Pieces of Me Read online

  We pass by a twenty-four-hour Walmart and he pulls into the car park. I do not follow him when he gets out of the truck. All I want to do is go home. I just sit and stare and try not to cry. I know that tears provoke him. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I do not know how to continue.

  Adam reappears and gets back into the driver’s seat with a plastic Walmart bag. He opens it up and pulls out a packet of custard cream biscuits, the US version of the kind I had been looking for and for a moment I realise he remembered, but it is not enough. He opens the pack and holds it out towards me.

  “Happy birthday, babe,” he says. “I’m sorry about this evening. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  “I’m good. I don’t want one.”

  He hits the side of the truck and I jump.

  “It’s your birthday, Emma, and I bought those fucking birthday biscuits you like. Stop being so goddamn miserable and eat one.”

  He holds them out again and this time I take one. I bite into it. My mouth is dry and crumbs stick to the back of my throat as I try to swallow. I am no longer sure that this man feels like home.

  60

  The roof caves in first. The ceiling that I thought was beams and bricks and mortar starts to crumble. A few grains of sand start to trickle down, then more. We were already wading. Haphazard pyramids of sand form and then collapse under their own weight. And now the sand pours down all around us and I can see no door in this collapsing structure we used to call home, so I stay. I cover my eyes as the sand burns like pinpricks into my cheeks, fills my hair, my ears, my nostrils. I open my mouth to take a breath and now the grains are on my lips, between my teeth, under my tongue.

  Eventually the cascades stop. I try to free my arms, to push myself upwards through the sand. A sound fills my ears, the howling of the wind. I look up in my roofless home into a chemical orange sky. The gale screeches and whips overhead and takes bites out of the newly exposed brickwork, eating away at the walls. I am paralysed. All I can do is stare.

  I thought we were stronger.

  61

  I stand outside the exhibition, nervous about going in. Penny persuaded me to come. Since she convinced her pastor to host the event a few months ago, she has thrown herself into its organisation, advertising it in the shop and distributing flyers to customers. Noor said Penny has even stopped by the art group a few times to get to know the women. I have noticed her in the shop wearing one of Hope’s blouses. One of Afsoon’s rings.

  Noor also said it would be nice to see me there, although she understands my hesitancy. She says that the women would like to see me, but I don’t know if that includes Zainab. I got a Facebook message from Afsoon a few weeks ago, asking where I was. I told her that I was just really busy at the moment.

  I hear a voice behind me.

  “Emma, is that you?”

  It is Marie-Luz. I am pleased to see that she continued at the group.

  “Hey, how are you? It’s good to see you!” I say. “How’s it all going in there? Are you exhibiting your worry doll collections?”

  “Ah, not the worry dolls,” she says. “I started a new project. A cookbook! I’ve written and illustrated old family recipes.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I tell her.

  “Thank you. One of my little girls dropped a doll in the stew I was cooking. What a weird way to get an idea right?”

  “Haha, it’s perfect. I think a lot of great ideas come from the most unexpected places.”

  “I made it into the book’s title actually. Worry Doll Soup.”

  “I love it.”

  She smiles.

  “Okay, I’ve got to get back in there. You’re coming in, no? Everyone will love to see you.”

  “Sure, I’ll just be a minute,” I say.

  She nods and disappears into the church building. I take a breath and follow after.

  Inside, the hall is full. I spot several regular customers from the art shop, as well as the owners of a few local businesses I have come to know through Penny. There are many other people too. Members of the congregation perhaps, members of the local community.

  Several paintings are displayed on easels, while other women have tables to show off their work. As well as the women I recognise, there are others who must have joined recently or been members before I was there. I see Hope standing proudly next to two racks of colourful clothing and give her a wave. Afsoon sits in front of a table that displays her jewellery, much of it hung delicately on some spiralling branches she has brought in. Laura has hung up large swathes of textiles she has embroidered: cushion covers, bed throws, table runners. Penny moves between the crowd, greeting people, gesturing towards this woman or that. She looks like she’s in her element.

  I see Noor coming in my direction.

  “Hey, it looks amazing in here,” I say. She gives me an excited hug.

  “Oh, Em, it’s going so well! We’re getting a lot of interest. Three gift shops in Manitou Springs have already said they’ll stock Afsoon’s jewellery!”

  “Noor, that’s brilliant. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Emma,” she says with a smile. “You should have a walk around. Have you seen Zainab yet?”

  “No,” I say. “Is she on a table?”

  “Oh no,” says Noor with a smile I can’t quite figure out. “You’ll find her in no time. Go and look around. She told me she was hoping to see you.”

  I walk through the exhibit, saying hello to people I recognise, stopping to chat and catch up with the women in the group. People know my name here and that is a comfort. I stop feeling nervous and let myself enjoy the greetings, the easy conversations. None of them know what things are like at home, to them I am still just Emma. As I look at their projects, I am full of pride and admiration. These women with complicated stories and complex identities are finding their way through life. They are exploring who they are and what their identity means to them. They continue to try where I am failing.

  I do not notice a stand for Zainab as I wander through, although my eyes search for her. But then, near the back of the hall, there she is. The table of coaster-sized paintings is there as I had expected, but what really catches my eye is the large canvas that Zainab stands next to. It must be a metre tall and almost a metre wide and on it I see her garden. All the tiny details of her previous paintings have come together. The plastic furniture, the teacup, the bowl of olives, the tree that is heavy with fruit, the ginger cat that winds itself around the table legs. With a painting this size, she has put down roots.

  “Zainab,” I say and I walk towards her. “This is… It’s beautiful.”

  “Emma. It’s good to see you. Thank you.” Her smile is still shy, but there is something else there now. A beautiful, quiet kind of confidence.

  When I decided to come to the exhibit, I told myself that I would give Zainab her space. The exhibit wasn’t the place to talk about what had happened. But self-restraint fails me and the words tumble out before I realise what is happening.

  “Zainab, I’m so sorry about everything. About what happened with Adam. He’s not normally like that, I promise you. He’s just different since he got back. But he never would have really hurt Hassan, I promise you. At least I don’t think… But anyway, I understand Haider’s decision and I’m sorry, Zainab. I miss you and I’m sorry.”

  At first she says nothing, but I think I catch the smallest exhalation of a sigh. I wonder if I should leave now, but then she takes a step towards me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “Do not be sorry, Emma. These men… Adam, Haider, Hassan. They are not so very different. Don’t you see? The war follows us everywhere. Your husband brought it back here with him. So did mine. We’re fighting the same battles.”

  “I wanted to help you, not make things worse,” I say.

  “You did help, Emma. You did.”

  Zainab reaches into her handbag. She pulls out an
envelope and puts it in my hands. I see the University of Denver logo stamp on the front.

  “Is this…?” I look up at her and she nods. I turn the envelope over in my hands. It is crumpled at the edges and I can see that it has already been opened and closed hundreds of times. I carefully pull out the letter and unfold it. Dear Hassan, We are pleased to inform you… My eyes barely make it past the first few words before Zainab is speaking.

  “A full scholarship! Can you believe it? Hassan, going to university in America! It’s really happening!” I look at her face and am reminded of Ameena and her hopes for Yusuf’s future. These are the moments we live for, that make the rest of the suffering worth it.

  “Oh my god, Zainab, congratulations! This is huge! When did you find out?”

  “Two days ago. I wanted to call you and then Noor said you were coming, so I thought I’d tell you in person.”

  “Is Hassan happy?”

  “He’s ecstatic. So happy. We’re so grateful, Emma.”

  “No, you don’t need to be. Really, this is all Hassan. He is a talented boy.”

  “But we wouldn’t have known where to begin without you. Here, I got you something. Just a little thank you…”

  “Oh, Zainab, you didn’t need to get me anything.” The truth is that I still feel guilty. What happened with Adam could have jeopardised everything. I do not deserve their thanks.

  But Zainab is fishing around in her handbag again. She pulls out a dark blue mesh bag the size of my hand that shimmers in the light. It is tied shut with a ribbon, but as she places it in my hand I feel the contents move against each other. I untie the ribbon and tip the bag carefully into my open palm. A selection of small pieces spill out. Ceramic, stone, glass – all in brilliant blues and greens and turquoises. They are perfect.

  “I thought they might help,” she whispers.

  And for a moment I am speechless. I am known.

  62

  When Adam has gone to bed, I sit at the kitchen island and once again pour the pieces from the jar. I pick up each one, examine it, remember its story. There is stone from outside the gym in Baghdad, and another one from the step the day Sampath died. There is the piece from the top of the palace on the day Adam proposed. There is our wedding in Garden of the Gods, our last walk before he left, my trip to Texas. I hold each piece and close my eyes and will myself to remember. And then, when I am done, I carefully open Zainab’s bag.

  I pour all of the new pieces in one place at first, but then I being to shift them around and the jewel-like colours mix and merge with the reds and pinks and beiges and browns that are already there. There are blues and greens already too, softer shades, but these new additions seem to draw out their colour and make them glow.

  Soon the new pieces are mixed with the old and I continue to move them. My hands are opened wide, my palms moving flat across the surface of the pieces, testing them this way and then that. Then I start to feel it.

  I leave a few fragments in their position and move others around them. I smell something sweet in the air, hear the buzz of an insect, feel a light breeze against my skin. I move them again. I push the blues furthest from me this time and move the light greens closer. In the middle, I place the darker and more vibrant greens, threading through them with pinks and reds. I feel an ice lolly melt and drip down my arm. I see my mother in the doctor’s jacket streaked with colour. I feel a large hand reach down and ruffle my head.

  I look across at the living room wall and there it is, my childhood. The garden, the flowers, the tiny pond. My mother’s painting. And now, in front of me, with fragments from all the periods and places of my life, it starts to take shape again. A silent call. An invitation. All the pieces of me.

  63

  It is Thanksgiving, again. I stand in the kitchen peeling sweet potatoes, half an eye on the floats of the Macy’s parade that flash from the television screen in the living room. It is hard to believe that a year has passed already, yet it also feels like an eternity. I barely recognise the couple we were back then. Although I struggle to recognise the couple we are now.

  I asked Adam if he wanted to do something to mark today. Perhaps lay some flowers on Dave’s favourite hiking trail or visit the plaque in his memory at the top of the Incline. Even go to Old Chicago where he and Dave used to go for pizza and football on Thursday nights. He said no.

  The sweet potatoes peeled, I begin to chop them into chunks and put them into a pan of water on the stove. I’ll boil them now so they are ready to be mashed later and mixed with butter and cinnamon, in the tradition of the country I have come to call home. Neither of us even wants a Thanksgiving meal really, but I doggedly persist in trying to create new memories so that our love does not exist only on a compound in Iraq.

  Yesterday I sent Kate a card to let her know I was thinking of her. Last week I saw a video she posted on Facebook of Charlotte taking wobbly steps across the living room towards Noah, who was waiting with open arms. He looked so much more grown-up than when they left, taller and without the rounded cheeks of his toddler years. Then Kate turned the camera on herself and smiled into the lens. She looked different too, her hair cut into a short dark bob.

  Everyone is moving on except us. We’re stuck in a purgatory, somewhere between Iraq and real life. The readjustment period may take time, they said, but they meant months not years. He could be sent away again soon, before we have even recovered from the last time. Maybe there is no more recovering left to do. This is just who we are now. Changed.

  Adam left the house early today. Will be back around 1pm, says the note he left. I am grateful he left a note at all.

  I rub salt into the skin of the turkey and wait for the oven to heat up. As I move around the kitchen, I think of last year. Preparing the trifle to take to Kate’s. My phone vibrating on the counter by the sink. Adam’s voice from far away.

  I sit on the sofa to watch the rest of the parade. I get up again, mash the sweet potato. Return to the sofa. One o’clock passes. Then two. The turkey is ready. A pecan pie waits in the fridge. I call his mobile, but there is no answer. I wait. I drink a glass of wine. Three o’clock passes and I call again and leave a voice message.

  “Hey, it’s me. Just checking you’re okay. If you need more time alone that’s fine, just… Well, just let me know.”

  I try to control the anxiety in my voice, but the words come out with an unnatural high pitch. Things have been bad lately. Worse.

  I stand in the kitchen and pour another glass of wine. I look at my watch again. Half past four. I put my hands on the work surface, close my eyes, draw in a breath and try to calm the anxiety that claws at my stomach.

  The images begin to flicker, unbidden, the same way they did when he was deployed. But these days the scenarios that chase one after the other through my mind are not Adam in uniform, or a lone bullet in a dusty street, or an explosion that lights up the Baghdad night. They are Adam, at home, where he is supposed to be safe.

  I open my eyes, but the scenes have already started. They are harder to stop at the moment, harder to control. In the first sequence, Adam is in the mountains, far out in the forest where we would go for Sunday drives before he went away. The trees around him are aflame with the last crimson leaves of the season. He stands on a rocky outcrop, taking in the view. Silent. But now I see he has something in his hand. He closes his eyes against the cold taste of metal. A shot rings out, reverberating against the hillsides. Birds erupt squawking into the November air.

  I shake my head, trying to clear it. Take a cold sip of wine. It doesn’t work.

  In the next version, Adam is drunk. He has been out driving the back roads, swigging beer from a six-pack. Rock music blasts from the stereo and his windows are rolled down, despite the gnawing cold of the air. The road is narrow, with steep sharp corners, which he navigates with one hand on the steering wheel. The tyres spit out sharp gravel as he turns. Then something jumps out in front of him. An animal. A deer? It smashes through the windscreen and now
there is another corner coming up, but it is too late and he can’t see and now his truck leaves the track, tumbling down through thick tree trunks until one finally brings the vehicle to a halt.

  The third version is interrupted when I hear a key in the door. I wipe a relieved hand across the cold sweat that has gathered on my forehead.

  Adam comes in, pushing the door open hard so that it hits the wall and adds to the dark mark where it has made contact several times before.

  “Hey,” he says. “Smells like cooking.”

  “Yeah, Thanksgiving dinner. I thought you were going to be home at one.”

  I am not sure whether I can smell alcohol from him or whether I just imagine the scent that has become so familiar when he enters the house. He tries to take off a boot but loses balance and falls sideways, his shoulder slamming against the wall.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Fine,” he replies. I notice his eyes are red and sunken, more than the usual combination of sleepless nights and beer leaves them. His face is blotchy and pale.

  He is sitting on the floor now, pulling off his boots like a child.

  “Want something to eat?” I ask.

  “Sure.”

  I heat up vegetables and put them on a plate with slices of dry turkey and ham. He sits on the sofa and I hand him the food.

  “You not having any?” he asks.

  “No, I ate something earlier,” I lie.

  He turns over the television channel to what remains of the Thanksgiving football fixtures, then increases the volume. He barely blinks as forks of food find their way to his mouth. There is a strange vacancy to his stare.

  Before Adam left, I used to love watching American football with him. It wasn’t the sport itself, but the enjoyment he took in explaining the game to someone new. Before a big game we would often go to Rudy’s for dinner, the BBQ joint he’d told me about in Baghdad, and over stacks of moist brisket he would explain to me which team was predicted to win, what it would mean for the league tables, which players I should look out for. It was the excited conversation of lovers discovering each other’s passions. It was a keenness to know the other, and be known ourselves.