Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

“Can you tell him to drop us off at the food place?” Haya said from somewhere in the
crook of her arm.
“Don’t you want to go home first?”
She was quiet for a while. “We’ll go home when we get Jasem,” she said.
Hamza studied the back of her head for a while. He let the car almost reach the
intersection of his apartment before he leaned over and told the driver to continue on to West
Village.
The pair ate very little. Haya dipped her fork into the balsamic vinegar on her plate,
delicately swirling it around into little spirals that curled into her artichoke roast at the center.
She looked up at her father, caught his eye and looked back down.
“What did you want to say?” he asked her.
Haya shook her head, “Nothing, baba.”
She pierced the artichoke again, rolling it over before cutting a small piece. Hamza did
not know how she was eating it, it looked and smelled like it was lazily made up by someone who
had never seen a vegetable before. The girl’s eyes flitted back up to him. “Do you have something
to say?”
Hamza did not. He felt uncomfortably full but ate some more anyway.
The walk back was anything but brisk. Hamza took the long way, moving the suitcase
along beside him. There was something funny about the sounds it made as it crackled over the
pavement, sometimes squeaking against the sides of other pedestrian’s shoes.
Haya moved beside him. He stole glances at her as she looked around, the different signs
bathing her in multicolored lights.
“Isn’t it something?” He asked. The question had been spinning around in his mind for a
while. He had been trying to find the right time to ask it, when they weren’t at a crosswalk, or by
some loud group of people that would steal Haya’s attention.
“Huh?” she asked from beside him.
He repeated the question louder, leaning towards her for a moment.
Haya nodded her head and smiled. “You like walking, don’t you? So it suits you.” A man
from a small sushi shop came out of the kitchen with a bulky black bag, depositing it
unceremoniously on the side of the road.
Hamza held her elbow to help her sidestep around it.
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