Odyssey...{/} 30- Awakening

Three days before leaving, Sam accepts his brother's invitation to go out with a group of their friends which makes Hana very happy." He is at last doing something fun." She thinks. That night waiting for her sons' return, something terrible comes to her mind. "Am I going to see him again?" She hallucinates the worst scenario, breaking up of a war. The sick thought brings her to an uncontrollable outburst while she imagines even more terrible things. In a stage of breaking down for her own morbid vision, her thoughts unexpectedly turns to Mario. She realizes how much she misses him and needs to talk to him. Hesitantly she dials his number.

"Oh, Hana, it's you. I was dying to hear from you, but I wasn't going to break my promise to you

and call you. How is Sam? How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Sam is changed. Sometimes I feel I can't recognize him anymore."

"We all do change but Military changes people even more. That is a different game, a different life. There, they are taught to take orders, obey, respect regulation, and have discipline."

Hana knows what Mario says is true. She has read many brochures about military life since her her son has joined.

"I know, they all sound wonderful, but somehow I want my old Sam back. Do you know up to two years ago every evening he used to put his head on my lap in front of television until he fell asleep? I miss that."

"I understand how you feel. When my daughter, Antonio, moved away with her husband, specially only after a year of my wife's death, I thought I would die without her, but I didn't. It was hard, very hard on me, but you know I am used to it now. By the way, she has a little boy now. They named her after me, Mario John. I am very pleased."

"Oh, Mario, that 's great; but I thought she is going to have a girl!"

"That is what they told me. But I guess her doctor made a mistake. He claims every time he did a sonogram, the baby's back was to the film."

"When did she have the baby?"

"Yesterday! I'm going there to see my grandson the day after tomorrow."

Hana sighs and yearns if she had a grand child, she would probably spoil her or him and love him so much.

"How long will you stay?"

"A week, but I was wondering if I can see you before I go. Have you told Sam about us?"

"No, Mario, I just can't, I don't know why! I guess we see each other after you come back. Sam has three more days left of his vacation. My vacation is over, too. I must go back to work tomorrow. I wish I could stay home and be with Sam."

"Don't worry sweetheart. He comes back again. Maybe even you get to go there and see him."

"I don't know Mario, I have these terrible feelings that I'm not going to see him again. I even have morbid vision..."

Mario Interrupts her:

"Are you day dreaming again? Why can't you have pleasant visions?"

Hana thinks to herself: "Why can't I?"

"I don't know." Then she hears a beep. "Mario, someone is calling me. I must go now. We talk when you come back from your trip."

As she hastily goes to the other line, she can not hear Mario's last words: "I love you, hang in there."

Wednesday comes much sooner than Hana can imagine, but something very strange happens before Sam leave. Monday after work, when Sam and Hana go to the mall to buy some necessary things for Sam to take with him, they see Karen, Farhad's old girlfriend, who stole from them. She is roaming along in the isles of the clothes in the store that they also are in the mall. Hana can not believe her eyes.

"Look Sam, that is Karen. I am going to go and talk to her!"

Sam looks at the direction his mother pointed.

"Yes, mom, it is her. Leave it alone. she will deny and upset you."

"No, Sam, I must confront her."

Hana runs to where Karen is and Sam follows his mother. Karen's back is to them. Hana put her hand on her shoulder. Karen turns back and mother and son both see the sudden twitching in her face.

"Karen, why did you steal our things? why did you do that after all good things we did for you?"

Karen takes control of her nervousness and changes quickly to a cold, unfeeling person, that she truly is.

"I don't know what you're talking about! Who are you? You are mistaking me with someone else."

Sam, who has predicated this when he told his mother not to confront her, is caught in a situation that leaves him no choice but to come to his mother's help.

"Listen b..., I'm going to call the police now. You betrayed our trust."

Karen looks at them with her cold, icy eyes.

"Go ahead, you have nothing against me. In fact, I'll call the police myself. You're harassing me."

"Listen karen, forget about everything, just give me my rings back. They were the only things I have left from my mother."

"Listen, lady, my name is not Karen. You're mistaking me with someone else. I can show you my driver license. I'm not who you're looking for."

Hana and Sam realize how this shameless girl maliciously lied to them from the beginning even about her identity. Both mother and son, individual from each other, come to conclusion that Karen preys on foreign people that have made America their home. Sam pulls her mother.

"Let's go mom."

Driving home, as Hana cries uncontrollably for being betrayed by a woman, her son's age, Sam calmly says:

"Mom, let's not say a word to Farhad about it. What is the sense?"

She understands her son's concern for his brother.

As the cold Wednesday in mid November comes, Hana's distressful feeling almost paralyses her. To Farhad's offer to take Sam to the bus Station, she says:

"No, Farhad, I take him myself."

Farhad is not sure if his mother capable of driving. He can see her breakage. She looks bent with red eyes and seems to him that she is smaller than ever. However he understands that he can not take this last minute being with Sam from his mother. On the other hand, Sam, who discerns his mother's state of breaking down, wonders if it has been a good idea for him to join the Army and put his adorable mom through this much pain. As the feeling of these three people in the small apartment float vigorously, Sam loads the car and offers to drive to the bus station. This is the least he can do to ease his mom's pain.

Going back to work from the bus station, she stops for a cup of coffee in drive through of a fast food place. Holding the coffee in her hand, she parks the car in the parking lot of an unknown place to her, starts a cigarette, and finally breaks into sobbing. In the mist of her hysterical breakdown, a sudden light strikes her. She recalls her three months hiding at the time of Revolution which put her mother in hospital. She realizes that all children, in order to find their identity, do things that drives their parents uneasy, as she did, and now Sam is doing it. She must let it be. The sudden light she sees, it is not a light from nature, but it is an awakening to accept the course of life, to acknowledge good and bad in life, and to accept what it is , it must be a solution to all whys.

To Be Continued

Odyssey... ~[]~30- Awakening

Sam comes home totally a new person, a new man which makes it uncomfortable for Hana, who raised him, and for Farhad, his brother, who shared room with him. Now they must change in order to accommodate with this new person they both love very much. Notwithstanding. their everlasting relation with this stranger, Farhad and Hana find out very quickly, must change even if it is temporary to give this newcomer the comfort of being home.

In his quiet and passive way, Sam talks about his future plan now that his basic and advanced training are over. In order for him to become a second lieutenant, he must serve for a couple of years which is not going to be in Texas. There is possibility that he would be transferred to Fort Dix in New Jersey; but for now nothing is clear. When the time comes that he will be stationed permanently, he plans to take some college course to help his advance in military. Regardless what Hana wants, Sam is adamant to do what he thinks is the best for him, to discover his identity, to belong, and to serve the country he has adopted. However he has enough sense to appreciate this woman, his mother, who has worked hard and endured miseries. According to what he has heard, since he was not even born yet, after the death of his grandfather, it was his mother's hard work that kept the family together. He can not understand why his older brother still lives at home and still is mom's little boy; but that thought would not stop him of loving Farhad and remembering all the good and bad times with him and all the mischievous things they have done together.

Hana recalls herself at Sam's age and remembers how much she was like him, except as a girl in a country like Iran, she could not do what she wanted; even though compare to other Iranian girls her age, she accomplished a lot and saved her family after the death of her father; and picked a career that she always wanted, teaching. She admires Sam but that does not stop her of the vehement feeling to hold him tight and have him nap on her lap as he did for so long. She is with him, yet she misses him terribly. All she can do for him is to please him by unreal behavior, to cook him the food he loves and to create a peaceful environment. As she spend most of her time in the kitchen or drives to the grocery store to buy more things that really are not needed, she conjures up movies about military life, whom all soldiers are standing in a line for their share of food which does not look indulging.

"Mom, you fuss too much for food. Why don't you relax for a minute?" Sam does not like to see his mother works that hard.

"You don't get to eat home cooking meal anymore. I've heard the army food is terrible."

"I haven't come home for food, mom. Just take it easy." He means what he says; but when the dinner is over, he always says:

"Thanks mom. That was great." Then when Hana is cleaning the table, he says:

"Can I have some more of the food."

Hana is so pleased. He objects his mom's hard work and cooking, and yet he indulges the food she cooks in a way as though he has not eaten for a long time.

To Be Continued

Odyssey... ~~30- Awakening

Farhad has never seen his mother in bed this late. He wonders about his mother's date with Mario last night; but since he gave her the permission to go on a date, he must stop his rising curiosity to ask her about it. After all, she never asks him about the particular of his dates. Ironically he is certain that last night has been more than a simple date for his mother. She is acting differently. Did his mother make love last night? That thought paralyses him. He can not imagine such thing for mom. As his wisdom rules to accept the fact that mom is a human being like him and she must enjoy her life and since love making is one of the sensual pleasure for every creature, she can have it, too; his heart overrules it. "Oh, not for her." Nevertheless, he knows every girl he has dated, if sex did not happen on the first date, it most definitely happened on the second one. He calls himself hypocrite; nonetheless, he can not help the growing dread of imagining his mom in bed with a man.

"Mom, what happened last night?" He finally asks.

"Oh, we went to a restaurant. That's all."

"You came home very late. Eating doesn't take that long!" He hates himself for not being able to control his curiosity.

Hana feels that her son is interrogating her. She is not going to tell him.

"After restaurant, he just drove."

"You mean you were in the car all that time?!"

"Yes, we were talking. We went by the White Rock Lake, too." She is not sure why she said that.

"What were you talking about for so long?"

"Oh, Farhad, what is the matter with you? I don't remember all the details. We talked mostly about life. I talked about Behroz."

Farhad nods his head. In spite of being ashamed of his questioning, he knows he can not help it. He realizes as much as he feels sorry for his mom for what she has been through which he witnessed most of them, and wants her to have a gentle, kind, and considerable man, he does not want anyone to touch her. Sometimes he thinks if he had money, he would put mom in a beautiful and valuable glass container so no outside harshness can harm her. Then he would provide the best of everything for her and take care of her and worship this adorable woman, the way he knows the best, which he needs to learn it. But how can he object the inevitable essence every human needs from his mom? He recalls his rejection for Valery's friendship with his mom, but when he finally accepted her as his mom's friend, it was not bad after all. Can his mom take away his simplest need, having a friend, from him? Knowing how unreasonable he is when it comes to mom, he finally comes to the realization of his possessiveness and the way he wants to control her, as his inhuman dad did. The thought shivers him. "Oh, God, I don't want to be like my dad. He was an evil man."

Sam comes home the next day, taller, more handsome; and in his quiet way, more communicative. He has changed tremendously not only in appearance but also in his behavior. Before he joined Army, everyone used to tell Hana that her younger son had a baby face. Those people can not by any means say that about him anymore. Sam has passed that stage. He does not have a baby face but a face of a suffered man who carries the demeanor of a soldier. The young man is not going to accept the old treatment from his mother or brother; and Hana knows it and feels it. He demands respect; and Farhad complies with it.

To Be Continued

Odyssey... 30- Awakening

They say Texas weather is like a blink of an eye, and isn't it the truth? While Valery was lucky enough to marry in a pleasant seventy degree two days ago, now a bone chilling cold, as the weather man says from somewhere in North, fills Dallas. For the first time Hana sees snow flurries in Dallas. She recalls that Mario was telling her that the weather would change last night. Overcome by the bliss, she pulls the comforter all the way to her face until only her eyes are visible. As much as she loves four seasons to act upon their names, "FOUR SEASONS" and what nature has intended them to be, the sudden freezing weather shivers her to a degree that even in her bed she feels like she is chilled to her inner self. She forces herself to get up and go to the living room where the thermostat is and put the heat on; however, she immediately returns to bed, where the cold surface of mattress awaits her. She does not know why her nature for enduring cold has changed. Is it because she had lost sensibility for different seasons, as she has lived in Dallas for last eleven years, or is it because of her age, as she had read somewhere that older people endurance for cold is less than younger ones?

Age has always been a big issue for people no matter where they are from. The American perspective of age, as many other things, is so different than the country she was born that really makes her wonder why people who all are all people think and feel so differently. An Iranian child is repeatedly bombarded by the statement that his or her parents are old. As the child grows, he perceives that the cutting point between youth and maturity for women is around forty and for men is around fifty. Whereas in America there is not such a thing. Americans never admit that they are old. At age sixty some begins a new life, a new family, go to school; and all is because they think they are young.

As she has adopted American culture slowly, this one issue perplexes her greatly. At age forty three, most of the time she feels old, as the women in Iran do; however, sometimes like this morning, she believes that she is young. Ironically, one thing bewilders her, if she is young, why she is shivering of cold? These type of things might be non issue for many; but to her are discoveries about herself. She remembers the cold, snowy winters of Tehran, when the snow gave her life, the freeze gave her warmth, and the steam coming out of her mouth animated her and gave her energy. She was more active, more creative, and nothing could stop her of getting out in the snow and touching that great, white carpet, nature's beautiful exhibition. Back then, as her bed was set next to the window, she breathed the frozen air while the flurries came inside through the open window on her bed and covered her face and her hair. Of course she could not do this if Hamid was home and next to her; but since most of the time he was God knows where, she enjoyed opening the window on snowy nights. In the morning her frozen comforter seemed like a piece of wood. She recalls how much she loved to fold areas of the frozen bedding to hear the breakage of ice in its texture. Was that great endurance for cold because of her youth? Is that was so, she must be old now, very old, since she can not bear the cold any longer. As she tosses in her bed, thinking about old days, and feeling her freezing body can not take the cold anymore, she yearns Mario. "Oh, I wish he was here to warm me to a degree of burning."

When Farhad opens the door of her bedroom and comes in, She is conjuring up the night before when for the first time she knew that she was desirous.

"Mom, aren't you going to work? It's eight o'clock."

The unpleasant interruption moves all her sensible nerves.

"I'm on vacation this week. Sam is coming home tomorrow."

"You didn't tell me about it, how come?"

"I don't know. I must have forgotten because of Valery's wedding."

To Be Continued