You Can Let It Go [ZARRY]

Fifty One

Zayn:

I took an Uber to Mom and Dad’s house on Plum Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, south of the city.

My house.

My home—or it had been.

It hadn’t changed at all on the outside—set a little back from the street by a short lawn and two oak trees that buffered it on either side.

The yellow paint had been retouched at some point but Mom’s yellow curtains with the small red flowers were the same.

I climbed the two steps up to the front door and knocked.

My damn heart was beating so fast, the blood rushed in my ears.

Mom opened the door wearing an orange sweater and beige pants. She hugged me close and I smelled turkey, samosas, and chicken biryani wafting out from behind her.

“Come in, dear,” she said, wiping her eyes.

She took my hand, every one of the seven years standing between me and those first few steps. “Come in.”

I followed her in.

The sense memories swamped me, as those same seven years collapsed like an accordion’s bellows.

The living room was the same—same beige couch I watched Saturday morning cartoons on.

Same carpet I spilled Kool-Aid on, though the stain was washed out now. Same wooden coffee table I’d bonked my head on that time I’d been horsing around with Roger when he was thirteen and I was three,and he decided to launch me—laughing—through the air at the couch. And missed.

The pictures on the wall were still there, even those of me as a kid with braces, in Little League, where I’d had a crush on Billy Sturgeon and no one had known it, least of all me.

Only feelings.

Stirrings of who I was and what would lead to so much confusion and eventual exile from this, my home.

Mom led me to the kitchen that was another round of sensory assault.

The counter tile—the same white squares
that had been popular forever were there, every few painted with a blue fleur-de-lis.

“I’m heating up leftovers from the restaurant yesterday,”

Mom said, sitting me down at the small, round wooden table.

It was near the sliding glass door that overlooked the yard where I’d spent countless hours with friends or by myself,
reading on my back in the grass. The table was set for three.

“We have everything,” Mom said.

“Green sauce, Samosa , but the Biryani I made myself. Have to have Chicken Biryani.”

“Where. . .” I swallowed. “Where’s Dad?”

The door that led to the garage opened and Dad came in, carrying a bottle of Martinelli’s sparkling cider in each hand. He stopped when he saw me. “Oh, you’re here.”

“Yeah, hi.”

A short silence descended.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“No, no, I think we got it. We got it, right, Trisha?”

“I have it,” she said, pulling a large tray of tinfoil wrapped turkey out of the oven.

“Zayn can help. Get the glasses, would you, dear? Yaser, you pour, then everyone wash
your hands. We’re about ready to eat.”

I went to the cabinet above the sink where the glasses had been seven years ago. They were still there.