All We Have Left

The younger sister of the late Travis, seventeen years his junior, appears first in 2016. She recounts the terror that she experiences while she and her current boyfriend, Nick (accompanied by his brother, Dave, and Dave’s companion, Halie) graffiti messages on local buildings. Jesse is an accomplished rock climber, adept at dealing with extreme heights. She writes the word “Nothing” (6) on the side of a local building, in an apparent nod to the existentialist sense of meaninglessness that she and Nick share. She feels that “[t]he word feels exactly right, like it comes from that place squashed down at the very core of me […]” (6). Additionally, she scrawls another phrase on the building: “Terrorists go home” (7). When she becomes aware of an approaching police officer, Jesse realizes that she will be apprehended. 

Alia describes a beautiful dawn, as witnessed from the roof of her family’s Brooklyn apartment building, and we learn that they have relocated to the New York City area from California. She reflects upon how much she misses her grandmother, “Nenek,” who remained on the West Coast when the others moved east to allow Alia’s mother to pursue work as an immigration attorney. Alia also notes: “I miss the girl that I was when we lived in California and how simple everything was then” (13). The young girl communicates mentally with the reactions she supposes that Lia, the young female Muslim comic superhero of her own invention, would have to her current circumstances. While approaching the rooftop in order to say an early morning prayer, Alia notes: “[…] I can see the blocky buildings across the river, the Twin Towers soaring high into the sky, the dawn soft and gold in their mirrored surfaces […]” (13).

The early prayer that she recites includes the phrase “Allahu Akbar” or “God is the greatest” (13), and she experiences a sense of peace, despite being in current conflict with her parents. After completing this ritual, she chooses to start to wear a hijab, a headscarf sometimes worn by Muslim women for the purpose of expressing the ideals of purity and loyalty.

Upon seeing her father, Ayah, in the apartment, Alia questions whether he is firm in his decision to forbid her from any after-school activities as a result of a report that she had been apprehended in a restroom in possession of a marijuana joint. This punishment will prevent her attendance at a prestigious New York University creative film program to which she has been accepted; however, he refuses to reconsider his decision.

Jesse reflects that, “Nick Roberts was just the skinny kid with dark hair who always sat in the back […]” (18). She notices him during the first meeting of their Entrepreneurship class, and she finds him to be extremely attractive. She is taken by the fact that he has a partially-hidden tattoo, as well as the fact that he responds, “My dog was sick” (19) when Mr. Laramore, the teacher, questions the reason for his previous absence. As a result of close observation, Jessie realizes that Nick’s tattoo spells the word “Nothing” (20).

As the week progresses, Jesse continues to behave, while Nick continues to antagonize Mr. Laramore. She notices that Nick stares back when he catches her watching him, and she imagines that he is thinking, “[…] we’re the same, aren’t we? Even if you don’t show it on the outside, we’re alike, you and me…” (22).

Jesse’s friend, Emi, questions her attraction to Nick. While the two, who have been best friends since sixth grade, discuss this issue, Jessie finds herself surrounded in the hallway by student pantomime actors who capture her in an imaginary box. She is somewhat uncomfortable, and she looks up and catches Nick observing her reaction. She is able to lip read the words that he mouths at her, “Blow up the box” (24); this radical mentality comes to characterize their relationship. 

Alia is still reeling emotionally due to the refusal of her father, Ayah, to reconsider giving her permission to attend an afterschool creative film program. She weeps in her room, berating herself for not being as brave as Lia, the fictional cartoon superhero character of her own creation. Alia also reflects about the fact that her parents had not wanted her to attend her creative arts high school; instead, they had favored a more classical academic preparation for a career as a “[…] doctor, or a lawyer like her mother, not a comic book artist” (26).

The young woman also recalls the events of the preceding afternoon, when she had happened into her former friend, Carla, in the school bathroom. The preceding summer, Carla had betrayed Alia by stealing Mike, a former boyfriend. She had also been the cause of Alia being grounded by her parents for most of that summer. Carla is now smoking marijuana in the girl’s bathroom, and Alia asks “Are you trying to get kicked out?” (27).

Alia takes the joint from Carla and extinguishes it in the bathroom sink. As she is about to hand it back to her former friend, Ms. Donaldson, a school administrator, enters the room. She observes Alia holding the marijuana joint and orders both girls to the principal’s office.

Teeny, a friend of Jesse’s, shares her observations concerning Nick with Jesse. She sees that the pair are physically attracted to each other, but notes that “Hook-Up” Hailey Brinson is attracted to Nick, as well. Jesse does not share the fact that Nick had shared his phone number with her immediately prior to leaving class that day, although he had done so “[…] with an expression of feigned indifference” (31).

Jesse returns to the apartment that she shares with her parents, which is located above her father’s rock climbing shop. She notes the atmosphere of tension between her mother, a beloved local fourth-grade teacher, and her father, who is characterized as drinking too much beer and spending insufficient hours in his own shop. Jesse recalls having found her mother asleep on the kitchen counter several months previously, a bottle of wine by her side. She rested next to a “[…] perfect chocolate cake with thirty-three candles on it” (33), in honor of the late Travis’s birthday. The young woman feels that, of her parents’ three children, “[…] one is dead, the second is in Africa and then there is me […] the unwanted, invisible kid they still have to act like they give a damn about” (33).

While her father has resorted to embitterment and depression over the loss of his son, Jesse’s mother has immersed herself in a round of community activities that keep her out of the house. Jesse’s older brothers were aged 17 and 20, respectively, when she was born; she feels that her parents have never adjusted completely to her birth, nor Travis’s death.

She tells her father that she will be studying Statistics at her friend Teeny’s house, to which he responds, “Why can’t you be friends with normal people?” (35). She mentally responds that her friends are normal, and thinks of Nick’s advice to her: “Blow up the box” (35).