The Missing Pieces Of An All American Girl

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I tried my best to look as if I hadn't shut myself away from the universe for an entire month. My curls were so unmanageable and knotted that I gave up on trying to comb them out. As I stepped out of the restroom and back into my room, the room somehow looked different. The sun shone into the room brightening everything it touched, yet everything was so fuzzy to me and everything took place in such a blur. For some reason, I felt like I was still dreaming; nothing felt real. It didn't feel real when Jidah made me sit on a pillow as she combed, brushed, and clipped through the tangled mass on my head from her chair next to my bed. The entire process was painful and more than a few times, I thought she was going to pull my braid out along with all of my hair. I couldn't remember the last time I had been with the everyone in the household at once, and I was pretty sure everyone was going to be shocked to see me out of my room. Jidah pulled me into the dining room urging me on as someone would do a child to convince them to eat. "There's nothing to worry about honey! We are all family here." She urged as I finally stumbled into the room. To my surprise, my aunt and uncle were both sitting at the table as if they were awaiting my "grand arrival" at the table. I felt special knowing that they stayed home out of respect for me. I was even happier that nobody bothered to look at me as if they were surprised to see me. Feeling my sense of stress decrease upon seeing Marcus, I quietly slid into the empty chair next to him. He gave me one of the warmest smiles that gave away the sincerest intentions at the entire table. Uncle Xavier blessed the food and we began to eat in blissful quietness.

After that day, I tried to look and feel my best because of the love and support I felt from the people around me. I was still broken and gloomy on the inside most of the time, but I learned to find comfort in things I knew would make me happy. I listened to music that matched my life and described how I felt, spent time roaming around the great outdoors, and even began therapy sessions at one of my uncle's clinics. My family made sure to keep me busy so that I would not get depressed. Marcus began to take Munirah, Marie, and I on as many outings as he could without interrupting his college classes and his work at the clinics. He even attempted to bring baby Aaliyah, but Aminah and Jidah always insisted that the growing baby was still too young to go on such outings with us. We went to museums, aquariums, art galleries, six flags, cruises, and even random one-day road trips. The idea was to get out of the house to do something fun and we did just that. I was so very close to healing from the sense of misery that was enclosing me heart. I was even closer to finding happiness and life and figuring out my true purpose until something happened that would derail my life in ways I never saw possible.

One week we went to the mountains of Denton, Alabama instead of our normal city trips because I wanted to feel the beauty of nature I once experienced on daily basis back in Mississippi as a young child. Instead of leaving the adults, my cousins and I decided to make it a family affair and invite Uncle Xavier, Aunt Aminah, and her parents along with us for a week of nothing other than nature, peace, and quietness. Since there were so many of us, we rented two cabins that both consisted of a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. Downstairs there was a master bedroom in each cabin while upstairs there were two beds in one big room. Aminah felt that I should stay in the cabin with she, my uncle, and Amira, but I insisted upon staying with Marcus, Marie, and my grandparents so that I could have more space and spend more time with my favorite cousin. "They will be fine with us," jiddah said to Aminah and as she and I carried blankets to our cabin to start making the beds. Aminah hated the idea of Marcus and I being in the same cabin since she was from the middle east and the mixing of the opposite gender, including cousins, was considered unlawful in our religion, Islam, as well as her culture. Uncle Xavier didn't think anything of me staying in the cabin along with Marcus, Marie and our grandparents due to his American views that cousins are family and nothing more. My grandparents were as nonchalant as my uncle about the ordeal and shared his point of view. "They are American," my jad said to his daughter with a shrug. "They live with each other as sisters and brothers," he added. "I don't like this, but you two are my parents I respect you," Aminah said before kissing her parents' foreheads and heading to the cabin with her baby in her arms. She gave me a long stare and shook her head in disapproval as she walked past me. "It's just her and her silly culture," Marcus said as he unloaded luggages from the fifteen-passenger van. "She'll get over it," he added with a smile before ruffling my hijjab with his free hand. I smoothed out the wrinkles he had put in my hijjab and began to look through the stack of luggages in the trunk of the van. "This is gonna be harder than I thought," I thought.