Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

“They do. Okay? They do. They have windows, doors with handles, gates, roads leading
up to them.”
Hamza stood still, looking at her. “Okay.” He then moved over to her to wrap his arms
around her. She rested her head for a while. He felt for a moment that she had been
sleepwalking, but that didn’t make sense. “I just want to know what’s wrong.”
She seemed to wrack her brain for a while, or maybe she just stood still. “Just that
moment where… I don’t know where. I got lost and felt angry, like where were you?”
“I was inside.”
“I know that.”
“So what then?”
She straightened up. “Can you close the window?”
“Yes.”
She was in the bathroom when he returned.
Lamya slept in little increments until late in the morning while Hamza played with Haya
in the other room. She was still asleep when he was helping Haya prepare some juice in the
kitchen, the one with more ice than substance, what they called the frozen no-juice juice. He did
the pouring but let Haya carry the drinks in two rubber cups over to the living room. With every
other step, she squeezed them and some of the juice ran down her fingers. Together, they drank
the juice on the floor, watching T.V.
When Lamya woke up, they brought out their special picnic blanket and set it up on the
living room carpet. Haya brought another rubber cup and more juice, which her mother
pretended to drink.
But the previous night was always there, lingering after that. He couldn’t scratch it. Why
did Lamya never want to bring it up? She was just embarrassed, she would tell him, then move
on to something else. It felt off to him. Late at night, he wondered if there was something in him,
his spirit in the rocks along the driveway that repelled her, began to drive her away.
When he tried to open it back up, she seemed agitated, telling him, “Not everything is
about you.”
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