But most of it had been swept away from my body like dust in the windstorm. Maybe being lost in the wilderness had reset something within me. In London, I’d tried to break away from the bonds of these people, feeling the whole wide world out there. But I’d always be tied to them. It was just that, now, I knew there would always be some slack—giving me space. And whenever I wanted to, I could pull myself back in. Go back home.
When the tent was packed in a tidy little roll in its nylon case, my dad tossed it into the trunk. “Well, I guess you were right. Time for a new tent.”
I stared at it. Suddenly I wanted to curl my body around it, hold it close. Protect it.
“Let’s keep it.”
My dad looked at me in surprise. “Really?”
I nodded, shutting the trunk with a hard thud. “Let’s go home.” I wanted to go home, to LA, so badly.
We got into the car and it felt larger. Spacious. And I found myself missing the press of our sleeping bags against each other. The proximity of my family. Always within reach.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maurene Goo is the author of several critically acclaimed books for young adults, including I Believe in a Thing Called Love, The Way You Make Me Feel, and Somewhere Only We Know.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and cat, Maeby.
FIRST WORDS
Varsha Bajaj
My grandparents and parents say America is that shining place across the ocean where scientists make breakthroughs and universities raise brilliant minds. After my brother, Rishi, was born with a hearing impairment, my father created a file of articles that he clipped from newspapers and magazines about sign language, cochlear implants and deaf education in America. “Look,” he would say, “look! Progress!” and thrust the article in front of us. The grandparents, aunts and uncles all nodded in awe and agreement. Soon others started bringing Baba articles.
Eight years later, it was a thick file.
Then, one of Baba’s colleagues visited New Jersey. He came back with more articles and shining stories about American universities and schools.
The file became even thicker—too thick to ignore.
Baba, a physics researcher, started looking into jobs and visas.
One year later, we’re leaving everything we know behind for America and Rishi’s future. Everyone thinks we are so lucky. Are we?
The day we got our American visas is carved in my mind like the Om tattooed on Ma’s wrist. She gave me a suitcase and said, “Priya, pack carefully. That’s all the space you have.”
How do you pack your life into a suitcase? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. I knew it was just as hard for Ma and Baba. Ma had packed her spice box and the family idol of Ganesha in her suitcase first. The important things.
Watching me place and remove things from my bag, Ma advised, “Everything has to earn its place.” She said, “Take what you truly need and what makes you most happy.”
I couldn’t pack my collection of smooth rocks, my doll from when I was three or the kite that Baba and I flew every January. I couldn’t fit Raj, the boy who made me dream; Aunty Roopa, who lived next door; my best friends; or Dada and Dadi.
I picked my two favorite books, Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, and wrapped them in the folds of my skirt.
* * *
When we cross through security at the airport, I keep turning back for one more look at my grandparents. Here’s where we part ways. I’ve lived with them all my life, and today I’m leaving them behind. All the elder relatives I know are cared for by their sons. Your children are your security in your old age; it’s the Indian way. Dadi and Dada lean on each other for support; selflessly allowing us to secure our future, and for that I want to rush back and hug them one more time.
During the ten-hour flight over the Indian Ocean to London, stray tears roll down my face without permission. Nothing had felt real till the plane abandoned land with a deafening shudder. The roar of the plane seems to say, You’ve left Bombay, you’re going to America. What do you know about it?
We spend hours in Heathrow Airport, dazzled by our first glimpse of the country that ruled us for a gazillion years. We strain to understand the announcements over the speaker system. We worry that they might be important. The words are familiar, but the clipped British accent is difficult to understand. Then we board another plane and cross the Atlantic. Another ocean between us and home. I’ve lost count of time zones and days.
When we land in New Jersey, I ask Dad, “What day is it?”
“Saturday,” he says.
“But it was Saturday when we left Bombay,” I say.
“We’ve traveled back in time,” says Dad.
Rishi always signs when we’re in loud public places. “Time travelers!”
At the immigration counter the officer stamps the actual, no-time-travel-involved date on my passport: July 23, 1988.
After that twenty-four-hour journey, Dad’s cousin drives us to his motel and leads us down a flight of stairs into rooms that are literally under the earth. He calls it the “basement.”
It’s dark and smells of stale food and liquor, like the train station in Bombay. Rishi runs down the steps two at a time. “Wow!” he says. “Wow!”
Rishi obviously doesn’t care about the odors.
Ma and I exchange looks. If we were alone, we would hold our noses.
After his cousin leaves, Baba reminds us, “He’s doing us a favor. He’s letting us live in his motel, rent free, for as long as we need.”
In return Ma and I help their family in every way possible. After school starts in August, I help in the evenings. We clean on our knees and we peel mountains of potatoes. Ma even lets me watch their two-year-old; she says at fifteen, she raised her younger brother.
Dad and Rishi rake mountains of leaves. Those golden leaves, I learn, are dead. I marvel that even death can be beautiful.
Dad reports to his job the Monday after we arrive. Baba has a job teaching physics at a small college. It’s how we got a visa to immigrate. Ma, Rishi and I scrub the smell in our rooms away. We wash the little windows that are one foot under the ceiling. Leaves and debris are piled high outside the windows, trapping in gloom. We sweep them away to let the sun shine on the worn, green, holey carpet again.
After buying four airline tickets, there wasn’t much money left for anything else. In the new year, we’ll have saved enough to move into our own apartment, Baba promises. Some days I ache for my old life, my old friends. I want to be a bird who can fly home across the ocean. When I write to Neena, my best friend in Bombay, I tell her about the apartment we will get soon, and that Dad has bought a car. It was a colleague’s old car, but to us it is new. It is our first car.