“We have a board meeting in two weeks,” Cyrus says. “I hope you’ll agree that presenting a united front is the best approach.”
Cyrus will not change his mind. The young man who lost his mother will not be swayed. He’s going to take it to a vote, and I’m going to have to decide where I live: in peace with my husband or alone with my conscience.
* * *
I take the subway uptown to get some advice from Mira. She and Ahmed started dating in high school, got married young, waited for a long time for Gitanjali, and through it all, I still see them laughing at each other’s jokes.
“Having a kid is like throwing a hand grenade into your marriage. So we are not exactly loved up at the moment. But the small things make a huge difference—last week I actually slept through the night and when I woke up and I was like, ‘Damn, I am so nice when I’m not tired.’？”
I feel guilty. I’ve been so obsessed with my own life that I’ve hardly stepped in to help her. “I’m a shitty sister,” I say. “It’s just… the whole thing is getting away from me.” I tell her about Cyrus and Marco, how I feel like everyone is ganging up against me.
Mira sighs. She slides her hand across the table and squeezes my shoulder. “Do you think Stevie Wonder changed diapers?” she says.
“Why do all your stories involve poo?”
“Because they do. He has nine children. Do you think he changed their diapers? Do you think he stayed up at night and rocked them to sleep? Do you think he walked them to school in the morning and went to the parent-teacher meetings and cleaned out the crusty bottom of their backpacks?”
“No.”
“And would you want him to?”
I can’t pretend anymore that I don’t know what she’s talking about. “No.”
“No. You would want him to write ‘My Cherie Amour.’？”
The world would be a dark place without that song. “Yes.”
“Someone else had to do all of that.”
“You’re telling me that all greatness happens on the backs of other people.”
“Yes, that is what I am telling you.”
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” It’s not news to me, but it’s the first time someone has spelled it out this way, like she’s telling me the story of my own life, which is not just my story but a really, really old story that has been playing out for centuries.
“Let me tell you something,” she says. “Last week Ahmed went to a conference for three days in some small town in Louisiana. There’s a hospital, a Walmart, and a separate gun store even though they also sell guns at the Walmart. That’s it. He shows up and he’s the first brown person they have ever seen. I mean, the mayor of this town has actually banned CNN, so all they watch is Fox News.
“So Ahmed just puts his head down, goes to work, comes back, and goes to the gym. Every day he’s working out like a maniac, and then after the workout, he’s going to the sauna. One day he’s in there when this huge white guy comes in. The guy is holding an empty glass. He sits down next to Ahmed, and he holds the glass with one hand, and he points the finger of his other hand down at the glass. And then he starts to sweat. He’s sweating like a slab of cheese on a hot day. The sweat pours down his body and down his arms, and he’s still pointing at the glass he’s holding, which is filling with sweat. And in, like, two minutes, the glass is full. And do you know what he does?”
“What?”
“He throws that shit on the ground. It splashes up, and drops of it hit Ahmed in the face.”
“And Ahmed is just sitting there?”
“That’s what I asked. I was like, ‘Dude, why didn’t you get out of there,’ and Ahmed said he hadn’t been that relaxed in months, and I was like, ‘Fair enough.’ So finally, Ahmed gets up the guts to say, ‘Please, would you mind not doing that?’ And do you know what the guy says?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘I hate Hillary.’？”
Mira starts to laugh, and I follow. “Shit,” I say. “Really?”
“Swear to God,” she says. “I could not make that up. This is the world we live in.”
“Guess it puts things into perspective.”
“So the question is, are you Stevie Wonder, or are you the person who gave him all the time in the world to become a legend?”
* * *
Cyrus begins as only Cyrus can.