And her mother is in the room. Eyes like tortoise shells, the brown inlaid with green. Around the iris, those stripes of yellow. Lulu has not seen her in years, yet here she is with brown lunch sack in hand. Its paper crinkles and cracks. Lulu says, “Mama, I’m sick. I can’t go to school.” But it is the wrong language. Her mother shakes her head. Lulu hums, tries to find the Arabic far in the back of her throat. She tries to find the name that her kindergarten teacher thought too hard, even though it was only five letters. And there it is, Baba is saying it, “Lubna, Lubna, I love you Lubna.” His English is dancing and warm but it is Lulu who goes to all the parent-teacher conferences when her baby brother Saleh is in trouble. She skips her high school classes, uses her compact to check the seams of her stockings are straight up her calves, dabs her lipstick matte before she knocks on the office door. Because for Mama, wrong language, for Baba, his English is like a trumpet: loud, abrupt, musical, no good in a principal’s office. And Lulu is in the principal’s office. This time, because Saleh cried through the first three periods of class, recess too. Lulu says, “But everything is fine at home.” She isn’t sure if she is lying. And that time, because Saleh threatened to stab another boy with a pair of scissors. “But they’re safety scissors,” Lulu says. When she was younger she used them to cut chains of paper dolls. And Lulu is on the couch with Baba, the paper dolls forgotten on the floor, because she is holding her new Barbie with the winged eyeliner, the black swimsuit, the bare tanned plastic thighs. It is summer. Lulu’s thighs are also bare, the pits of her knees are sweating. Her tongue is filmy. It tastes of mint chocolate ice cream. And the nice nurse Jean dabs Lulu’s tongue with a damp sponge. And her father’s fingers are tickling the sweating pit of her knee, are dancing up her thigh. And nice nurse Jean says, “How are we feeling today? Did you have a nice visit?” The blood pressure cuff is a little painful but it feels nice, too, how it holds her arm. Puff, puff, puff—hisssssss. Nice nurse Jean says, “One-thirty over eighty-five.” Lulu says, “Just fine.” And it is a happy time, when Saleh has no jinni in him. And then it is not. “HE’S POSSESSED!” Baba is roaring, looks possessed too. Spit flies from his lips. Mama’s hands are over her head, they are bleeding, china tea cups shattered all around her. Saleh’s eyes are black pools, his screams are rasping, he is reaching for another cup. Lulu runs at her not-a-baby brother, lowering her head to hit him dead in the stomach. Her neck aches but he is floored. Lulu’s favorite lusterware tea cup with the moonglow sheen is still safe on the side-table. Lulu takes a sip. And it tastes all wrong like chemical sweetener instead of mint and milk the way her mother makes it. And her mother is in the room, her eyes wrinkled with laughing. Saleh has just said, “Shcupa!” He gathers up the cards with the two-torsoed knave who always seems to be dancing. When men play shcupa they must smoke cigarillos, must swear in Italian, so Baba says, “Merda,” but he is happy, he rubs his hand across his grin. The two men knock ash into an empty teacup. And her mother is in the room. She says, “Is the tea too hot?” Lulu takes another chemical sip, says, “You call this tea?”  

Lulu sleeps.  

In the morning her head is foggy. Lulu says, “I’m too sick to go to school.” Someone says, “Swallow your pills.” Lulu does. She tries to pull her sheets to her chin but her arms are weak. Someone sets a cool hand on Lulu’s forehead. The light is too bright.  

And Baba is singing, “Lubna, Lubna, I love you Lubna.” His fingers are dancing up her thigh. Lulu does not like it. Her mouth is dry, is full of sand. She tongues her cracked lips. In the streets the calliope sound of the ice cream truck is turning. Pop Goes the Weasel. Her mother is not in the room. Lulu hums. Outside, summer melts the pavement. And Lulu holds little Saleh’s hand. He grins up at her, his mouth ringed strawberry pink. His glistening eyes the most beautiful liquid black. For her, mint chocolate chip. Just to see that color green. Her mother’s eyes like tortoise shells. And she hates the food here. She tells nice nurse Jean so. “Just like the airlines. It’s all gone downhill. In my day we knew sick people need good food to heal. And this? All white. Dry chicken, instant potatoes. Oh, I can tell. The only color is in the Jell-O and Jean, let me tell you something. Jell-O is a food you give to someone who has no reason to live. So put that on my epitaph.”  

And her mother is not in the room. Lulu doesn’t feel so good. Her arms and legs are stuffed with sand, her lips are cracked and salty. Her father says he loves her. And Lulu does love him, but she knows, now, love does not owe a thing, it does not owe this. This time she will fight, this time she will scream. His fingers tickle the sweat at the back of her knee. And Lulu yells, “No! I don’t want that! Don’t touch me! Mama! MAMA!” At first she thinks Saleh is there, clear-eyed like he was long ago, saying, “Don’t hurt her!” but no, it is someone else, nice nurse Jean saying, “Don’t let her hurt herself!” A black man she’s seen before is holding her wrists, he smells like peppermints, nice nurse Jean is leaning over, saying, “You’re safe here,” and Lulu blinks and blinks and she sees, she’s safe here. The black man says, “Miss Lulu, I pray to be strong as you are when I’m your age.” He lets go of her wrists. “Thank you,” she says. She fishes in her mind for his name, squints to read the badge on his chest, starts to say, “Remind me…”  

“I’m Lou, just like you.” 

“I’m Lulu, just like You-Lou.” They both laugh. It is an old joke between them. “Have a mint on me,” she says, nods at her nightstand. Like always he says, “Only if you’ll join me.” Lulu inches up the headboard. The cellophane crinkles and cracks. She sticks out her tongue.  

And her mother is in the room. Lulu says, “I just don’t want to go to school.” Her mother says, “Mama, ma fi arabiya.” It is discordant, arrhythmic, all wrong.  

“What do you mean you don’t speak Arabic?” says Lulu. She narrows her eyes to peer into that face. Tortoise shells.  

“I asked you so many times to teach me.” 

Lulu says, “Oops, wrong language.” She has seen these eyes. Watched them change from their newborn indigo to the smudgy hazel to that mosaiced brown-green-gold. 

“Mommy, don’t you know me?” 

And Lulu does know her, but her mind will not hold the name. So she says, “Oh, it’s you!” Lulu is glad she is here. She says, “How’s the weather out there?” She says, “I miss you too.” She says, “Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry.” But the tears fall on the back of her hand, onto her own cheeks. Lulu clutches her hand as tight as she can, to prove to her: I am here. Soft skin. The sweet smell of formula and baby shampoo. The eyes that are open, that say, I love you, I trust you, always take care of me. The brown inlaid with green, those spokes of yellow. And her mother is in the room.