A week later she lay on a gurney in a hospital room, wearing a blue surgical cap over her hair, covered in a white sheet. While a nurse hooked an IV up to her arm, the whole family gathered around her. She blew kisses and said not to worry, that she would see all of us soon. She kept a smile up even when they wheeled her out of the room.
I followed her down the hall.
“Mommy, Mommy,” I whispered as I walked beside the gurney. I twined my fingers in her hand and held on until we approached the double doors of the operation theater.
Though her eyes were heavy with fatigue, she lifted her head a bit. “It will be all right, Enjeela. I will see you soon. Stay with your brothers and sisters.” She squeezed my hand once, then let go. Padar took my hand and pulled me away. I watched as she disappeared into the room full of equipment and nurses and doctors until the doors swung shut.
We gathered in a small waiting room. The day was already hot and stinky with humidity when we arrived, but I felt suddenly chilled, slumped on the plastic chair. My brothers talked softly to each other about a game of cricket they were going to play with friends tomorrow. Shapairi stared off at a corner of the ceiling. Laila and Zulaikha sat on the floor, leaning against a wall. Padar sat next to me reading a book of poems. Shapairi asked if Laila had remembered to lock the front door this morning. Laila said she couldn’t remember. That it would be okay. Zia said he had left his cricket bat in the living room. Somebody could steal it. Padar kept reading, burying himself in words. No one mentioned dying or death, only what we might cook for dinner or if it might rain. Each hour that passed, my stomach grew heavier, a weight falling into my legs. At dinnertime the doctor came into the room, still in his scrubs.
“It went very well,” he said. “There were no complications.” He told us it would be a few more hours before we could see her, though she wouldn’t wake up for some time. We would be able to visit, but only briefly because she needed to be on a ventilator overnight.
After he left, I felt a weight lift. One of my brothers said he had known she would be fine. Padar patted my shoulder. Shapairi leaned back in her chair, smiling for the first time that day.
A couple of hours later, we were allowed into the recovery room. Mommy was hooked up to several monitoring machines and an IV. She was very groggy, and we were supposed to walk by her bed, then leave. I stood by the bed’s railing, my hands clamped to the cold steel. A ventilator pumped air into her lungs in a steady rhythm, her chest rising and falling. The ventilator was only a precaution, the doctor had said. Yet to see her tethered to the machine made her seem less alive. Her eyes were closed, her lids tinged with red, as if her life lay on the surface of her skin.
“Enjeela. We must go,” Padar whispered in my ear. He took my shoulder in a firm hold and led me away. He ushered us through the hospital to the entrance. He watched from the curb as we all climbed into a rickshaw. We left him alone, standing on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, his hand raised in a solitary wave to us. He would sleep in the room that night and see her through her most difficult hours. Just as he had done for us during our travels here.
The day had wrung every bit of energy out of me. As soon as we arrived home, everyone disappeared into their rooms. I dragged myself upstairs to bed. As I fell off to sleep, I couldn’t get the last picture of Mommy out of my mind, wired up to those machines. So weak and helpless.
I awoke early the next morning, and all of us went through getting ready and eating in a meditative quiet. Even on the rickshaw ride to the hospital, we hardly spoke a word to each other. Zia wasn’t his usual jocular self, and Vida sat beside me staring out the window, all the bounce and enthusiasm drained out of her.
My thoughts began to drift to the days in Kabul without Mommy. Chaos. Uncertainty. Restlessness.
A few months later, Mommy had convalesced well and was up and walking around, slowly working her way back into her routine as she gained strength. We all marveled at how she had recovered and were happy to see her energy and vitality return. One night at dinner, Padar arrived with a particularly bright glint in his eyes.
“I have an announcement.” Padar leaned over his plate and glanced up and down the table. Mommy sat beside him, quietly touching her food with her fork. We all stared at him wide-eyed. It was so unlike him to tell us anything unless the situation was dire. Like when he sprang Masood on us in the middle of the night and said we had to leave right then. There was no discussion, just leave. I gripped my fork in one hand, knife in the other, wanting to hold on to something. “You all must know that we’ve been living on our savings for the last two years.”
Yes, I thought. That’s what has us all worried.
“We can’t do that forever.” He eyed each of us. Was he reprimanding us silently for how much we cost him? “But I don’t want you to worry about money, because we aren’t running low.”
Across from me, Zulaikha let out a sigh. Zia smiled. Ahmad Shah still had a furrowed brow.
“But we will someday if I’m not able to find work. It’s been impossible for me to find any opportunities here.”
Everyone sat perfectly still.
“So your mother and I have come up with a plan.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “One that will be good for all of us.”
“Are we going to have to move?” Vida asked.
He smiled at her question and took a breath before he spoke. “Yes.”
I squeezed my fingers so tight around the utensils I could feel the pain in my knuckles. Smiles turned to frowns. Zia sunk down in his chair.
“We are moving to America.”
“America?” Ahmad Shah shouted. Forks and knives dropped to the plates with a clatter. “America!” he kept saying, as if a shock of electricity had shot through him. He clapped and hooted. Laila began jumping up and down, saying something about playing volleyball. Even demure Zulaikha had a grin on her face, as if she had secretly pined for America all along.
“Won’t that be wonderful,” Vida said, shaking my arm beside me. Her enthusiasm was electric. I found myself smiling and wanting to join in the euphoria of the moment, but I couldn’t. My life was here in New Delhi. I would have to move away from my friends, my school, the boys I was coming to know, the festivals, the music, the dancing and singing. It would be leaving Kabul all over again. I couldn’t imagine for one moment how America could be superior to the island of happiness I already had.
Ahmad Shah’s carrying on became louder and louder over the idea of moving to “the land of opportunity.” He kept talking about going to the beach and meeting girls with yellow hair. I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. A resentment boiled up inside till it must have shown on my face.
“Enjeela, aren’t you happy about this?” Padar said, leaning toward me. “This is good news. Everything you could ever dream of is in America.”
I wanted to tell him every bit of my feelings, but I dared not be disrespectful. “But I was just getting used to it here.”
Padar patted my head, then smoothed down my hair. He moved a strand off my face, as if to reassure me. But I had moved enough in my life already, and in that moment I decided I didn’t want to move any more.