All We Have Left (26 page)

“Afterward, we heard about the towers falling, and the planes that flew into the Pentagon and crashed into the field in Pennsylvania. We didn’t know Travis was in the towers then. Why would he be there? It was days later that someone called and told us they found a body—Jesus, or part of a body, I don’t know—with Travis’s wallet. We didn’t even know he was missing. They sent Travis’s dental records to the city and they confirmed it was him. By then we already knew because of Travis’s message. The house phone and the shop used the same line in those days, and no one had bothered listening to the messages because Dad had closed the shop. Mom was the one who thought to check the answering machine and … it was awful. We were lucky, because there
was
a body to bury, though I always wondered how much of him was in the coffin.” He is silent for a long moment. “We got a form letter a while later about Travis’s stuff, and Dad went into the city and brought back a zippered plastic bag. Things they found with him. Gramps’s knife was in the bag,
and Travis’s wallet. Some of the plastic had melted together inside the wallet. I remember that made it so real.

“I only listened to Travis’s message once. I couldn’t listen to it again. Mom used to listen to it over and over again. I think she was trying to figure out what Travis was saying because you couldn’t hear all of it. She unplugged it from the telephone line so that new calls wouldn’t erase it by mistake. After a year or so she stopped, but by that time Dad had gotten so violent about
not
talking about Travis, I was afraid he would just up and throw the answering machine out the window one day. So I took it and put it in my closet. No one ever said a word about it. I think at that point we were all just numb.

“We didn’t ask a lot of questions after Travis died. I know it sounds strange, but we were too busy forgetting. It was easier that way.”

“Spoken like a true son of Gerald McLaurin,” I say, but I say it softly. “What do you think all that forgetting has done to us?”

“Is it bad, Jesse? It must be. Mom told me what you did. I guess I hoped that things would be better after a while. I let you down, Jesse, I know I did, but I was too busy trying to save myself.”

I shake my head, understanding, but not wanting to.

“I got a friend to clean up the message so I could hear more of it,” I say. “At the end Travis said he was in the towers with a girl named Alia. Do you know who she was?”

“Alia?” Hank says, and frowns. “I never heard Travis mention a girl named Alia. Who was she?”

“I’m trying to find out,” I say.

He is silent for a moment.

“That’s weird,” he says, “because there was something else in the bag with Travis’s stuff. Something that didn’t make any sense.”

I grip the edge of the desk as I stare at my brother’s face seven thousand miles away.

“What was it?” I ask.

“There was a girl’s scarf in the bag. A white scarf with red and green flowers on it. We never knew why he had it.”

I remember sitting with my mother and Nenek when I was six or seven years old.

My grandmother was making a batik scarf, and I sat beside her on the floor and touched the edge of the long, silky fabric, loving the way it slid slippery and smooth between my fingers.

“This is for you, Lala,” Nenek said. “I am making it just for you.”

The scarf was stretched across a frame, wide swaths of wax already covering it. I breathed in the light scent of beeswax.

Nenek touched the dried wax. “This is so the original color of the scarf stays pure and true. Remember, Lala, that no matter what life writes on your soul that you will always be Alia inside.”

Mama poured wax from the pot on the burner into the canting, a small copper container with a long narrow spout. Nenek held the canting over the scarf, then tipped the cup and with swift, graceful movements poured the wax across the cloth already marked with pencil lines.

Mama sat on the floor next to me and put her arm around me. I snuggled back into her arms and watched Nenek’s quick, deft movements.

“Each piece of batik contains influences from many people and cultures,” she said, biting her lips as she worked. “See this? This is a lotus blossom.”

Only the outline was there right now, but I could see the beginnings of a beautiful flower.

“The lotus lives in the deep mud, but eventually it grows to meet the sun and blooms into a beautiful flower. It is a message of hope, that the potential we hold deep inside us will triumph.”

Mama got up to pour more wax for Nenek, and I was content to sit and watch. I knew that making batik cloth was a long process, and that there would be more applications of wax and dye before it was complete, but when it was done it would be all mine, imbued with the love of my mother and grandmother.

Someone starts singing, and after a moment, others join in. It makes me smile as I concentrate on getting down the stairs.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

The song ends, and someone starts crying, big gulping sobs.

“Gramps used to rock ‘Amazing Grace’ on his sax,” Travis says. He’s breathing hard because he’s carrying the bulk of Julia’s weight. She isn’t talking anymore, and I don’t even know if she hears us. “They were going to play it at his … at his memorial service today.”

“It’s a beautiful song,” I say gently.

The stairs are never ending, and while the lights are on in this part of the stairwell, it’s still hot.

“We would go to church and Gramps would start singing,” Travis continues, “and all I could hear was him. His voice all deep and low, and I remember it tickled the inside of my chest.” He blinks, his jaw working.

“It sounds like you really loved him,” I say.

“I did,” he says, and his voice is flat and heavy. “I wish I could be more like him.”

We continue on in silence. I slide my hand down the rail, feeling the slick dampness and knowing it’s the sweat of the thousands of people who have come down these steps in front of me.

As strange as it seems, and as scared as everybody is, walking down the flights of stairs has gotten boring.

“Anybody want a Mountain Dew?” someone calls, appearing in a stairwell door with a bunch of sodas. People reach for the drinks, but I shake my head, smiling my thanks.

Travis plods down next to me, his head lowered, and I wonder what he is thinking. With one hand, the one not holding Julia, I adjust my scarf, pulling it tighter around my head, and try to think about happier things.

I decided to fast full-time for Ramadan when I was eleven. I was determined to do it for the entire month, because I was saving for a Game Boy and if I broke the fast I’d have to give my money to the poor. Ayah took it very seriously when I told him I wanted to try, and sat down with me to make sure I understood why we were doing it, that it was during Ramadan that God first revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and that we were not only refraining from eating and drinking but also from evil actions, words, and deeds. “Live as if every day is a miracle,” he told me, and then hugged me hard.

Fasting that month was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but thankfully Ramadan was in January that year, so the days weren’t so long. I haven’t done a summer Ramadan yet, when the sun rises so early and sets so late that we could be fasting for fifteen hours.

I felt so grown up getting up with Mama and Ayah and Ridwan before dawn so we could eat, and I could never wait for the elaborate, noisy iftar dinners to break our fast at night. When we got word that the moon had been sighted, and that
we would be celebrating the end of Ramadan the next day, I could barely contain myself. The next morning, I got dressed up in my new pink dress, and made sloppy handmade cards for my family, and we asked for forgiveness for any bad things we had done to one another that year. All our friends and family came over, and I remember Mama and Ayah hugging me and telling me they loved me, and were so proud of me.

I wanted to feel like that forever. What had changed?

When was the last time I told my parents I loved them?

It wasn’t that I didn’t love them, of course I did, but “I love you” regularly got steamrolled by loud words and stupid arguments. Their expectations were like carrying around something delicate and unwieldy, something way too heavy for me. I always thought I’d go to college, and they’d accept me for who I was, and we would go back to being friends like we used to be.

But what if I never made it down these stairs?

What if I never saw them again?

“My parents and I fought this morning,” I blurt out. “Why of all mornings did I have to fight with them
today
?”

“My dad and I haven’t talked in over a month,” Travis says, and adjusts Julia’s weight on his shoulder. “I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me.”

“Forgive you for what?” I ask.

But he doesn’t answer.

I can hear the crackle of Fourth of July fireworks as I search my parents’ room. Emi, Teeny, and Myra invited me to go to the fairgrounds to watch them, but I can’t get the thought of the scarf out of my head. Dad left a while ago, and I know he might be back anytime, so I’m trying to hurry.

Yes, I could have just asked Mom about the scarf, but lately my mother has seemed so fractured that I’ve stopped myself every time I’ve wanted to ask the questions that are piled up inside me. I’m afraid that just one more thing will break her open at the fault lines.

I find the scarf tucked into the bottom drawer of my mother’s dresser inside a plastic grocery bag, and it would be funny if it all weren’t so stupid. What is wrong with my family? It’s like we’re all carrying around puzzle pieces of
Travis, hugging them jealously to our chests, trying to keep our small part of him to ourselves.

The scarf is yellowed with age, and the delicate red and green flowers and yellow designs are faded. Streaks of dirt mar its surface, and other, darker stains, which I’m afraid might be blood.

I shake it out, and dust flies up, lingering in a thick shaft of light from the lamp. The faint smell of smoke wafts through the air.

I run my fingers over the silky material, tracing the swirling patterns.

Was this Alia’s?

Who was she though, and why did my brother have her scarf?