THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I WOKE, I THOUGHT I HAD died. I
knew it wasn’t true—but the thought was there. Maybe a part of you died when you were sick. I don’t know.
My mom’s solution to my predicament was to make me drink gallons of water—one painful glass at a time.
I finally went on strike and refused to drink anymore. “My bladder’s turned into a water balloon that’s about to explode.”
“That’s good,” she said, “You’re flushing your system out.” “I’m done flushing,” I said.
The water wasn’t the only thing I had to deal with. I had to deal with her chicken soup. Her chicken soup became my enemy.
The first bowl was incredible. I had never been that hungry. Not ever.
She mostly gave me broth.
The soup returned the next day for lunch. That was okay too, because now I got all the chicken and the vegetables in the soup with warm corn tortillas and my mother’s sopa de arroz. But the soup came back in the form of an afternoon snack. And for dinner.
I was sick of water and chicken soup. I was sick of being sick. After four days in bed, I finally decided that it was time to move on.
I made an announcement to my mother. “I’m well.” “You’re not,” my mother said.
“I’m being held hostage.” That’s the first thing I said to my father when he came home from work.
He grinned at me.
“I’m fine now, Dad. I am.” “You still look a little pale.” “I need some sun.”
“Give it one more day,” he said. “Then you can go out into the world and cause all the trouble you want.”
“Okay,” I said. “But no more chicken soup.” “That’s between you and your mother.”
He started to leave my room. He hesitated for a moment. He had his back to me. “Have you had any more bad dreams?”
“I always have bad dreams,” I said. “Even when you’re not sick?”
“Yeah.”
He stood at my doorway. He turned around and faced me. “Are you always lost?”
“In most of them, yeah.”
“And are you always trying to find me?”
“Mostly I think I’m trying to find me, Dad.” It was strange to talk to him about something real. But it scared me too. I wanted to keep talking, but I didn’t know exactly how to say what I was holding inside me. I looked down at the floor. Then I looked up at him and shrugged like no big deal.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m so far away.” “It’s okay,” I said.
“No,” he said. “No, it’s not.” I think he was going to say something else, but he changed his mind. He turned and walked out of the room.
I kept staring down at the floor. And then I heard my father’s voice in the room again. “I have bad dreams too, Ari.”
I wanted to ask him if his dreams were about the war or about my brother. I wanted to ask him if he woke up as scared as me.
All I did was smile at him. He’d told me something about himself. I was happy.
