Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

“Sorry,” he said, trying to take the pebbly fruit from her hand. His father asked him to
call everyone inside, he tried to remember to say this.
“What are you going to do, eat it?”
Hamza shrugged his shoulders.
“I know you won’t. You’re smart, not like others. Do you know that?”
“Okay.” He didn’t like talking to grownups that much. He felt he had to play dumb, or
they got mad.
She looked at him then turned back to the garden. “You always seem happy with
everyone else, what is this? It’s me, huh, never doing enough. Sick, maybe, I’m sick. If I don’t
look and turn around, maybe this one will just go inside and not come back. No surprising me. I
won’t be surprised.”
“I’m going inside,” Hamza told her, he remembered the feeling of embarrassment on her
behalf. Her hair seemed like it was struggling to hold the ground, coming out in tufts from her
braid, streaked with a silvery red.
Her face changed again as she turned. She jerked an arm around him, dropping the fruit
everywhere again. She felt overly warm and her fingers hooked onto his shoulder like they had
been encased in stone. “No one is here for me,” she said. Something was shaking. “I tried, the
first time and nothing. All to nothing. Now…”
Hamza watched a cat crawl over their garage, shaking its tail slowly. It didn’t notice him.
“You’re the only one who is here,” she said, “Somehow, you always know.”
He stayed still. He recognized it, it was that ugly cat. The one that he and the other boys
would try to lure. But it could only see out of its left eye and always missed the trap. Somehow
though, it ate all the chunks of meat.
She lifted his shirt. She was looking at the flat space where maybe a belly button should
have been. People liked looking at it. Except his father, he liked to forget. When she was done,
she gave him a weak smile and straightened up. He turned away to pick up the seeds. When he
looked up, she was normal again. She shook them all out of his hands. “You’re going to make so
many people so lucky. I know it. Then you’ll forget me… True? It’s true, I know this. But it’s
okay.”
“Baba said to come inside. The funny American jokes started on T.V.”
She hit his face with the back of her palm. “Just tell me to shut up if you don’t care.”
He felt the urge to cry or run inside, but did neither of those things. He decided to not
say anything lest he embarrass himself for being hit by this woman.
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