Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

When she returned, before she got to cleaning, Hamza stretched the Vimto rice towards
her. “Come on, stop being like this. Just for fun, try it.”
Lamya, the spoon of red at her lips, paused and stretched the cranberry mash towards
him. “Come on, stop being like this. Just for fun. Try it.”
“She won’t like it,” Haya had said.
“You’re right, Haya,” her mother said.
Hamza took the spoon, polished it off, and set it down on the table. He then scooped up
Jasem, the only child he could still carry, and they left for the living room. Haya held onto his
arm from behind, following along.
“She’s not so fun, is she?” he whispered to them. “Your mother.” Maybe he was hoping
she could hear.
“What are you trying to do?” Lamya asked him later that night, when they were back in
their room.
Hamza told her he had meant to get a proper brush. Lamya was bemused that he kept
misplacing the combs she set out for their daughter. Somehow, by the end of evening, Hamza
realized that he had not said a word to her since they parted for breakfast.
Haya was sitting on the floor, breaking crackers into small bits before eating them off her
palm. Hamza sat behind her on the sofa, gathering her hair. “Ow!” she whined as he pulled at
one of the shorter strands to stay in its bunch atop her head. He carefully undid the hair tie,
letting the hair slowly fall, obscuring the red and white dog she had worn on her back.
“You know if you keep it up all the time, what’s the point of such long hair?” He asked.
That had been his second attempt at helping her with her hair that day. It wasn’t long, in
comparison to the hair that he was used to, but her mother had always kept up short hair and it
suited her.
The girl tucked the rest of her crackers in her mouth before moving her hands to her
head, smoothing down her hair. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s nice,” Hamza said. He really thought so, although he always imagined it would get a
little curlier. He shifted to sit on the floor beside her. “If you like it, but it’ll look nice anyhow.”
“I’ll cut it,” she said.
“If you want to.”
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