Page 14 of From the Ashes

Sure enough, she opens the door of her modest home and her face splits into a dazzling smile. “Habibi!” she cries, throwing her arms around me like she didn’t just see me a couple of days ago. “As-salamu alaykum. You should have told me you were coming.”

“Wa-‘alaykumu salam. If I’d texted, Teta, would you have seen it? Is your phone even on?”

She scoffs and ushers me inside so I don’t let all the cool air out. “Why would I turn it on unless I need it?” she says.

Silently, I shake my head and smile. We’ve had this argument more times than I could ever hope to count, yet she never seems to grasp the concept that someone might needher.

Actually, I think she pretends not to understand to preserve her peace and quiet. Just the fact that she lives by herself and not with my parents is a little outrageous, but she’s always beenmadly independent. Her husband—my grandpa—died so young that she had no choice to be anything else, really. My dad worries about her a lot, especially since he and my mom moved farther upstate. I tell him she’s fine, but I think she takes a certain amount of glee in stressing the rest of the family out.

I’m her favorite because I’m not so easily rattled. She enjoys a challenge.

“Have you eaten? I’ll make tea. Will you stay for lunch?”

“I haven’t eaten,” I lie, because the cookies and cupcakes seem like they happened hours ago, and I would never miss out on a chance of being fed by Farah Delacroix. “Tea and lunch would be wonderful.”

She snorts and wanders back into the kitchen, waving me in the direction of the back yard. “Like I was going to let you leave with an empty stomach.”

Her patio is covered by an awning, so even though I’m back outside in the heat, at least it’s shady as I sit at the table, looking at the pompoms of deergrass dancing in the warm breeze. The flowers that line her winding flagstone path are all vivid pink, yellow and orange, just like the throw pillows on the sofa I’m resting on. Teta has always despised anything demure or subtle, claiming that life is for living and no one should be ashamed to take up space or mark their presence as they move through this world.

I’ve always thought it was her who I got my artistic inclinations from, even though she’s never shown much interest in painting anything other than the walls of her home. But she’s always been my biggest fan, relentlessly encouraging me when I thought I was no good.

How long has it been since I picked up a brush? Too long. I don’t have the time, money, or space to indulge in my passion like I used to. Although Yara and Lili from work took me to apaint and sip class last year where we captured a rather beautiful naked man on paper for a couple of hours.

That was damn good fun, but it’s not how I used to express myself back in the day. My thoughts drift to the art studio at San Clemente Academy and how I’d lose myself in there for hours whenever possible. Still life wasn’t really my thing. I preferred a slightly surrealist, abstract style if I was working on scenery. But my favorite was when I’d try and express my feelings on the biggest canvases I could find with bold colors and swirling forms. It had all been very cathartic for a teenage boy who felt like he never belonged anywhere.

Expect with Colt.

I cringe to think how the artwork he inspired would look now. Both when I thought we were in love and after he left and broke my heart. There were a lot of paintings during that time, too many to try and recall what even one looked like now. But I have no doubt they were…intense. It’s probably best if they have been lost to time.

My grandma kept every single one of my projects when she had the bigger house. I assume she put them in the trash when she moved here like I was always begging her to. She shouldn’t be cluttering up her life with my old junk out of a sense of obligation or sentimentality.

But in moments like this, when my mind is in turmoil, my fingers itch to hold a brush so I can pour everything from my heart out onto a canvas. If I were able to grant myself a wish like a djinn, I’d snap my fingers right now and conjure up an enormous white space where I could sweep thick colors as high and as far as my arms could reach.

For some reason, I’m yearning to paint the beach. I try not to think about why that’s pretty obvious.

Luckily, my teta interrupts my musings by arriving with a tea tray. The glasses were a housewarming present from my cousin acouple of years ago, but the silver pot was her mother’s, brought all the way from Morocco when my grandma emigrated when she was still a child. I’ve always loved it as a symbol of our family’s strength and endurance.

Also, it has four little legs that when I was a young boy I was convinced would come to life at any moment and the pot would simply wander off.

“What’s on your mind, habibi?” my grandma says with a frown as she pours me a glass of the hot, sweet, minty tea. The station has a decent coffee maker. It’s one of the things Captain Valentine refuses to be stingy about. But no one makes tea like Teta.

I shrug and reach for a cookie to let my drink cool for a moment. My grandma always cleans out the Girl Scouts every year, and I’m delighted to see she’s cracked open the Caramel deLites, finally. Like I said, Yara’s cookies and Nevaeh’s cupcakes seem like days ago now, so what’s one more before lunch?

Or two.

“I just got off shift, that’s all,” I say with a smile, not wanting to worry or bother her.

But she narrows her eyes at me as she picks up her own tea, as usual not concerned by how hot it must be under her fingers or on her tongue.

“You only just got off now?” she says, checking her watch and grimacing in sympathy. “Was it a tough night? I’m so sorry.”

I sigh because I already know I can’t lie to her. It’s a miracle I’ve been able to keep recent events to myself for this long. Besides…as far as I know, she’s literally the only other person on the planet who knows the truth of what really happened back in high school.

“No, it was an easy shift, actually. Even the earthquake didn’t give us much trouble.”

She tsks. “That wasn’t a quake. That was a baby little tremble.”

I laugh, agreeing with her, but still proud that things like that don’t faze her. Women of her generation were so often taught they were helpless, especially immigrants with her skin color. Teta knows when to be scared of something really dangerous, and a meager 4.2 on the Richter scale isn’t one of those times.

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