Aban's Accension

Chapter 13: The Fray

Chapter 13: THE FRAY

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

“Aban?” El knocks on her closed living room door. He’d given her a couple of hours after he’d heard the door slam shut before following her up. He knocks again, “Aban?”

She opens it a crack and peers out with one eye, “What do you want?”

“Aban, may I speak with you?”

Her eye swivels to the right, to look away from him and back into the room; the visible portion of her face starts to shrink.

El stops her closing the door with the kindness in his words, “Why did you come here?”

Her shrug is barely discernible. El waits. She breathes out, “Grandma left me it in her will. I wanted to see.”

“To see what?”

She disappears but leaves the door ajar. El stretches out an arm and pushes it gently open. Aban is at the window directly across from the door and staring down. Her shoulders are hunched, her hands are in their comforting pockets, her fingers playing with the seams and shredded tissues inside.

“Aban,” El says quietly. “Come, listen. I will tell you what you want to hear.” She doesn’t move. After a moment, he walks over to stand beside her.

“I met your grandmother many years ago on the day she moved in to Atasgah," El begins. "She had had a good life. She had volunteered in her community. She had raised funds for the United Way every year. Then one day her husband died and her son married a wife who did not want to know her.”

“Mom wanted to know her. She did. But Grandma ...,” Aban’s voice peters out. She hunches further into herself, and El’s eyes mist but his voice remains strong like a rock that one can lean on.

“Your grandmother missed her husband. She missed her newly-married son. One day, she wandered the streets and found this house, lying empty. She bought it. I came to her on the day she moved in. She was lonely and invited me in for tea. It was the first of many conversations. She told me of her life. And I told her my stories. Your grandmother was a good listener. She chose the one thing that mattered and named this place 'Atasgah.' She planted a garden in Atasgah’s rough soil and went back to school to get her teacher’s degree. She was a keen student and not only at university. Then she began her purpose.”

El pauses, but Aban says nothing. She has grown very still. El continues, “You were born, and your parents named you ‘Aban,’ after your grandmother’s grandmother. For generations, it had been a treasured family name, given to the first-born daughter in each generation. But after your great-great-grandmother’s generation, it was no longer given. Your grandmother took the giving of your name as a sign that peace would come. She believed that you would bring her and her son and daughter-in-law together. But I warned her that ‘no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.’ She did not listen then. And when trouble returned to the relationship, she despaired.

“We had many talks. And she tried different ways, even suppressing her own self when in their company so that she would make herself pleasing in their eyes. But instead of pleasing them, she angered them more, and her friends became unhappy with her.”

“Well, she should’ve tried harder.”

“Perhaps. But what about your parents? Should they have tried?”

“It wasn’t their fault. It was her problem, not theirs.”

“As was you moving here? Is it only you who is the problem, or your mother also?”