Once We Were Starlight

Still, my heart felt so heavy, hope and fear competing within.

Placing Levy on the couch next to where we were sitting, I stood. “I’m going to make us some lunch. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” he said. “Spasgetti!”

I smiled. “All right. I’ll make you some spaghetti.” As I went through the motions of preparing lunch, my mind wandered from the dry noodles I poured into water to the olive grove on Sundara. As steam rose, I swore I could feel the hot dry wind that rattled the leaves, and my heart squeezed so tightly it was a deep physical pain.

Several days before Zakai had told me he thought about Sundara all the time now, and since then, I had too. I’d created a fantasy world out of Sundara through my stories, but the memories that flowed through my mind and over my senses now were astoundingly real and vividly clear. Like Zakai, as I harkened back, I swore I could smell the scents of the mingling desert flowers and feel the blaze of the sun on my skin, but I also pictured the desolate look in Ahmad’s eyes as he’d watched Bibi on the spit, and heard the rattle of the chains Zakai had smashed so mightily against the wall as he listened to what he thought was another man brutalizing me.

All of it flowed together, the real and the imagined, somehow creating insight I’d never had before. For Sundara wasn’t all good, but neither was it all bad, and I was finally managing a way to merge the two realities in my mind, not just to notice the beauty among the tragedy, but to accept both as well.

In some ways that was life. Beautiful and monstrous and heartbreakingly magical. It all swirled together, a thousand individual dots, that, if you found a way to gain some clarity, formed an extraordinary picture that was unique to each of us.

I’d once been sheltered. And happily so. It had been done out of love, I knew that now. But the irony was that, I hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the wonder of Sundara, until I also understood its dreadful reality.

We’re also made more complete by the work, Evie had told me, and I was beginning to understand what she’d meant.

Complete.

No picture was formed when a whole slew of dots was missing.

The mess remained a mess and nothing more. Nothing greater or more beautiful.

How painful and wonderful the lesson had been.

The knock on the door came later that evening, long after Levy was in bed, dreaming the dreams of much-loved three-year-old boys.

I took a deep breath, my nerves jumping as I pulled it open.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I answered.

He looked behind me momentarily. “Can I see him?”

“Of course you can. Anytime. He’s sleeping—”

“I just want to look at him,” he said brokenly, putting his hands in his pockets.

I nodded, a jerky movement before standing aside so he could pass. He waited until I’d closed the door and then followed me quietly down the hall where I’d led him a few nights before, into the bedroom where our little boy slept.

I stood in the doorway as Zakai moved toward his bed, squatting down beside it, and bringing his face close to Levy’s, his trembling hand reaching out to smooth his inky hair. My heart broke, and it rejoiced to see them together. Love soared inside me, as endless as the star-laden desert sky.

Zakai turned his head to me. “He’s beautiful,” he whispered.

I nodded, a ball of emotion blocking my throat. I cleared it softly. “He’s smart and intense sometimes, but I know how to make him smile. He reminds me of you,” I said softly, my gaze holding his.

He smiled as well, turning back to Levy. He watched him for another few minutes, seeming to soak him in before he stood. I led him out of the room, back into the kitchen.

“Can I, uh, get you a drink or—”

“No, thank you.” He leaned back against the counter. It felt like my heart had moved up my throat to further halt my air as I waited for him to speak.

“I’m sorry I ran out after you told me about him. I was . . . overwhelmed. I didn’t know how—”

“It’s okay, Zakai. I sort of reacted the same way when I found out.” I gave a soft laugh that died quickly. But what I’d said was true. I’d avoided the reality of my pregnancy for days before I’d finally found the courage and the resolve to face it. Then there had been fear . . . but close on its heels had been joy, despite waiting for a call back from Zakai that never came.

“When you found out,” he repeated, releasing a long breath. “You must have been . . . God, you must have been scared, Karys. Scared and alone.”