for Aiya
In the unused kitchen, Samrina waits for water to drip from the tap. All that ever dripped from the tap was the same mud sludge that ran through the creek in the back. The wooden chair where she sits was already in the house when they arrived there. Shailesh pulled it from the attic. Shailesh left five days ago on a supply run and hasn’t dropped a single strand of his curly hair on their wood floors since.
She calls this house – one story of mouldering wood with peeling paint redeemed by functional roof–her own, though her name isn’t on any deed. Shailesh found it in a wood miles north from where they had both grown up and when no one showed up to take it back from them, they let their scant belongings etch the moist wood floors as they dragged them in.
Samrina has no desire to leave the house. Since they found the house, she hasn’t left it once. Shailesh lets her do this. He collects firewood for the old-fashioned stove heater. He goes on supply runs even though the closest store they know about is a two hour walk. His walks give both of them space to be alone, which, despite everything that happened, they continue to need. She didn’t worry that he was gone because he was angry. She’d stopped worrying at all. When she was a girl, Samrina learned that if she was hungry and she waited without saying anything, another hungry person would come along and feed her. If she was angry and waited in silence, eventually the person who cared about her would beg her to speak and offer their apologies. Waiting works well for Samrina. Her immediate needs are fulfilled by her patience.
There is no way to see the front door from where she sits, but maybe he will come from the back, where the woods are, where they first came to see the house. She can see the back door from a clouded mirror on the wall. On the first day, she’d turn her head quick like an anxious cat at any flash of a cardinal outside. That was on the first day.
When they unburdened their belongings to the house after first arriving, Shailesh looked at her with tired eyes and said, “It’s so nice to be in a home,” and she hadn’t let him know how his words started the frustration boiling that nothing was going to be home again, least of all this place. She hadn’t let him know because it wouldn’t have changed anything, and it was always better that one of them felt good and hopeful. She showed Shailesh she was hopeful by staying in the house. He could tell she loved it there by how well she stayed, and he loved it the staying for her.
The kitchen waits for water to burst from its pipes and Samrina lets the roots in her feet spread through the hardwood and reach back toward the forest where they came. It feels good, stretching out. Once the water’s on, she decides, she’ll make soup. Shailesh loves soup. She can put the mushrooms in it, the ones peep between her toes from the floorboard, the ones that tell her all the water is beneath her feet or used to be.
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Amina Kayani is a Muhajir writer and teacher from Atlanta. She holds an MFA in fiction from Purdue University and has served as the Managing Editor of Sycamore Review and the Art Editor of Kajal. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, the Florida Review, Joyland and elsewhere.