[Political] Dialogue

[Political] Dialogue

On the phone, she would ask about my son, if he was eating solids yet. There were two worlds then, the one we lived in and the one she invented, where my aunt remarried and nobody ever went to America and we visited her every Sunday. We visited her every two years. She’d ask if I’d ever visit Palestine again. I never brought her back any soil, but I told her about Haifa, the man I met at the bus station, a stranger until he spoke Arabic, calling me sister and daughter, I told her how he skipped work and drove me past the gardens to the highest point and we waved to Beirut. I waved to her, and later she said she was waving back. Never mind her balcony faced the wrong direction. Never mind the sea was a terrible blue. Never mind there never was a son. I still have her voice. She still calls when I’m not expecting. Keef
ibnik, she says. What could I say back? He’s good, I tell her. He’s crawling. Mashallah, mashallah. We praise how much he’s grown.

• 0