Memoir by Sana Vasi

I am ten, bordering on eleven. I spy a half-empty tub of ice cream that sits on the Formica countertop, two spoons buried in the gooey, chocolate mess. I spy the stuttering whir of a ceiling fan that does nothing to ward off Singapore’s oppressive summer heat. I spy the thick chunks of melted fudge that splatter onto the floor and the overflowing cups of juice that slosh onto the rose-patterned tablecloth. I spy on my helper, Tumijah. She stands in the middle of the kitchen—mouth pursed, eyebrows furrowed—as she surveys the damage my brother and I have caused by trespassing into her domain. Cupboards that are supposed to remain firmly shut have been wrenched open and an assortment of Pop-Tarts, Nutella snack packs and barbeque flavored chips burst forth, relieved to be free from the prison they were confined to for so long. “What are you doing?” she finally snaps, eyes blazing against the dark shadows that frame them. “I cooked good dinner tonight, you know? You want to spoil your appetite?” She points an accusing finger at us, a scowl etched deep into the lines of her face. “I stay and clean up. You two go now, before I tell your parents.” We sneak back into the kitchen the next day, of course; the temptation of artificial preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup is too powerful to resist. “Hurry,” I whisper to my younger brother. Maahir nods—a terse acknowledgment of the danger at hand—and continues navigating his way through the precarious pile of groceries that have not yet been put away. Our window of opportunity narrows with every passing moment. We have three minutes until Tumijah returns from her daily excursion to the mailbox—empty handed as always—and we are not prepared to face her wrath a second time. After what feels like an eternity, Maahir reaches the cupboards and, with the stretched-out grin of a young boy who just lost his first tooth, flings the doors open. We groan in unison. All traces of our secret stash are gone, replaced by rows of canned tomatoes and jars of olives. “You hungry?” Tumijah asks from the doorway. An amused smirk lingers behind her tightlipped smile. “If you want, I can make a salad.” ***** I am eight and a half. Summer is an endless series of days, each one indistinguishable from the next. Time lurches and spasms in a back-and-forth too quick to grasp. Weeks condense into hours; minutes into seconds. I am at the playground, hands calloused and hair tangled, sharing a seesaw with the boy whose family occupies the apartment below mine. He sticks his tongue out at me and smiles. I grin back at him, despite my reservations. Boys are still gross, even if I have outgrown my childish fear of cooties. “Sana, you be careful up there,” Tumijah cries from beneath the branches of an old chikoo tree; the sweet fruit reminds her of home. “I’m fine,” I yell back, hoping she’ll leave me alone. She doesn’t. She never does. “Sana,” she calls out, moments later. “Time to go home now, okay? It’s late.” My face burns with indignation, and a combination of embarrassment mixed with frustration itches its way underneath my skin. I snap. “God, Tumijah, why can’t you just go away? I’m almost in fourth grade and I can take care of myself. I don’t even need you anymore!” She stands up, her face an expressionless mask in the faded light. “Fine,” she replies. “Come upstairs in half an hour.” She leaves with my half-asleep little brother pressed up against her shoulder. As soon as Tumijah is gone, the boy on the seesaw flashes what I now recognize as his signature smile. “I bet you can’t stand up on your seat without falling off.” ***** I am still eight and a half, although I almost didn’t make it to nine. It is a week after the incident at the playground, as my mom likes to call it, and my forehead is criss-crossed with stitches. I think I look a little like Harry Potter, and call my best friend to show off. We spend ten minutes arguing about whether or not I’m the next Chosen One before we collapse on the couch in boredom. “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know! It’s your house. What do you want to do?” “Yeah, but you’re the guest, so you get to decide. What do you want to do?” This scintillating back-and-forth is cut short when we stumble upon several balls of blue and purple yarn tucked away in the corner of my grandmother’s sewing kit. “We should make friendship bracelets,” I announce with the naïve optimism of someone who hasn’t yet learned that friends don’t always last forever. It soon becomes apparent that neither one of us is familiar with the fine art of bracelet making. Half-hearted attempts lie scattered across the floor, reminiscent of the tattered streamers at my first-grade birthday party. We have just about given up when I remember. “Tumijah” I whine. My voice reverberates across the empty house. I find her in her room, sparsely adorned except for the handful of pictures that clutter the shelves. “What?” she replies, distracted. One hand twists her grey-streaked hair into a messy knot at the back of her head, while the other carefully folds one of my favorite shirts and places it into the laundry basket. “Tumijah, I need your help.” I gesture at the mangled yarn. “We want to make these friendship bracelets, but we don’t know how.” She pauses, and a peculiar smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, “I know how,” she says. “I used to make all the time with my sister. You go play. I do for you.” As I turn to leave, she picks up a frame that rests on her bedside table. I watch as she trails one gentle finger over a picture of two gap-toothed girls that grin at the camera, their eyes bright with happiness. ***** I am seventeen, and my eyes are itchy with exhaustion. I lean my head back against the plush, leather chair and groan—a long, drawn-out sound that summarizes my hatred towards the mind-numbing process of college applications. Though my fingers cramp up at even the thought of writing another essay, one glance at the myriad of post-it notes that adorn my desk—the word ‘deadline’ underlined several times—destroys any hope of calling it a night. I remind myself that sleep is for the weak and pick up the pen, fully prepared to draft an award-winning essay about why I deserve access to higher education. It is eleven thirty when a sudden high-pitched wail seeps through the crack of my locked door. I jump up, and in my haste to pinpoint its origins, knock my textbooks onto the floor. “What’s going on?” I ask my brother in the living room. He shakes his head and turns around, motioning for me to follow. It’s Tumijah. She is curled up into a ball on the bed, her eyes rimmed red and her chest wracked with sobs. I freeze, unsure of what to do. This is the woman who once shrugged off a second-degree burn; the woman who left her own children to take care of strangers; the woman who, in the thirteen years she has been a part of our family, I have not once seen cry. “Tumijah, what’s wrong?” Maahir sits down beside her, his voice a soft hum in the silence that eventually ensues. I hesitate for a second, and then grasp her hand, her fingers rough against mine. “Talk to us, Tumijah,” I beg. “Please?” “It’s my children, you know?” she answers, several minutes later. “They never write me. They never call to me. I miss them, but they no miss me. I don’t know what I do anymore…” I listen. It’s the least I can do. ***** I am six, and Tumijah is walking me home from school. It’s raining. Not the gentle summer showers that whisper secrets into my ear, but a cold, spitting thunderstorm that stings my cheeks and soaks me to the bone. Taxis whiz by—yellow blurs against the dull, grey landscape—and I latch onto Tumijah, both arms wrapped around her waist. She looks down at me, at the rivulets of water that drip from my eyelashes. She knows that I’ve been crying. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there,” she sings. The off-key melody catches me by surprise. I giggle, the cadence of her voice washing away all traces of my misery. “What are you doing?” I ask, delight tickling at my throat. “You never hear this song before? Come, you sing with me.” She begins again and, as we walk underneath a lamppost, its light shines a brief halo over her head. “I’ll be there; I swear by the moon and the stars in the sky. I’ll be there.”