I shift around uncomfortably on the couch for a moment. The last thing I want to do is unload all of my problems onto Abba the day before his big election. “I’m fine.”
“Hani … you know you can always talk to me about anything at any time,” he says. “Your Amma … she’s been a little worried about you.”
“And she’s been worried about you,” I say.
His smile widens. “So, if we help each other out, maybe your Amma will worry a lot less.”
Slowly, I fill Abba in on everything that’s been going on with Aisling, Dee, and Ishu. “I know that I need to do something to make it up to Ishu for everything that I’ve done, but … I don’t know how to apologize to her. Not when I can’t even really confront Aisling or Dee. I don’t know how to … make things right with anyone.”
Abba looks at me thoughtfully for a moment. “If you were Ishu in this situation, what would make things better?”
I have to think about that for a few minutes. It’s not exactly easy to place myself into Ishu’s headspace. We’re so different. When I think of her now, all I can think of is that day she was sitting outside our door, looking small and broken. “I think I would just want to know that … someone I considered my friend didn’t think the worst of me.”
“So, you just need to find a way to show her that.” Abba says it as if that’s the easiest thing in the world. But how can I show Ishu that she’s important to me? That I haven’t chosen Aisling or Dee over her? And when I think of what the answer to those questions might be, I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to show Ishu that she can trust me, that we are friends … and maybe more. Maybe Ishu is right … maybe we are too different from each other to be together. Maybe we’re too different from each other to even be in each other’s lives. Maybe the reason why the two of us haven’t been friends all this time isn’t because of our fear that we would be pushed together, but because of our differences.
I wake up the next morning to an overcast sky and drizzling rain tapping against my window. Amma makes porota and halwa for breakfast, and it’s supposed to be celebratory but nothing in the atmosphere of our house feels celebratory.
Amma has a PTA meeting, so it’s just me and Abba driving down to the polling station together. It’s in a primary school only a ten-minute drive away, but it feels longer. For the first time in the past few weeks, I’m not really thinking of my friends or Ishu, but of exactly what this election could mean for us.
We barely have the chance to shuffle out of the car before Abba spots familiar faces from the mosque outside the school building. There are a few people that I recognize—like Salim Uncle—but most of the faces are unfamiliar. I can tell that most of them are not Bengali.
“Assalam Alaikum,” Abba says as he approaches them slowly. His glum expression slowly transforms into the polite, political smile he’s developed throughout this election campaign.
“Walaikum Salam,” all the Uncles murmur back in unison.
“We were just talking about how this is a historic moment,” Salim Uncle says. “One of our own is about to become a councilor!”
Abba’s smile is strained. “Well … Insha’Allah.”
“Sajib, you’ve really done an amazing job on this campaign,” one of the Uncles—a tall man with pale skin and a black moustache—says. “I’ve been seeing your posters all over everywhere … and the people who came knocking on my door to convince me to vote for you? Phenomenal. If I wasn’t already voting for you, they definitely would have convinced me.”
Salim Uncle’s expression shifts slightly. He turns to Abba with a slight frown. “You had canvassers?”
“A few,” he admits. “It’s difficult to coordinate too many over the course of the elections, but I managed to send out a few different groups. And … Hani.” At this, he turns to me, putting his arms all the way around my shoulders. “She helped me out a lot. She convinced her friends to give up their Sunday afternoon to canvass … so who knows what other kind of convincing she’s done?”
I try to smile, but all the while I can feel the gnawing guilt in my stomach. Abba didn’t ask much of me during this election—this historic time, as Salim Uncle put it. But I didn’t even do the bare minimum to help him.
Salim Uncle seems to consider me for a moment, before turning back to Abba. “I think you should have probably targeted our neighborhood too,” he says. “I don’t remember any canvassers in our area who were campaigning for you. But, well … what’s done is done.” He heaves a sigh, as if it pains him that nobody came to his door to convince him to vote for someone he was already voting for. “Let’s go in, shall we?”