Dazzled by so many marvelous colors of nature, changing from one place to another, the ring of phone appears like a sharp knife tearing Hana's throat. Reluctantly, she walks away from window and to the phone.
"Yes,"
The unfamiliar voice on the other side is what Hana did not expect. Farhad and Sam, who have been waken by the phone, come to the living room with their underwear and look at their mother. She is standing there stupefied and they can say by her shaking hand, holding the phone, the call must be a bad news.
"What is it, mom?" Farhad asks.
Hana tells the man on the other side:
"Please talk to my son, Tell him the address."
While she falls on the sofa by the shock of what she has heard, Farhad writes the address on a piece of paper, he tears from his mother's poetry book, the same page she wrote" Those Days" earlier that morning.
The accident happened the night before on highway 20, where Hamid behind the wheel was fallen asleep. He has only thirty miles to reach Dallas and home, where he has planned to set the apartment on fire and kill his wife and sons. The bottle of vodka in the car was empty; and the impact of driving intoxicated, while being furious, made him to break every traffic law. In his vindictive mind he was going home to retaliate. In an exasperated moment, not being aware of his state of mind and totally drunk, he fell asleep. He hit a big truck parked on the shoulder. The impact of accident, with the speed close to hundred miles, threw him out through the front windshield. He was not wearing his seat belt.
Mother and sons get to that local hospital an hour and half after the phone call. There, they find out that Hamid is still in the operation room; and no one can give them any indication about his situation. When around noon, the doctor finally sees them, Hana is told the bad news. Every bone in his body is broken. He has head injury, broken spine, and internal bleeding. He is still alive but the doctor thinks saving him requires a miracle.
When Hana and her sons see Hamid, he looks like an Egyptian Mummy. His closed eyes are the only part of his body without wrapping. Hana thinks about her last night dream and she remembers her wish- his death. Three hours later, her wish, that now is like a weight on her shoulders, comes through. Hamid dies. But is this what really she wished for?
While her sons take over all the legal matters and burial, in a stage of insanity, Hana hallucinates and ponders over an abyss of guilt and repentance. She feels responsible for his death; as she did ten years earlier for the loss of a dear soul. Without speaking, her sons understand her state of mind and try to convince her otherwise. To answer their repeated statement that he did it to himself, Hana says:
"I threw him out."
"Mom, this ought to happen one way or the other. He was always drunk when he was driving. It is not our fault. Take us out of your guilt. We don't feel guilty. We encouraged you to get rid of him and we don't feel guilty. Did you hear what the police say about the three gallons of gasoline in his car? What do you think he had those for?" Farhad, frustrated, says.
"I don't care if he is dead. He wasn't a dad. He was coming to set us all in fire." Sam angrily agrees with his brother.
But none of those words can ease Hana's greatest pain, losing a man whom she adopted as a child, took care of him, fed him, and put up with him. She learns in astonishment that Hamid for her was an unruly child not an indecent husband; and as one can not divorce a child, she, too, could not break from this hideous part of her. Lost in loss, she brings Hamid clothes and everything else he had and scatters them in the middle of the room. When she finds obscene pictures of him and naked women, she is not surprised. Her sons for the first time see tangible evidence of their father's immoralities which make them feel better since deep down inside, they feel responsible for his death, too.
Two weeks later, when Hana goes back to work, she is a new person, a new woman with determination to make it here in America; and the first thing she wants to do is to become American Citizen. Changing identity and nationality may change her state of being. She also promises herself to not let her sons suffer anymore.
Logically she takes control of their lives and changes her behavior, but emotionally when she is alone, she grieves for an unknown anguish. The excruciating pain she endures, comes in waves and from the deepest part of her heart and she is not sure what causes that agony. Is it because she feels guilty or misses Hamid, or maybe is a regretful grief for her lost years? She does not know!
Eight months after Hamid's death, the three of them become American Citizen. It is an emotional day for all three of them. While they stand in the court room along side many others, with her right hand on her heart, she swears the "Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag", her heart pounds, her knee shake, and she knows by doing this, she will not be a woman without country anymore. Now she can raise her head proudly and say: "I am an American." However a strange mixed emotion captures her soul. The ambiance to her is like returning home after a long journey.
"The spiral roads came to an end at last.
Dusty of journey, I reached the missing side.
My thirsty, penetrating eyes cast;
Before my steps could even decide.
~
The boiling city was in the heat of mid day.
The bleak alley was ablaze in fever of sun.
I staggered with my weak feet on the pavement of clay.
The hello was dying on my lips, it was gone.
~
The stream was dried, like a blind eye,
Empty of water and any breeze.
A singing man was passing by.
His lyric song filled my ears with ease.
~
The old ivy was waving on the wall;
Like a shaky stream strived to ooze.
The bushy leaves of ivy missed fall.
It was the green of oldness, the dust of time, and abuse.
~
I paused to hear a welcome news;
A soft, gentle, hello it wouldn't break;
My glassy, thin solitude with abuse,
In the darkness of rushing doubt and ache."
~
In ambiguity, she remembers another home coming, many years earlier, when she reunited with her family after three months of banishment.
Tehran-
To Be Continued
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