"And don't forget to finish reading 'Fury' before we start on Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road'." Diane Maza set the chalk down on the chalkboard rail. "I want you to draw from the book to compare and contrast the impact of Islam in Africa versus its impact in the West and in India. What I want you to analyze the most closely is the psychology of rage and injustice in Salman Rushdie's protagonist. Four pages, single spaced, quarter-inch margins, in MLA format. See you all tomorrow."
There was the squeak of chairs and the rustle of backpacks around the lecture hall as college students gathered their belongings and began to travel in a stream of bodies out the door. They parted around one obstacle like a river around a stone.
Elisa Maza looked around the emptying classroom. A young student with dark hair and dusky brown skin, was asking Professor Maza something with a hushed voice. Her kind eyes smiled at him, offering a quiet answer in response. The boy scowled, but he nodded. She waved to him as he left, lifting her eyes up to her daughter.
"Elisa!" She smiled. She had a thin, dark gap in between her two front teeth. "Well, this is a surprise. I thought this time of day, you'd be asleep."
"I have the night off, so I decided to come and see you." Elisa's smile reflected her mother's.
Professor Maza was a big woman, a frame that seemed to be a requirement to carry the tremendous heart she had. Behind her gold-framed half-moon cheaters that she kept on a slender chain, her dark brown eyes glittered with old secrets and silent jokes. Her short, coily black hair swirled with strands of silvery white, giving it the impression of brushed steel. She wore an orange and red dress that floated and fluttered around her ankles. She wore a long mustard-colored cardigan, its feathery patterns and fluttery sleeves giving the impression of folded wings over her body.
Elisa sat down on one of the desks, crossing her legs. "How's school, Mom?"
"Students are driving me nuts." She tutted, taking her cheaters off to let them hang from her neck. "You know I love my kids, but some of them fill the seat and leave their brain at home."
"Hey, not all of them can be like Derek or Beth." Elisa shrugged, carefully laying down her bait in the sentence. "Derek's final assignment was, what, 85 pages?"
"84." Diane corrected her with a chuckle. "And he got a B+ for being too wordy. Still holds the record for most obnoxious assignment I've ever had handed in."
"He's been quiet lately." Elisa mentioned casually.
"Don't use that psychology trick on me." Diane waggled a chastising finger at her daughter. "You can't use something I taught you how to do on me like that."
Sniped from a mile away. That was her mother; direct and precise, with no embellishment and no sugarcoating. Elisa's expression flattened into a disappointed frump. "Okay, you caught me. You know what's going on with him, then?"
"I do." Diane erased the chalk on the chalkboard with long, sweeping strokes of the felt eraser. "And I support his decision. I think it's good that he's making his own choices."
"But why?" Elisa uncrossed her legs, leaning forward. "He never said anything about how much he hated being a cop until I talked to him last night. Not even once! He's been on the force for three years, Mom. I was sure that if he had a problem he'd… I dunno, that he'd say something to me. Or at least, to Dad."
"Sweetheart," Professor Maza set the chalk duster down gently on the rail. "Your brother doesn't show it in the normal way, but he's a sensitive soul. He feels the pain of strangers like it was his own. He's been taking on the grief that you and your sister and I have been feeling, and it's been weighing on him like a millstone around his neck."
"I…" Elisa leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. "I would never ask him to take that all on like that. You know I wouldn't."
"You remember what Dr. Wells said at our last session. Letting ourselves feel grief in our own way and supporting each other in it is the healthiest way to heal. It isn't easy. God, losing your father felt like losing my right arm. I know it's hit you especially hard, hon."
Elisa didn't have anything to say to that. She was right, after all.
Diane continued. "Your brother idolized you when he was tiny. The exact same way that you idolized Peter. He didn't become a cop to impress him. He swore the oath because you did."
"He told you this?"
"He did. He would fight God himself, bare knuckled, to keep someone innocent safe from danger. He didn't get that from his father. He didn't get that from me, either. He got it from you. He's in pain, and he's never been entirely sure of himself and who he is. All he knows is that he wants to do what's right, but he doesn't know how or why. You have conviction that comes from self-knowledge. He's still working on it."
The words kept tumbling out of Elisa's mouth as her mother listened. "I want to live up to that. I do. But sometimes I feel scared, Mom. Sometimes, it feels like I'm being asked to find human sacrifices for a hungry prison system, not serve justice. Sometimes I have to make a split-second decision, and I'm terrified that I might make the wrong choice and end up getting killed, or ruining someone's life. With Dad and Derek both gone, I just…"
Elisa shivered like she was cold, eyes cast down at the tile floor of the lecture hall. "I feel like I'm alone now, Mom. I don't have anyone I can trust behind my back."
"Oh, babe." Diane walked over and sat down on the large desk. The old laminate wood and metal beast creaked its protest. "The fact that you're doing your best in a broken system is admirable. But understand, it's still written to favor the rich, the white, and the powerful. Your brother and your dad both felt guilt for a problem that they didn't start and couldn't solve. And you're trying to solve it alone."
"I don't know if it'll ever be solved, Mom." Elisa murmured. "No matter how hard I fight it."
Diane frowned. "You're feeling the burnout too."
Elisa didn't answer. Diane tsked. "A burnout cop becomes either a villain or an empty shell of a human. That's why you have good people in your life. People who heal you in ways and in places no doctor could ever touch. They keep you safe, and on the straight and narrow."
"I know, Mom." Elisa stood up, walking over to her mother and sitting on the desk next to her. She rested her head on her mother's shoulder. "I just… I guess I feel guilty for not helping Derek heal from it."
"It's his life. He's a free man, and he owes it to himself to find his joy. The same way you owe it to yourself."
"I feel like I haven't felt joy in a long time, Mom. I feel like I failed."
Diane Maza put one arm around her daughter's shoulder in a side hug, giving her a squeeze and gently rubbing her daughter's arm. She planted a small kiss on Elisa's forehead, leaving a crimson lipstick mark. Elisa surrendered herself to her mother's embrace, letting her rock her back and forth gently, just like she did when she was small.
"Thanks, Mom." She murmured. "I love you."
"Of course, Elisa." She cupped her daughter's head in her hand. "I love you too."
"How are grandma and grandpa?" Elisa asked.
Diane's embrace faltered. "Well," She sighed. "Your grandmother doesn't approve of me staying in America. Your grandfather thinks that I was a fool to marry your father, and an even bigger fool for leaving Islam."
"They raised you here, though." Elisa said, confused. "They used to love New York."
"Times have changed. People have started picking sides and drifting apart. Things are changing in Nigeria, just like they're changing here. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. A young democracy is so fragile."
"I'm sorry, Mom." Elisa gave her mother a squeeze. "Especially with what's happened, I wish there was more I could do to help."
Diane's fingers continued to stroke her daughter's hair. "I have students who are Muslim. Not just one or two; at least half of my classes are Muslim students. Do you know how many of them quit school after September? I'm losing kids, and I don't know where they are, or if they'll be alright, or if they'll ever–" Diane stopped herself, forcing herself to take a deep breath. She closed her eyes, daughter's head still on her shoulder.
Elisa could smell her mother's perfume. Soft, subtle. It was from a bottle of rose oil that she'd given to her for Mother's Day last year. Diane squeezed her daughter, her weight and physical presence an anchor to the present, to reality. But Diane Maza still felt her soul lingering, looking back toward a dark and dismal past.
"Leaving it was hard for me. And your grandmother and grandfather never quite forgave me for never coming back to it..." She said quietly. "I see these kids, the world they walk in, and I worry about them so much. It was my world once too."
Diane let her daughter go, lacing her fingers between her daughter's. She stroked her knuckles. An old gesture, from the days when Elisa sought her mother's hands out for comfort and assurance. A quiet reminder that her mother was close. "I'll be alright, Elisa. This isn't the first time I've butted heads with my parents, and it won't be the last."
"You have us, Mom. You'll always have us." Elisa's hand folded over her mother's, lifting it against her cheek. "I love you."
"I love you too, baby. Be brave."
Elisa was invited over to her mother's apartment for dinner that night, but she had to decline. She already had plans, and she didn't want to disappoint her friends by skipping movie night. A few more hugs and kisses, and she left the Columbia University campus.
Of course her mother knew the truth. Even as a child, she had the hardest time keeping anything from her. It was probably for the best. Elisa had always counted herself exceptionally lucky, having a mother as close and as wise as her own. When her shield was too heavy, too dirty, too hard to carry, her mother was always close by to offer her moral guidance.
On her way back to her car, she passed a payphone. She paused, looking it up and down. Like any other stationary object on a college campus, it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been underneath the layers and layers of paint marker graffiti and student protest stickers. But somehow, by some miracle, the handset was still there and the cord didn't look damaged.
Why the heck not. She thought. She fished a quarter out of her pocket and made a phone call.
She waited as the dial tone rang, a monotonous pulse. She heard the sound of the phone picking up. "Derek? It's Elisa, I–"
"Hi, this is Derek Maza. I can't come to the phone right now, so please leave a message."
She felt a little crestfallen. But, she left him a message anyway. She hung up, and walked back to her car.
Something in her guts twisted. She couldn't place it, but something felt wrong. Very, very wrong.