One Half from the East by Nadia Hashimi Page B

chair when she wants to talk to my father. My sisters and I pretend not to hear her begging him to come to the everything room or to let some of his cousins drop by for a visit. The walking stick I made is in the corner of the room, against the wall. I’m sure my mother put it there. I turn away. Looking at it is like going back to that day.
    â€œPadar, how are you?” My father’s eyes lighten softly. “How is your pain?”
    â€œI’m fine, Obayd. Hearing you talk makes me feel better. How is school?”
    I hear my Kabul father, not my angry, one-legged father. I can breathe.
    â€œGood. My teacher says my handwriting is much better than it was just a few months ago. She even asked if I spent the winter months practicing. And I got a really good score on the first science test to see what we remembered from before winter break.”
    â€œScience, eh? That’s good. I never had a head for science.Still, I wanted to be a doctor. Did I ever tell you that? I wanted to walk through a hospital and have sick people feel happy to see me.”
    â€œYou would have been a good doctor, Padar -jan .”
    â€œMaybe. Too bad we only get one life.”
    I’ve stared at the picture behind me for hours. It’s etched into my memory in painful detail. The photograph was taken while we lived in Kabul and in the picture there are six of us—my parents and their four girls. My father and mother are sitting on a love seat, with straight faces and straighter backs. My father is wearing an olive-colored suit and he has a neat little mustache. My mother is wearing a black dress with faint gray flowers across the collar. She has on a light gray head scarf just behind her bangs, which are brushed to the side and tucked behind her ear. She has small emerald earrings that she sold before we left Kabul. Neela and Meena are standing on either side of my parents in floral-print dresses. Alia and I are kneeling in front in our matching violet sweaters and indigo skirts.
    In the photograph, I’m kneeling right in front of my father, hiding his two perfect legs from view. I wish I could move myself in the picture so we could at least have an image of my father with two legs. That way we wouldn’t always imagine him the way he looks now. I wonder if my father stares at this photograph thinkingthe same thing and wishing he could just nudge me to the side.
    â€œYou were a good police officer.”
    â€œWhat do you want to be, Obayd?” It’s an unusual question for my father to ask, and I’m not sure how to answer. All I’ve been able to think of lately is what I don’t want to be.
    â€œMaybe I’ll be an engineer. Definitely not a farmer. If it were up to me to water your pepper plants, they would have died a long time ago.”
    He laughs. It’s a sound I rarely hear, and I’m glad I teased it out of him. It feels like the biggest thing I’ve done in weeks. The room becomes silent again. I hesitate to talk, not wanting to ruin the moment.
    â€œWhat have you been learning in school?”
    â€œLots of different things. We’ve been looking at maps, learning the names of mountains . . .”
    â€œWhen I was your age, I spent my days wandering all over this village with my brothers. We could have used a map.”
    I cannot imagine my father ever having been my age. I wonder if we would have been friends.
    â€œDid you ever find anything?”
    My father takes a deep breath in and lets it out.
    â€œWe once went to an old shrine—a place where people pray and tie little ribbons to the fence for good luck. Theysay if you go there and wish for something, it will come true. My brothers and I ripped off strips of cloth from the hems of our pants since we didn’t have anything else with us. Your grandmother was so angry . . .”
    I burst into laughter. My father smiles.
    â€œWhat did you wish for?” I ask.
    â€œIf you asked any kid in