Jessica Martinez - The Vow

Their disgust wasn’t subtle. The cherry-red Nike basketball shoes I’d been giddy to show off were not items to be coveted but damning proof that I thought I was better them. And the fact that my best friend wore a bra made me haram—never mind that my cousins were only slightly more religious because they lived closer to Teta and Jido. America had rotted my soul.

Annie appears.

I exhale slowly. She’s walking toward the truck with her head down, bobbing as she steps over a bike propped against the railing. She walks like a twelve-year-old boy, probably because her legs are too long for her torso and her arms swing like a primate’s, plus she hasn’t got enough muscle holding her bones together.

She looks up at me and glares. The honking.

This is going to kill her. I feel it, and suddenly my mouth is so dry I can’t swallow, can’t breathe. Why haven’t I been planning what to say to her? She’s right in front of me, just a few more seconds of ignorance between us, and I didn’t even think about how upset she’s going to be. I don’t want to tell her.

The passenger side door squeals as she pulls it open. “Was that really necessary?”

“You don’t want to drive?”

“You can,” she says. “I’m so tired I don’t even care.”

Usually she does care. Very much. She says I drive like a crack-crazed maniac.

She climbs in and I can see the exhaustion in the slump of her shoulders, the way her hair is fuzzy on top and falling out of her ponytail around the other side. Maybe I should wait till tomorrow to tell her.

“Take me home, driver. Don’t get a ticket and I’ll forgive you for the honking.”

What if I don’t have to tell her? There are crazy stoic people out there who keep terminal illnesses to themselves, and they just drop dead one day and surprise everyone who knew them. I could be one of them. I’d just disappear.

Except I can’t pretend with Annie.

“Something bad happened,” I say. My voice doesn’t even sound like my own. “Really bad.”

She cracks her neck. I hate it when she does that, but I’m too distracted to lecture her about arthritis in her spine right now. “As long as it doesn’t involve you hitting a pedestrian with my truck, I’m sure it’ll be okay,” she says. “Did Bryce finally beat you at foosball or something?”

“No. He left for Argentina yesterday.”

She waits, but I don’t have a place to start. It doesn’t seem fair to give her the same abrupt explanation my dad gave us. I owe her more. I wish it were over. “It’s really bad,” I repeat.

“What do you mean?” she asks quietly. She’s staring at me now. Her skin is bone white except for the vein at her temple that looks like a river on a map. “You’re scaring me,” she says. “What happened?”

“My dad lost his job.”

“Oh, Mo,” she says, and in the lamplight I see relief soften her face. “I’m so sorry.” She reaches over and hugs me. She smells like Lysol and butterscotch. The combination is unsettling.

“My mom’s losing it,” I mumble into her shoulder. It’s true but not relevant, just something to say while I stretch out the telling.

Annie lets go of me. She swallows and nods. She thinks she understands, because my mom is always in some state of losing it.

“You think she’s going to be okay?”

“No. He just told us at dinner, and then . . .”

And then we sat and stared at our stew. Finally Sarina got up and scraped the cold bowls into the disposal. Mom started to sniffle, Dad cleared his throat, Mom started wailing, and Dad retreated to the den.

“. . . then I had to come pick you up,” I finish.

“Did something happen, or are they just downsizing?”

“They’re going under, or trying not to by letting a bunch of employees go.”

“Your dad will get another job, though,” Annie says. “He’s a genius big shot, right? And you guys are pretty well-off. I mean, it’ll probably be tough for a while, but I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

“You don’t get it.”

It’s the wrong thing to say to Annie. She bristles and straightens like someone’s pulling her up by the spine. I don’t know who’s to blame for making her think she’s stupid—probably that dumbass seventh-grade math teacher Mr. Crickshaw—but she won’t let it go.

I try again. “I mean I haven’t told you everything yet. It’s about our status.”

She rolls her eyes. “Seriously? That’s crap, Mo. Nobody’s going to think less of your family just because your dad lost his job. It happens to people all the time. I don’t mean it’s not terrible, but it doesn’t affect your status.”

“No. Immigration status.”

Insects shriek and pulse in the blackness beyond the truck. I see her shoulders rise and fall, but her face stays perfectly still. Annie is the master of the serene surface. I can’t even tell if she’s understanding what I’m saying.

“But you have a green card, right?”

“No.”

“But you’re legal.”

“Right now, yeah. My dad has a work visa, so we’re legal until he’s no longer working for ReichartTek.”

She folds her arms over her chest. I can see her pinching the skin at the backs of her arms between her index finger and thumbs. “So you all have to apply for green cards now, right?”

I want this conversation over. I don’t want to see her response when it clicks.

“Right?” she insists. “It’s not like you snuck into the country in the back of a pickup. And you’ve been here forever!” The cords in her neck are straining beneath her skin.

“That doesn’t matter.”

She stares at me, eyes suddenly wide with panic.

I have to look away. “He’s already started looking for jobs back in Jordan.”

“What? Why not here?”

Exactly.

I wanted to grab my dad’s head and shake him when he told me he was actually excited about the interview he has lined up in Jordan. Excited to go home. His home. He actually said maybe the timing was lucky, that this opportunity was perfect.

I won’t criticize him in front of Annie, though. I can’t tell her he’s choosing to go home, or at least accepting it. She won’t forgive that.

“Why isn’t he looking for a job here?” she repeats, her voice bordering on shrill.

“It doesn’t work like that. ReichartTek got him the visa. That visa isn’t good anymore, so we have to leave. He’s got two weeks.”

“Are you kidding me? Then what?” The brain vein is bulging now, and she’s turning splotchy like she does every time she has to give an oral presentation.

“We have to leave.”

“But what if you don’t? I mean, nobody’s going to force you onto an airplane, right?”

“I don’t know how it works,” I mutter. “I’ve never been deported before.”

She puts her hand to her head and wipes the loose strands of hair from her eyes. It looks like straw, like she’s spent the whole day swiping it away in exasperation. “You’ve lived your whole life here, though. That has to mean something. I’m sure if people knew, like if you got somebody to write an article in the paper or something, or maybe start a petition . . .” She trails off.

She’s not stupid, but that might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard her say. “Annie, people aren’t going to sign a petition, and if they did, it wouldn’t matter. Nobody cares.”

“I care.” Her voice breaks, and I hear something split inside her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry. I just . . . this is crap! I don’t even believe this. How are you just sitting there? How are you feeling?”

My least favorite question. She knows it, but can’t stop herself from asking it anyway. I’ve yet to discover how telling people how I feel makes anything better, and she’s yet to care that I hate it.

How. Are. You. Feeling.

Scared.

“Mad,” I say.

She stares at me for a moment, then turns so she’s facing forward again. We’re still here in the parking lot, and I’m not sure why until I remember I’m the one behind the wheel. I turn the key, wrestle the gear shift into reverse, and back out.

Inside Mr. Twister I can see a man’s silhouette and what looks like a mop handle coming out of his back. The outline makes him look like he’s been impaled by a broom or something.

Annie starts to cry. I haven’t seen her cry in years. She doesn’t make a sound, but her shoulders jerk and bounce, and I have the same gut-twisting feeling that I did the last time I saw her cry. I want to puke. It’s worse than getting kicked in the balls. I just I want her to stop. I’ll do anything to get her to stop.

Annie

It takes everything to stop. At first I don’t think I can, but then I realize Mo is in agony beside me and I need to just make it happen. I clench my teeth, take deep breaths through my nose, and push it down. He hears enough of it at home.

Besides, crying in front of people is always a mistake. It’s been a long time, but I know exactly what I’ll feel like afterward. Pitied. Pitiful.

What I need is to have already sobbed it out, to have that raw, scraped-clean feeling you get after the breakdown. Instead I’m sucking in tears and pretending the pressure isn’t building and building in my chest.

This can’t be real. I can’t lose Mo.

I’m sweating, and the air rushing through the cab makes me shiver. There’s got to be a solution, somebody who can fix this. Mo makes a left turn, way too fast, but I’m afraid if I yell at him I’ll start crying again. I take a breath so deep my lungs feel like they might explode.

I can’t lose Mo.

“I don’t have a choice,” he says, like he’s read my mind. “I know that. But I don’t know if I can survive it all over again.”