All We Have Left: Chapters 8–20

“Let’s start at the bathroom. They’ve already buffed us out from last time,” Nick says.

I’d noticed some graffiti here and there, but I’d never paid much attention to it. The scrawled words were usually cleaned up by the store owner by the next day, something ephemeral and loud, but quickly silenced.

He pulls me down an alley toward a fence at the far end, and we both duck to avoid a window AC hanging precariously out a first-story window.

The thrum of illicit excitement still courses through me.

I wish I had Lia’s camouflage burqa; I’d just drape the voluminous folds of the cloak around me and I’d magically fade into the car behind me.

I miss her warm hugs, sweetly pragmatic wisdom, and bakso soup, full of golf-ball-sized meatballs and garnished with fresh shallots and boiled egg.

There was a coup, and your grandfather was thought to be a sympathizer.

I flip through a few more pages and see that every one of the yearly articles about Travis has been neatly cut out and painstakingly glued into the album.

I try to pay attention to Drew, the young hippy-dippy adjunct professor who organizes our climbs, but my thoughts keep wandering back to the photo album in the shed.

“My dad travels a lot though, and I go with him. I’ve climbed in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado,” he says, all affable again, and I wonder if I imagined that beat of anger.

“Easy as pie,” Adam says just as we both hear an ominous rumbling.

She nods at me in sisterly camaraderie, and I smile, feeling a small glow of warmth and acceptance.

He blinked at me, fuzzy and bewildered.

That’s what I thought about all summer, as I inked Lia, my new Muslim superhero, in panel after panel of frenzied world-saving activity. I went to camp and met the cool confidence that was Tanjia, and I began to see what I could be, if I tried.

By the next morning, a fresh coat of light yellow paint has obliterated Nick’s tag. The cops must have woken up Mrs. Danver to tell her what we had done, and she painted over the “Nothing” by the glow of the streetlights.

I don’t tell him that Grill has told me emphatically that Dad doesn’t pay him anywhere near enough to put up with his crap, and when the buzzer sounds again, I abandon my plan to get changed.

The sound of my father’s continuing tirade rings in my ears as I escape down the stairs.

“Can’t you hang out with us and Nick too?” Myra asks plaintively.

The four of us walk a long, circuitous route home.

Adam’s gaze lands on me, cool and appraising.

I duck my head, flushing.

A group of college kids come by, and in the roiling crowd of people, Sabeen cries out.

There are eight bottles lined up on the counter, and I glance reflexively at Dad’s recliner, but it’s empty.

He stirs, and I freeze, my gaze darting to his face, but he lapses back into rumbling snores.

I can still smell the warm, sweet richness of candy, as if it has permeated the very walls.

“So how come people use the message of the Quran to stifle women’s freedom now?” another girl with sleek, dark hair shouts out.

He watches me, a bemused expression on his face.

My father has adamantly refused to go, and I wasn’t sure how he would react if he found out I went.

He’s in Somalia, working for a relief organization, and he loves it there. He says it’s uncomplicated and visceral.

That was the day he told Dad he was thinking about relinquishing his US citizenship because he couldn’t stomach what America was doing in the Middle East.