"All My Rage" by Sabaa Tahir, Part IV

The woman nodded, and I thought of my own grandmother, Bari Dadi, gnarled and smelling of garlic and pomegranate with a large, soft belly I would ram my head into.

We'd taken out the sagging bed and ripped furniture and replaced them with a comfortable mattress and freshly upholstered orange chairs.

"This is a very serious infraction,” Ernst says. "Ms. Riaz could have severely damaged Ms. Jensen's face. We're looking at possible assault charges. I've got a police officer here—"

He said Ms. Jensen goaded you in class.

“I implore you to reconsider, Ms. Riaz. This could have a detrimental effect on your chances of—”

“We'll say you came home sick. You'll stay sick, until the suspension is over.”
It's a rare moment of solidarity.

Dr. Ellis is nonplussed, but guides us into the main wing and toward an ugly meeting room where nothing pleasant has probably ever been discussed.

The police impounded her Mustang.

Art has the decency to at least look chagrined.

Despite how cold it still is in the morning, the trees shoot new leaves, and the wind has a touch of the zephyr in it.

A tendril of hope pokes its head out from the desert in my head.

He sobs, this fearless man who buried his parents and crossed oceans, who fell in love with a woman he barely knew and built a life with her in a desolate place.

Children are the greatest dream of all. A dream manifest—walking, talking, venturing into the wide world.

“Get up. An idle mind breeds mischief."

“Get up. An idle mind breeds mischief."

First I'd have to buy a lottery ticket, Noor. Which I would never do. Because it's futile.

A rift opens in the crust of the earth and swallows her whole.

He stares down at the old, monochrome floor rugs.

Noor waits in the car while I buy sandwiches, sodas, chips, and way more chocolate than either of us can conceivably eat.

The memory loiters at the edge of my brain, coy and sinuous, before dancing away.

The memory loiters at the edge of my brain, coy and sinuous, before dancing away.

Slowly she loosens the line, until Gandalf is a rippling white mote against the vast blue sky.

Speaking is suddenly a complex endeavor that requires too much coordination between my mouth and my brain.

We reel in Gandalf, and make bulrush boats to race across the stream.

Noor's warmth mingles with mine, and the fear that's hung on her like a pall since this morning starts to dissipate.

Too many synapses are firing.

Her voice is choked, her demeanor as panicked as it was when I first picked her up.

He utters Auntie Misbah’s oath against the evil eye so fervently that I laugh.

The cop shines his flashlight in Salahudin’s face, letting it linger, before flashing it over me in a cursory fashion.

Maybe that sadness would have transformed into something worse. Bitterness. A lifetime of rage. But it was held up, robbed of its potency a month into first grade by a girl who showed up late and entered alone, no parent to fuss over her.