The Summer We Came to Life (7 page)

KENDRA BROUGHT THREE THINGS HOME FROM work that day. One—the flowers. Two—the note that had come with the flowers. Three—the fax.

The flowers were a generic variety obviously picked out by his secretary.

The note said he would be working late.

The fax was a list of doctors and clinics that performed abortions.

For the first time in a long time, Kendra was considering the man she wanted to marry apart from his spec sheet.

She'd always thought they were a perfect match, as much because of their faults as their assets. Michael was unapologetically shallow, snobby, married to his career and materialistic to a fault. But that meant he had A-list friends, designer furniture, and regularly bought Kendra Gucci shoes to wear to exclusive parties. Michael indulged and even encouraged Kendra's vices, canceling out her mother's disapproval about
her
misplaced priorities.
Her hippie mother, as Michael liked to joke.

Her mother had liked Michael actually. Because he was a charmer when he wanted to be, but also because she, too, thought he was perfectly suited to her daughter. It had never occurred to Kendra to find this insulting until now.

Michael worked late even on a holiday. He laughingly recounted business deals that were less than honest. He was mercilessly critical of anyone he thought stupid, unattractive or low class. Kendra tried to bring back happy images of fancy parties, but instead was treated to the memory of the fight they'd had about him flirting at one such recent party.

Her nausea was back. Kendra put a hand to her stomach. She closed her eyes and willed it to go away. She realized she was hoping the whole pregnancy would go away. Or more precisely, she wished it had never happened.

Something clinked onto the glass coffee table. Kendra opened one eye but saw nothing amiss. The
Wall Street Journal
was fanned atop her
W
magazines. The metal coasters were in a perfect stack.

Good, the nausea was subsiding. Kendra picked up the magazines and knocked them against the table to straighten and refan them. The vacation club picture fell forward on the table.

Kendra saw now what had made the initial noise. A clover leaf, suspended in a plastic holder, that had stayed taped to the back of the picture ever since Mina gave it to her ages ago. The tape finally gave, and now it sat on the coffee table looking up at her. She picked it up and closed it inside her palm.

Kendra blinked slowly and her head rang with Mina's characteristic chuckle. Most little girls giggle, but Mina had chuckled, almost Buddha-like, as if she'd been through this before and found all things amusing.

Kendra remembered perfectly the day Mina had given her the clover. They were fourteen and Kendra had had her worst day of school ever.

 

Mina's backyard, Springfield, VA, 1994

 

“He said he didn't want to kiss a black girl.” Kendra kicked at a fallen acorn on Mina's back deck. “He said it in front of everyone.” She looked up. “I'm not black.”

Mina looked at Kendra calmly but with sympathy. “Yes, you are.”

Kendra wrinkled her eyebrows. “I'm not. I mean, okay, I am. But, you know, I'm not
black.
Like you're not Iranian.”

“I'm not?” Mina chuckled.

Kendra rolled her eyes. “You're not helping.”

“I'll be right back.”

Kendra waited on the porch, watching shadows fall across the lawn. She slapped at a mosquito on her ankle. When a light turned on in Mr. Bahrami's study, she tried to see inside.
What did that man do in there all day and night?
Not that her dad was home very much lately. Working on another big discrimination case. Kendra wondered what her dad would say if she tried to talk to him about the boy. Never mind, she knew what he would say.
The struggle continues, Kendra.
Jeez, men. For the hundredth time that year, Kendra wished her mother was black instead of her father.

“Here.” Mina slipped back onto the porch brandishing something shiny.

Kendra looked at the square of plastic. Inside was a bright green four-leaf clover, plucked one day in its prime and now embalmed against ever aging another day. Kendra looked at Mina curiously.

“Are we going to talk about the stupid boy?”

“Nope.”

Kendra huffed. “Mina—”

Mina met her eyes. “Because that stupid boy doesn't matter.” Mina again held out the clover leaf.

Kendra took it and held it up to the porch light.

“It's for good luck,” Mina said with a smile. “With all the things that
will
matter.”

“I don't believe in good luck.”

Mina chuckled. “I know you don't.”

“You have to work hard to get what you want in life. Practice and planning. My mom's the one who believes in all that other…silliness.” Kendra gave Mina her most stern, serious face.

Mina chuckled again. “I'm sure you're right, KJ. But just in case one day you find out you're wrong, I figured it couldn't hurt. Right?”

AT THREE IN THE MORNING, I WAS AWAKENED by a strange noise. I sat upright in bed, then lay right back down as a wave of nausea rolled over me in the pitch-black room. The noise came again. It was the low growl of a pit-bull and it was coming from my stomach.

I bolted barefoot to the bathroom nearest our room. I barely had time to swish my hair out of the way before vacating the entire contents of dinner. The force of it was terrifying, and dropped me to my knees. Then a new sound came from my midsection—a sloshy gurgling.

For the next seven minutes, all I could do was whimper as life passed by in excruciating intestine-twisting pain, cursing Jesse's exotic salad, doused in amoeba water, and my defenseless American stomach. When the first moment arrived that I could breathe, a knock came at the door.

“I'll be okay,” I said weakly, sure it was Isabel. Then I realized it came from the door to Jesse's room.

“Scoot over, darling, we've obviously been poisoned.”

I meant to reply, but a gagging started in my throat. I think that gave Jesse her answer.

She scurried away to throw up on the palm trees.

I slid to the floor like a deflated balloon. My cheek made it to the cool, sandy floor just in time to hear another knock at the door.

“Samantha?” Isabel's voice came through in a whisper. “Lemme in.”

“I wouldn't if I were you.”

“I'm sick.”

I groaned. This was the vacation from hell. “Join the party.”

 

Across the hall, Cornell was in the bathroom with his wife. He patted Lynette's back gently with one hand, while holding back her hair with the other. So far, their vomiting had been symbiotically timed. Cornell wasn't surprised. He and his wife always seemed to operate in sync.

In the weak night-light glow of the bathroom, Cornell read the pain on Lynette's face. He felt sorry for her, but only until a heaving rumble snaked through his innards.

“Trade you,” he eked out, and motioned Lynette aside.

Lynette propped herself against the wall and attempted to pat her husband's back, but ended up patting his butt as he retched.

Cornell turned and gave Lynette the most priceless look. Lynette managed a measly laugh. She patted the floor beside her. “Cop a squat, dear.”

When Cornell sat down beside her, they linked arms absentmindedly, and Lynette let her head drop onto his shoulder. After a minute, she said, “Aren't you worried about Kendra?”

“She's a big girl, honey. All grown-up now, our little girl.”

“No, it's not right she didn't come. There's something wrong. Why doesn't she ever tell me anything?”

Cornell kissed the top of Lynette's head. “Maybe some things aren't for you to understand.”

Lynette stiffened. After over thirty years of marriage, certain fights always started the same way, ingrained in the relationship just like the rituals of teasing and making coffee. She knew what Cornell was alluding to. “I'm her mother. What don't I understand?” She wasn't going to let him get away with cheap shots. She was going to make him say it.

Cornell was too weak to fight. “Let it go, Lynette. We don't know what's bothering her. Maybe it's her job. Maybe it's Michael. She'll tell us when she wants to.”

“That's not what you meant. You meant that I don't understand what it's like to be a black woman, and that's why Kendra doesn't confide in me.”

“Do you ever talk about it with her?”

“Do you?”

Lynette and Cornell faced off, less than six inches between their eyes. Lynette looked away first. Her flesh turned colder than the floor. “I think it's a mother-daughter thing, not a race thing. Women can't help but become a reaction to their mothers.”

Cornell's lawyer mind mulled this over. The one thing he'd learned about mother-daughter relationships was that they were complicated, an impenetrable rock formation made of thin, delicate layers. “At this particular time, I concede the point,” Cornell said, and pulled his wife's head back onto his shoulder.

 

When Arshan finally made it back from the bathroom, he heard someone out on the porch. He put a hand to his stomach and slipped on his shoes. He walked onto the covered porch just in time to see Jesse throw up over the
railing—hard enough that she didn't hear his arrival. Arshan watched her ease herself to the floor. He was about to politely leave, when Jesse caught sight of him.

Jesse burped and turned her face away. She wasn't wearing any makeup and knew she probably thought she looked awful. Automatically, she freed her hair from a ponytail and smoothed her satin nightgown with sweaty palms.

Arshan knew just what she was thinking. He couldn't help but smile. “You look gorgeous,” he said before he had time to think better of it.

Sarcastic, Jesse thought, but her defenses were down. Being seen without makeup was actually physically painful for Jesse in front of a man. Not a man. Arshan.

Again, Arshan read her thoughts as nakedly as a child's fear. Ten years of being a person's bridge partner teaches you a thing or two. Ever since the accident, Arshan's feelings for Jesse had crystallized and taken on a delicious urgency. He was both thrilled and terrified, two sensations he'd thought were long dead to him. The past thirty years could best be described as waiting. Waiting to die? Or waiting to live again? He sat down before she could leave.

“You must know,” Arshan said, and looked to see if she did.

Jesse listened to the words and weighed their meaning but still wasn't sure. She kept her eyes on the deck floor.

“I must tell you—” He hesitated for the briefest moment, hoping she would look up. He looked at the sheen of her hair in the moonlight instead. “Jesse, I'm old and I'm damaged. On top of that, I'm haunted.” Arshan felt a chill in the humid air. “And even after all this time, I'm not sure that I'm ready.”

First, Jesse smiled at the old, weathered floorboards beneath them. Then she lifted her chin so that the moon could unveil
every wrinkle Jesse Brighton had earned in laughter and tears and dashed hopes and dreams. She looked into Arshan's sad, crinkly eyes and said, “Welcome to the club, honey.”

WHEN I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, EVERY-body was still asleep. I tiptoed into the sunshine. I walked off the porch and through the palm grove until I arrived at a fence. I put my hand to my throat and gasped.
Stunning.
It was possibly the most perfect beach I'd ever seen. The sun was still low in its early morning splendor, casting diamonds across the waves and bathing the sand in glittery warmth. A proud palm tree posed jauntily at the beach's edge, begging to be made into a postcard. To the left, I saw the beach run along unfettered until a jutting tip of jungle and rock. From what I'd read, I knew that was the biggest settlement area of the Garifuna.

I tried to run over everything else I remembered. Aboriginal peoples from mainland Central and South America migrated to the Antilles Islands and intermixed. Columbus “discovered” the islands, so Spain colonized and enslaved the population. So many died off from disease and mistreatment that African slaves were shipped in. Runaway slaves and
shipwreck survivors were taken in by the Carib population and the new blend constituted the Garifuna. Then Britain gained the island of St. Vincent in a treaty. The Garifuna resisted valiantly, but Britain rounded them up and shipped them to the Honduran island of Roatan. More than half died at sea, but the survivors persevered and even flourished. Finally, many migrated back to the coast of Central America in places like Tela. But to this present day, the Garifuna people maintained native South American and African customs. They make casabe (yucca) bread and dance punta—a frenzied ritual expressing all the joys and sorrow of their past.

I shielded my eyes from the sun to count seven canoes along the beach, all painted in bright teal and bloodred. The Garifuna were fishermen and lived off the sea and the land. I'd seen pictures of the settlements just down the road—small thatched huts by the sea. I looked around. The area we were staying in was so isolated. I wondered what would happen with the arrival of the outside world. If it was anything like the U.S. or other places I'd seen, beachfront property always went to the wealthiest bidder who immediately turned it into private compounds of cement and plastic.

But until then…
What a place to live.
It was completely silent apart from the water and the wind in the palm trees.

I turned to watch the waves, waiting for each dramatic curl to crest and crash. It was heartbreakingly beautiful—the exuberant crush of the whitewater. I loved that sound—rushing water. Everything, in fact, that morning, was perfect.

“Mina, run!” I called aloud, and took off galloping down the sand. I spun in circles, my feet pounding the warm ground. I spun faster and faster till the blue sky blended with the ocean and swirled around me like a cyclone, until I collapsed on the sand, giggling at myself.

That's when I caught sight of Ahari, standing in the shadows by the fence, watching me. I waved, a night crab caught
in a flashlight beam. Ahari continued to stare, his eyes steady. He knew I could see him but he didn't smile. It gave me the chills.

 

Many hours later, the entire brood had made it out to the beach, and discussed every intimate detail about a person's digestive system that should never be shared in public. Empathetic groans all around. I got heartily teased for my choice of destination—treacherous roads and instant food poisoning.

I sent Kendra quick texts to update her and hopefully make her laugh. The others went on walks, collected seashells, took pictures by the fishing boats, sunbathed and dipped in the waves.

By late afternoon, we'd all assembled back under the umbrellas.

Jesse and Isabel were drinking Bloody Marys, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out how. Jesse thought Bloody Marys settled the stomach and replenished your vitamins.

In her black designer swimsuit, Jesse stretched out like a royal feline, her face shaded by an oversize Grace Kelly hat.

I followed the line of Jesse's figure from her delicate shoulders to her tanned chest speckled with age freckles to her nearly flat belly, to her gracefully full thighs to her gleaming Corvette-red toenails. My God, I hoped I would look that good at her age.

Just then, Jesse peered over her Jackie O sunglasses at me. “Sammy, we've been discussing your decision about this Remy Badeau character. You want advice from some senior citizens? Not like we got it all figured it out—a divorcée, a widower and…well, at least Lynette and Cornell should be able to tell us a thing or two.”

“You can give me advice on what not to do.”

“Ouch, honey, now that really stings.” Jesse lay back on
the recliner. “Good advice. Bad advice. I hate to break it you, darling, but all anyone's really got is stories.”

Not a bad idea on a beach afternoon. “Does that mean you're going first then?”

Jesse's whole body tensed. I just assumed that was what she was getting at.

Isabel stuffed a finger sandwich into her mouth and clapped her hands delightedly, obviously imagining more glitz and glam stories of Jesse's modeling days.

Jesse heard her daughter's glee and slowly rolled to face her. It was hard to read her expression due to the ridiculous sunglasses. “My precious child, this trip has made me realize a few things. For one, you girls aren't really girls so much anymore. But mostly, without our dear little Mina, I see that I might not have all the time in the world to tell you a few things I left out.”

Jesse sighed and lay back once more. “Like about your father, for instance.”

November 17
Samantha

The Copenhagen Interpretation was one theory, but there's another one called Many Worlds.

It says that each time the universe is faced with a choice (like an electron going through one of two slits), the universe splits into separate universes, one for each possible outcome.

A recent survey found that over half of the world's top physicists (yes, Stephen Hawking) believe in the Many Worlds Theory.

Max Tegmark at MIT and David Deutsch at Oxford routinely write on parallel universes and why we don't see the other worlds. One scientist believes we glimpse the other worlds when we dream. But Brian Greene at Columbia has my heart. In
The
Fabric of the Cosmos,
he describes how you could theoretically time travel to parallel universes of other outcomes of your life.

Doesn't it mean that in one universe, Mina, everyone made all the right decisions? That there is a world where we have mothers and Isabel has a father? That it is only by chance that we're the “copy” that unfortunately ended up in this universe, with all the bad possibilities? Like cancer.