandy.
But I looked at Mom. And put a hand on her shoulder closest to me
before resting my head on it. “Mom, please. I don’t want to live like I’m not
wanted around. That’s not the future I want. And—” I couldn’t stop the pain
in my voice. “Right now I feel like that a lot. Like I’m not wanted when I
show up sometimes.”
I did what Adam had suggested and told her about the woman on the
plane. And the people at the pool. And Fencer giving me a D.
About him trash-talking me to the class after I got suspended.
Then I told her the things before all of this; some of the events she’d
known about and others she hadn’t. Like the guy who tied the back of my
scarf to a pole on the bus without me noticing, and when I tried to exit, my
scarf pulled off and almost choked me.
But I told her in a different way than I’d told her before. With sadness,
not anger.
Her arm tightened around me while she listened to each incident that had
punched me.
Then I told her how much I missed Daadi.

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Then I couldn’t tell her any more, because it hurt like something sharp
had slashed at my vocal cords too many times.
Auntie Nandy’s arm reached my back too. And she put her head on my
shoulder.
I realized from the slightly cold feeling on my sleeve that she was crying
for me.
Mom spoke tearfully. “I’m so sorry, honey. And listening to this pain
right after coming back from Pakistan is making me angry. I’m so so sorry.”
She wiped her eyes. “Dad is so broken too, Zayneb. When he learned the
details of how Daadi died. Don’t ask him, okay?”
I nodded against her, too sore to talk, and she went on. “Tell me what you
and your friends want to do. About your teacher. I’ll try to listen quietly.”
Auntie Nandy sat up and reached over to the tissue box. She took a tissue
for herself, then passed the box to me and Mom.
I took a while composing myself, lapsing again and again to crying when
I thought I was done with tears and could start talking.
It had suddenly became hard to switch from the hurt to anger, and I
realized an awful truth: Over the years, I’d built a hard, strong wall, a
fortress, separating my heart from the outside world.
Now that I’d let the fortress crack, it was hard to not let my heart escape.
And feel the hurt. And be free.
• • •
This Is What You Missed, Bulletin I by Zayneb Malik, filed as FYI for Kavi Srinivasan:
I’m back, and you can’t stop me. I’m back to tell you it’s time to suit up.
Re-enlist Ayaan.
Prepare for battle.
StoneWraith14 has an account on a public forum from the UK called Redpillers. My
reconnaissance mission yielded 87 posts from this account, 12 of which give us details connecting
him to Fencer the teacher. 3 connect him to SPRINGDALE.
Send url. We are on it. Welcome back, General.
• • •
I let myself have only half an hour sending stuff to and communicating with
Ayaan and Kavi. Then, for the rest of the day, Auntie Nandy and I took
Mom to Katara.
We prayed together for Daadi at the mosque first and then came outside
to sit and watch the birds weave in and out of the pigeon towers, with Mom

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holding me tight and Auntie Nandy holding her tight.
The Doha birds flying into the sky reminded me that I believe there is
more out there, more than this small world. That Daadi will be free
somewhere, her hands at peace.

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