For what felt like an eternity in the sun was a 6-minute walk from my school. A place nobody else walked home from. They had their loud motorbikes and air-conditioned cars that played American music.  I struggled against the overly frictional concrete that was hotter than usual and reached up to touch my hair. It stung. The sun hated black hair. Nature hated me too. Babi grabbed my backpack, at the time it was the heaviest thing one could hold, he was kinder than the sun. The sun hated Amina too. I looked over my shoulder and my older sister squinted sideways at me as she fought to keep her steps in tune with the louder thuds in her head. Zoya was too small to go school, but too old to stay home. She wanted to be like me, I didn’t know how to tell her, she did not.  

Together Amina, Zoya, and I walked home, skipping the cracks in the sidewalks as we went. We didn’t want to risk falling through.

“Zoya,” I cried, “Stop tugging my hair.” 

“I am not,” she answered defensively. And we argued back and forth until we reached the porch. The leaves scattered when we opened the door. Immediately my sisters and I pulled off our laceless matching shoes. Laces were for big kids, my mother said as we all tried to rub our sock lines from our calves, and we hadn’t reached that level of maturity. Six sweat-filled socks lay near the porch, Babi closed the door, and the leaves seamlessly returned to place.

We still didn’t have any furniture; a patterned chader on our living floor was a dining table. And doubled blankets that my Mami insisted we bring from Pakistan were the beds. “Muh pe paani pehnko,” Mami told us from the kitchen. We formed a line. My toes curled as I walked barefoot on the carpet. In the distance, I heard her saying something about us having to exercise in the sun, and then walking home. It was a frequent argument. Mami urged Babi to buy a car, and he told her that there wasn’t enough money.

Not having a car meant we’d have to take the bus. I hated public transportation, the ladies on the bus didn’t like that Zoya cried a lot. I always wondered why they hated crying, I know they did it too. Mami read the English twice before asking Amina to double check that she understood it. Amina and I took turns reading the metro map; we made sure to remember the numbers. It was the only thing that mattered anyway. When we got on and when we got off. 

The sun struck through the bathroom window, hitting my tanned face as I pulled my feet up into the sink. Zoya, who seemed to be still hung up on what happened on the walk home, pushed me. I stupidly clung to the sides of the sink and shot her a look. Quickly I threw some water on my warm face, and half of it landed on the floor and mirror. Secretly I hoped she would slip on the water.

I went and changed into my pajamas. I never understood how kids could wear the same uncomfortable clothes from 7 am to 8 pm every day.  Steel pots clanked together in the kitchen as Mami rigorously mixed aromas. They were so strong we could smell them a mile away; we’d take turns guessing what she made on the walk home. Sometimes I felt bad for the neighbors—they had to smell delicious food all day.

Amina and I laid the sheet on the carpet, as Marium conceitedly brought a dhaji full of rotis. Mami took the cold shikanjabeen from the fridge (it’s like lemonade, but better). We laughed as we tried to stop the tadpoles from entering our mouths. Little black round balls, with a clear coating. Mami said they helped with heat stroke. She was constantly worried about Amina; she always had a headache when we came back from school. Part of it was her migraines, and I think the sun on her dark hair every afternoon didn’t make it better.

Just as we all sat down to eat. A knock at the door.

“¿Quieres una sofá?” the man asked. My dad, who’d opened the door, was confused. “A sofa?”

Losing patience, the man repeated his question: “Si, ¿la quieres?” My father stepped out to see what it was. “Ah, I know what you mean, a sofa!” I had now figured out it was the neighbor, and he looked as my dad had moments ago. After a few minutes of dialogue I couldn’t make out, he and my dad pushed a 3-seater sofa across the apartment balcony. We all watched as my mother urged us to go inside. We still peeked from our room.

I was exhilarated. It was a nice brown sofa that complimented the light brown carpet perfectly. We then learned where all the old things went to die; our neighbor told us about a website with everything. Clothes, furniture, books, toys. The empty corners of the apartment became molded by the past of someone else’s; every piece of wood in this home was from another’s, and they made our home. I don’t know if the sellers ever realized what they were giving us or how the coffee table that sat in the center of the living room was our first dinner table. How the computer that baba used for work now had a pedestal and the chair that spun so that he could see everything all at once. I loved Craigslist.

    ***

We found our car on Craigslist a year later. A white 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. Mami was overjoyed. The A.C. didn’t work and it didn’t take much time until we all had graffitied over the side handles and roof. But it was our car. No more walks from school. No more hot hair when I got back. 

Babi was a good driver too! He could take turns, drive fast and even take his hands off the wheel. Sometimes he’d let me hold the GPS and tell him the directions.

A year later it broke down in the middle of I-10. It was a Thursday on a very crowded freeway. Amina, Zoya and I helped push the car to the side lane.“Kya ye kaam karega?” I asked. “We don’t know,” Babi told us. We called a taxi and got home. On the way back, I rested my head on the plastic glass of the taxi. Tears ran down my face; I kept it turned towards the window and pretended the stars looked interesting. I remember Mami telling us not to worry.

My foot moved at least 50 mph underneath the seat and my heart raced. I don’t know why I was scared. I thought of school, I thought of heat stroke, I thought of bus tickets, bus stops, ladies shouting at my mom at the bus stop, I thought of not knowing English, I thought all the things

7-year-olds aren’t supposed to worry about.

7-year-olds are supposed to color books and draw on Barbies. They are supposed to play with water guns and swing at the park. I wondered if all the things that came off Criaglist would break too. Did these people lie to us? Why was everything that was ever mine not mine? All the things borrowed, stolen. I want my car back. Passing the yellow dashed cracks in the street, I want it unbroken.