Love, Hate and Other Filters Read online

  The mayor of Springfield, gray-faced and somber, speaks to the group from the church steps.

  Springfield, Illinois, is a small city and a great one. As we mourn, America mourns with us. We will give aid and comfort to those who have been injured and to those who have lost loved ones in this tragedy. We will find our strength in our faith and in one another. We will emerge stronger. We will rebuild. We will dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work of those who have perished here. And through us, through our memories, their spirits will live.

  He pauses, clears his throat. God bless Springfield. God bless Illinois. God bless America.

  Chapter 15

  I try to keep my head down at school, but the vandalism at my parents’ office, combined with my friendly police escort, make me an attention magnet. And by attention, I mean openmouthed you’re a freak stares or puppy-dog eyes and shoulder pats. I want to disappear, blend into the throng of students scurrying to class. But you can’t blend in when you’re the only brown kid in a swell of white students.

  I can’t remember a single thing from any class. Except that Brian was absent. Suspended. Small blessings. The day ends with me at my locker, sighing heavily as I fill my backpack. When I stand, Phil is beside me. He leans forward, like he wants to whisper something, but my withering glance holds him back. Apparently I have the power to freeze-frame people midstep.

  A single kind word from him and I will fall utterly to pieces. What I want is for him to flash me a brilliant smile, to take determined strides toward me and kiss me in front of everyone. What I really want is to do that myself. I block the scene so when we kiss, faces around us blur, a filtered lens diffuses the light, and a smoke machine blows gauzy wisps of gray across the floor. And when we stop, I tell him my parents have changed their minds. I’m going to film school. I’m leaving for New York, and he’s coming with me. Then he draws me close, and we kiss again as “The End” flashes across the screen.

  In real life, he turns and walks away.

  Violet agrees to join me at my parents’ clinic so I can document the aftermath of the crime. Filming calms me. I said before that my camera is my shield, but when I’m hiding behind it, I’m also in control.

  There are a couple police cars in front of the office along with a brown van with white letters reading glass doctor parked at the curb. The large plywood board that last night covered the broken window now leans against the brick wall.

  I hand Violet my mini-cam. “I’m going to take my good camera. Maybe you can help me get a few establishing shots?”

  Violet nods. I wait for her usual comment, something pithy or flirtatious. I mean, the handsome, gum-chewing, Captain America-esque Officer Jameson is just feet away. But nothing. A nod is all I get, then a slight smile that doesn’t find its way to her eyes. Violet rubs my shoulder, then turns, camera in hand, to quietly honor my request.

  I raise my good camera to my eye. From a distance, I film my father speaking to the window repairman. He slumps as he talks. The gray hair at his temples seems more prominent.

  I approach the broken window, slowly panning across the yellow crime-scene tape that stretches the length of the one-story building. Through the window frame I focus on the slivers of sparkly glass that escaped the vacuum.

  My father looks up, sees me with my camera, and narrows his wary eyes. Then he just nods. Probably too tired to argue with me about this not being the right time or place to film. But what he doesn’t get is that it is exactly the right time to film.

  I walk into the waiting room, camera on. I greet Rose, the receptionist who’s been with my parents’ practice since the beginning. She looks up and smiles into my lens and then pretends to engross herself in her work. But what could she possibly be doing? My parents aren’t seeing patients right now. They can’t. The office is still closed. Maybe it’s habit. After years of watching me film, Rose is happy to play along, to star or cameo. I’ve promised her a shout-out if I ever win an Oscar.

  I’m not even exactly sure what I want to do with the film. Right now, I’ll take as much raw footage as possible. There’s maybe a short doc in all of this, one I could even enter in a student film festival. Something positive has to come of this senselessness.

  My mom walks into the waiting room with the same drawn face she’s worn since yesterday. “Maya, why are you filming? We don’t need memories of this …” She trails off; her voice has run out of batteries.

  “Maybe the footage will be helpful for the insurance company?” It’s a feeble excuse, but she nods, anyway, and then heads toward the back without another word. Maybe she’s right. I don’t need to document the last three days; I need to delete them from existence.

  Outside, my dad, Violet, and three police officers surround the open window of Officer Jameson’s squad car. The radio blasts. Violet gestures for me to hurry up and join them. A man’s deep voice rings over the car’s speakers.

  “It’s not him. It’s not him,” Violet repeats as I jog up to the car.

  “It’s not who?”

  “They don’t think the Aziz guy is the terrorist. It’s not him.”

  I put my hand to my chest to catch my breath. I squeeze my eyes shut. My mind’s camera rolls. The newscaster’s words emerge from the radio in three dimensions, hanging in the air in block letters:

  TRUCK RENTAL LINKED TO SUSPECT WITH

  POSSIBLE WHITE SUPREMACIST TIES …

  AZIZ CLEARED …

  CITIZENSHIP—HIS AMERICAN DREAM …

  POLICE EXECUTE SEARCH WARRANTS

  My mouth hangs open. I should be more relieved that a Muslim isn’t responsible, but all I can think of is the carnage. Over a hundred people are dead, and there have been dozens of attacks on Muslims in retaliation for a crime no Muslim committed. My father and the police stand at grim-faced attention until the station breaks for commercial.

  Officer Jameson turns down the dial. “Let’s hope this curbs the threats from our neighborhood vandal. I’m going to check with the chief. I’m sure he’ll want police detail to stick with your family at least another day.”

  My dad nods, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I need to tell my wife the news.” He doesn’t say a word to me. He hurries toward his office without glancing back.

  Violet takes me home. We raid the fridge. She grabs a couple leftover samosas and tosses them into the microwave. I pour us glasses of chilled mango juice.

  “I wish I had vodka to spike those,” Violet says.

  I have to laugh. It feels good. “Yeah. That would go over big with the parentals.”

  “I’m trying to help you relax. You should be psyched it’s not the Muslim guy. It’s some asshole white supremacist dude. This will all blow over, and your parents will let you go to New York. We should be celebrating.”

  I shake my head. “That’s now how it’s going to work.”

  Violet’s impish smile fades. “Why not?”

  “Are you kidding? All this stuff happened when they only suspected it was a Muslim. Imagine if the next time it actually is a Muslim. Like that guy, someone who just happens to have my last name? Which is actually sort of common. My parents told me all these stories about things that happened after 9/11—people getting beat up or harassed because they were brown—some of them weren’t even Muslims. This brick through the window? The Brian bullshit at school? I don’t see how my mom is going to recover. Or my dad, by the looks of it.” As I’m saying these words to Violet, I suddenly fear that my parents could take a lot more away from me than just NYU. They could take away Batavia. They could insist we move somewhere else and start over.

  “Maybe your aunt can talk to your mom?” Violet says softly.

  “My mom is still pissed at her for aiding and abetting on the whole applying-to-NYU thing.” I slump back in my chair. “I can’t ask Hina for anything else. Besides, she has her own life.”

  Violet takes a bite out of the samosa in front of her and gulps down her juice. “I know it’s bleak, b
ut don’t give up. We’ll find a way.”

  I’m silent. I give my head a little shake.

  “What’s stopping you?” she demands.

  It’s a simple question, but there is no simple answer. That infuriates me. I can’t do whatever I want. I can’t be whatever I want. No matter what, someone I love will get hurt.

  WGN TV Chicago Local News

  As cleanup crews continue the arduous process of sorting through the wreckage of the Federal Building here in downtown Springfield, this surprise from the FBI: Kamal Aziz, initial suspect in the terrorist attack appears to be a victim himself. Initial reports tied Mr. Aziz to a terrorist splinter group, but the FBI now is now calling it a simple case of mistaken identity.

  In fact, Mr. Aziz was in the Federal Building that day to take part in a citizenship ceremony. He and fifty others were to take an oath to swear allegiance to the United States, to become our nation’s newest citizens, when a suicide bomber cut that dream short. Mr. Aziz was a resident at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield. His parents, local store owners in Dearborn, Michigan, mourn him now as the hundred and twenty-fifth victim of the suicide attack.

  Chapter 16

  Life at home is hushed. My parents and I shuffle around like cordial strangers. Sometimes I can barely even muster cordial. Every time I look at them, all I see in their eyes is fear and worry about the state of their practice and the state of our lives. And they might not acknowledge it, but they must sense the resentment that comes off me in waves. It’s like we’re all unavoidable reminders to one another of what we’ve lost.

  So I now have one mission in life: avoid my parents. That, and to not think of Phil. Or New York. Or all the opportunities I’m missing. My brain hurts from thinking about all the stuff I swear not to think about.

  It’s Saturday night. I’m not on the work schedule at the bookstore. Violet is going to a party at our friend Monica’s house and wants me to come. She’s texted me three times in the last hour. Just what I need, to go to some party and walk in on Phil and Lisa making out. Not that I even know Phil is even going to be there, but still, can’t risk it. I can’t keep ignoring her, so I text: too tired and turn off my phone.

  With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I drive.

  I drive through town and the houses that sprouted up overnight where once there were only cornfields. I drive down the dark, empty road behind the grocery store to where Batavia’s mythic Lincoln Tree once stood. They chopped it down two decades ago when the tree got sick, but according to old Batavia lore, when the leaves were green and full, the elm looked exactly like Abraham Lincoln’s profile. It faced in the direction of Bellevue, the sanitarium where Mary Todd Lincoln was forced to stay for a while in the 1870s. They say that when the summer breeze was just so, the branches of the elm would dip down and give the face the appearance of weeping.

  I drive on, unable to weep anymore.

  When I find myself at the Fabyan Forest Preserve, it feels almost like an accident. Almost. I kill the headlights and drive along the road that parallels the river. The car creeps along a half mile of crunchy gravel. The pond is the best place to wallow in my wretched state. Why not go to the place that will hurt the most to see how much I can stand? It’s why I watch the Sullivan Ballou letter-to-his-wife scene in the Ken Burns doc The Civil War over and over—because I’m challenging my own heart to burst. He was a Union officer and probably the most romantic guy ever. That letter is so full of longing and gratitude for his wife being in his life. My love for you is deathless, he wrote. He died a week after writing it. She never received the letter.

  Their tragedy kills me every single time. Sometimes I think that letter is why documentaries need to exist—to show us the almost unbearable truth about ourselves.

  As I drive up to the entrance of the Japanese Garden, I see Phil’s car parked in front of the no trespassing sign.

  Damn it. My chest tightens. I clasp the steering wheel, afraid it will take flight. But I barely have time to panic. I do a quick U-turn and skid away. Gravel shoots up behind the car. He’s seen me, I’m sure of it. Or heard me, at least. And no one else comes to this place.

  The space in the car shrinks, closing in on me. Was Phil there with Lisa? No. No. No. Crap. I don’t even try to stop myself from crying. I pound the side of my right fist into my thigh when I stop at the first light.

  I’ve run out of road, so I drive home. The dark house is a relief. A note on the foyer table in my mom’s handwriting reads, At the mosque. Then going to the Khans’. Since the bombing last week, my parents have gone to prayers every day. I can understand. It gives them a sense of peace and purpose, a place to belong when no other place feels welcoming. But nothing at home has changed. We communicate mostly by notes now. I know they’re scared. I’m scared, too. A part of my heart aches for them. But another part of my heart can’t forgive them for reneging on their promise.

  I walk into the kitchen and open the fridge. I linger long enough to hear my mother’s voice in my head: “Shut the door, Maya; you are defrosting everything.” She made parathas while I was at work. I slather butter on a paratha and throw it into the microwave for thirty seconds. Since I’m eating my feelings, though, buttery flatbread is not enough. I open the freezer and grab a pint of mint chip ice cream, find a spoon, and head to my room.

  In low light, I kick off my shoes and sit cross-legged in the middle of my bed. Giant spoonfuls of ice cream aren’t enough, either.

  I need a friendly voice. A person who understands without me having to explain. I need Kareem.

  We haven’t talked since the bombing. We’ve texted. I’m not sure if I should call. But my entire body pulls me to the phone. He always says I can call him whenever. Hope he means it.

  I hold the phone to my ear while I put down my food and settle into my bed. I count the rings. Of course he’s out; it’s Saturday night. I should hang up. But caller ID.

  I ready myself to leave a breezy message, but a breathless female voice answers in the middle of the fifth ring. “H-h-ello?”

  “Uh, I think … sorry. I must have the wrong number?”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Kareem?”

  “He stepped out for a second. He’ll be right back.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks,” I say, trying to hide my embarrassment.

  “I’ll yell down the hall for him. Can I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Maya.”

  “The documentarian?”

  “I guess … that’s … me.”

  “Hang on.” The woman pulls the phone away from her mouth, but I can still hear her yelling for Kareem. “Babe. Phone. It’s Maya.”

  There’s scuffling, and then Kareem’s muffled voice says, “Give me five minutes. I’ll be right behind you,” and then I hear something like a kiss. Definitely a kiss. “Maya? What’s up?” He sounds worried.

  “Hey, thought I’d give you a ring, but I guess I caught you at a bad time.” I bite my bottom lip. I want desperately to sound coolly detached but not like I’m trying too hard to sound coolly detached—basically Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not but less insolent and more Indian. (Another movie Hina made me watch.)

  “No worries,” he says. “Everything good with you?”

  “Yeah. Sure. But I don’t want to keep you from … from …” I’m fishing for the woman’s name. Obviously.

  “Suraya.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

  “Chill. It’s fine. I’ve been meaning to call you, to see how things have been since the vandalism at your parents’ clinic. How have they been holding up?”

  “You should go. You don’t want to keep Suraya waiting …” A whirling fireball grows in my chest. I have no right to feel this way, but I do.

  “Maya, you sound kind of—”

  “I’m surprised, that’s all. I didn’t expect someone else to answer your phone.”

  “Suraya and I got back together last week.”

  “Ba
ck together?” I gulp.

  “Remember, in your backyard, my brokenhearted sob story? Suraya was the breaker.”

  “And now you’re back with her?” I try and sound upbeat and friendly instead of simply confused. I’m fairly certain I’m completely failing.

  “Funny how life works, right? The timing wasn’t right then … we both had growing up to do. Anyway, we had dinner a couple weeks ago, and the whole meal neither of us could stop smiling. We decided to give it—us—another try.”

  Kareem’s happiness sings in my ear. I can’t begrudge him. After all, I’m the one who threw us away. I knew then as I do now that we weren’t meant to be together. So it makes no sense that I’m hurting the way I am.

  “It may seem weird, but Suraya and I—she gets me, you know? We can be together, and it’s easy. I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.” He pauses. “You know how when life gets too complicated, it’s easy to overthink everything? Intellectualize too much?”

  “Please, I’m the president of Overthinkers Anonymous. I’m their patron saint.”

  Kareem laughs. “Sometimes you’ve got to be less cerebral and more intuitive. So I figured I’d take a chance, trust my heart, and be less concerned about all the made-up things that were supposedly getting in our way. Cue segue. So how are things with Phil?”

  “Don’t ask. I think he’s back together with Lisa.”

  “You think?”

  “Maybe? I’m not sure. Things have been so confusing and messed up the last couple weeks …”

  “Well, the bright lights of New York City are right around the corner. Plenty of new adventures to be had.”

  “New York’s not meant to be, either.” My throat tightens. I can no longer even feign being cool and detached. I am the total opposite.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “My mom totally freaked, and now my parents refuse to let me go to NYU. I’m going to live with my aunt and go to school in Chicago. I can’t even live on campus. It’s that or community college and live at home.”