In These Streets

Chapter 2

Friday went by in a breeze. From early morning Tadeus and I busily unpacked the rest of our stuff, putting our pretty paintings of landscapes on the walls, the nice but not very expensive rug on the wood living room floor. A colorful vase full of fake flowers that looked real. It made our humble apartment feel more cozy and comfortable, which helped things feel just a tiny bit more bearable than before.

Our mother had been gone since we woke up, taking our used black Nissan Altima to go look for a job in the city. I was nervous for her, she had been a stay-at-home wife for almost ten years since my dad started his furniture business. I understood there was a new pressure on her to provide for us where there wasn't before. I mentioned getting a job to help out, but my mother insisted I focus on settling in our new home first.

Later that day, after organizing what was left to unpack, I was putting a keepsake box that was my father's in my closet when I noticed a polaroid picture sticking out of the side. Prying it free, I turned it around.

It was a picture of my mom and dad somewhere in Salt Lake, when they had just moved to America from Saudi Arabia, newly married. I hadn't been born yet. My mother was a spitting image of what I looked like and my dad was very handsome, his hair black and puffy with a full moustache. They both looked so young. Below the picture I saw faded writing.

Fahim Hadad. Madhavi Hadad.

My father's name and my mother's name.

Delicately, I pressed a kiss to the picture and then slid it under my pillow on my bed.

I heard a rap at my door and turned to see Tadeus.

"Want to watch a movie with me on my game system?"

I smiled, touched that he wanted to spend quality time with me when we'd been around each other all day.

"Sure, kid."

I followed him to his room, where we watched Terminator, and Tadeus enthusiastically turned up the volume so the fight scenes seemed more intense.

Around the end of the movie when the credits started rolling, we heard the front door slam.

"Tadeus! Ambra! Are you both okay!?"

We jumped up from Tadeus's bed and rushed out into the hall where we were faced with our mother, who had a stricken, worried expression.

"Oh, thank Allah! I was so scared you would be out somewhere in the neighborhood. There was a shooting four blocks up north, a young boy has been killed. There are police everywhere. All I could think on my way home was that it could have been one of you."

Her accent always thickened with emotion.

A chill went through my body at the thought of a murder happening four blocks away from us and we didn't even know. We had been cooped up in Tadeus's room and a boy had lost his life right by our home.

Was this place better than staying in Salt Lake and risking the chance of those drug lords coming after us? This place had its own brand of dangerous.

It wasn't safe to even walk out our front door. There was violence in these projects and staying vigilant was essential to survival in a place like this. Still, we couldn't go anywhere else, we didn't have the resources or the money. We had to work with what we had.

"I don't want either of you to wander around this neighborhood, especially after dark," my mother continued, pointing her finger at Tadeus and I.

Tadeus nodded obediently, but annoyance stopped me from outright agreeing. I was twenty, a grown adult. I didn't have to listen to anybody, technically, but I needed to respect my mother and I knew it was a more than reasonable order considering it was for our safety.