Book Review: I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

 This book is extremely touching and inspiring, but one must keep in mind that it was written from the story told by a child. That being the case, it is a little simplistic in it's expression, and it offers limited depth. This, however, becomes one of the book's charms, as readers gain the sense that Nujood herself is telling her story over a cup of tea.

None the less, I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced is enjoyable, educational and emotional. The circumstances Nujood faced as a child bride are (sadly) not entirely uncommon in some third-world countries, but her defiant courage in seeking a divorce certainly was.

This is a reaffirming story of hardship, strength, and regained innocence that makes one feel more connected with humanity as a whole. At the end of this short-but-enlightening book, it seems almost as if the whole story was really just relating a single sentence: "No matter how bad they get, circumstances can always be overcome."  If you like exploring life in other parts of the world, or just want a book that is both easy to read and thought-provoking, buy I Am Nujood.  If you are not particularly into current world issues, you may still want to borrow this insightful book from the library.

Unicorns

"Wings" by Josephine Wall

             “Gavin Turner says there’s no such thing as unicorns,” Fiona Connelly announced one day.

            Lorcan craned his neck to peek around around the hood of a ’94 Silverado and considered the little golden-haired figure.  Kicking idle legs from the height of a plain stool, his guest looked as if she had been plucked from a park bench or ice cream parlor, and accidentally deposited in this oil-streaked garage.  She was a living china doll–all pale skin, curls and big, bright eyes– and seemed comically out of place in her current surroundings. 

Every inch of the square, cinder-block building was a dirty, ashen grey.  Streaks and specks of grime were mercilessly revealed by two bare, sixty-watt bulbs hanging from the ceiling, their harsh illumination softened at the edges by mead-colored sunlight pouring into the open bay.  Even Lorcan’s office, viewable through a large square window, was plain.  Walls that had once been white framed a press board desk, an ancient soda machine, and a shabby green sofa. 

By comparison, Fiona’s My Little Pony t-shirt and brightly-patched blue jeans seemed to glow.  Nonetheless, she was at home here.  She’d been visiting nearly every afternoon since her first day of elementary school three years earlier.  Originally these sojourns were made to see Georgie, her grandfather and Lorcan’s mentor, on her way home.  When a heart attack ended the old man’s life, little Fiona just kept showing up.  Lorcan had pitied girl, assuming her regular reappearance was habitual– a remaining glimmer of normalcy in the confused mind of a grieving child.  Eventually he realized that it was not merely an effect of sorrow, but largely the manifestation of boredom and loneliness.  Fiona was an only child with no one but toys and books at home for company.  Funnily enough, the longing for casual companionship was something she and Lorcan shared.  He’d probably never admit it, but he looked forward to Fiona’s visits.  Her cheerful energy brightened even his darkest moods.

            Perhaps it should have been obvious that one day Fiona would assail Lorcan with one of these difficult childhood questions.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t at all certain how to explain the hard facts, or even if he should.

            “Why don’t you ask your mom and dad?” he suggested, returning to his task.  Seamus Greenbriar was leaving on a camping trip Friday morning, and– for reasons Lorcan could only assume involved a girl– he wanted time to wash his truck before he left.

            Fiona sighed melodramatically.  “They won’t be home from work until six-thirty,” she said, as if describing an endless span of centuries.  “Besides, I want to ask you.”

            This was an important issue for Fiona, who believed in unicorns with more fervor than most children her age believed in Santa Clause.  Lorcan was touched that she had trusted him enough to come to him with this concern, but he equally nervous.  When, exactly, had he signed up to be the guardian of the emotional well-being of a child?

            “This belt needs replacing,” he said, hoping to distract her.  “Will you get me that 15 millimeter wrench from the tool box, Little Bit?”  Fiona’s visits were advantageous to both parties:  Lorcan got a much-needed extra set of hands while his little helper learned about different tools and their applications.  Fiona’s mother wasn’t sure she approved of something so dirty and dangerous, but letting her daughter visit Lorcan was cheaper than sending her to daycare.

            Fiona was, of course, too tenacious for her friend’s ruse.  She delivered the requested item then said insistently: “Uncle Lorcan, you’re not listening to me.  Gavin Turner said there’s no such thing as unicorns!”

            “Yeah, well, Gavin Turner’s face looks like a baboon’s… ah… face.”

            “You were going to say ‘ass,’ Uncle Lorcan.”

            “I was not, and don’t you ever say that word again!”

            “Why not?”

            “Because,” Lorcan adlibbed as he strained to loosen a particularly tight bolt, “princesses don’t use that kind of language.  Only wicked old hags, nasty goblins, and the meanest dragons say stuff like that.”

            “Dragons don’t talk.”

            “Some of them do.”

            “Do not!”

            Lorcan looked back at her impetuous frown.  “I’ll have you know I met a talking dragon up in Jerry’s Diner just last week!  Nearly singed my hair off when he sneezed!”

            “You’re silly!” Fiona chortled, and for a moment Lorcan thought he’d won.  She sobered quickly, however, and asked:  “Hey, Uncle Lorcan, if unicorns aren’t real, does that mean dragons and fairy princesses aren’t real either?”

            “Who says their not real?”

            She rolled her eyes in a display of long-suffering tolerance.  “I told you, Gavin Turner does.”

            “Well, who died and made him king of the world?  If Gavin Turner told you eating pickled roaches could make you fly, would you believe that too?”

            “EWWW!” squealed Fiona.

            “Well, would you?”

            She considered the idea momentarily.  Lorcan could almost hear the levers and scales in her mind clicking as she weighed the possibility of flight against her distaste for both Gavin Turner and cockroaches.  At last she answered: “No, I guess not.”

            “Then who cares what he says?”

            “Miss Ferrell said it, too.  She said that unicorns are an ideal and not a real animal.”

            “I’ll give Miss Ferrell an ideal,” Lorcan growled.

            “What?”

            “Nothing.”

            “So are unicorns real?”

            There it was.  The fearful question had been asked outright, and now there was no escape.  Lorcan felt as if he was trapped in the path of a speeding freight train.  He had no time to develop a plan, but he had no idea which way to turn.  The responsible, adult thing to do, of course, was to hold her hand and gently tear her lovely fantasies away from her mind.  Lorcan, however, realized that this wasn’t merely a matter of a child believing in mythical creatures.  It was a question about innocence– not merely because of the sweet, childish ignorance that allowed Fiona to believe in unicorns, but because unicorns had become her representation for everything good and beautiful in the world.  That faith, under closer consideration, was little different from other concepts held by adults.  After all, didn’t everyone need to believe in something?  Didn’t most people cling to a determined conviction that there was something greater and nobler in the world than the petty meanness of daily life?  Did it really matter whether this idea was labeled morality, religion or unicorns?

            In a way, Lorcan supposed that unicorns were Fiona’s ideal, though he doubted Miss Ferrell had assigned the same connotation to the word as he did.  He wondered why he’d never noticed how like a unicorn Fiona was– pure, creative and kind.  Fairytales and unquestioning beliefs clung to her like a starry aura, and she glowed against the dull backdrop of the grimy world like a moonlit myth glittering in the depths of some lightless wood.  It could almost be said that the unicorn was Fiona’s totem.

            “Are they real, Uncle Lorcan?” Fiona’s sunny face was clouding with dread, like a mother waiting to hear her child’s fate confirmed.  “Are unicorns real?”

            “You know what I believe in, Little Bit?  I believe in possibilities.  You know, once upon a time people thought elephants weren’t real, but then someone proved that they were.  There are lots of things we haven’t discovered yet.  Scientists find more of them all every day, and we may never know everything.  Saying that unicorns can’t be real is like… like putting limitations on God.”

            “So… Gavin’s wrong, right?   And it’s okay to believe in unicorns, right?”

            “Little Bit, as long as someone– even just one person– believes in unicorns with their whole heart, they’ll always be real.”

            She beamed at him, and somewhere in his mind’s eye, Lorcan saw a moonlit shape flitting among primeval trees.

Ephram Doyle’s Last Drink

Ephram Doyle sat alone at his kitchen table with an untouched bourbon in front of him.  Everything was so familiar and yet so alien, as if the lace curtains above the sink, the cream and country blue ducks decorating the walls, and the nearby selves of books and curios were no longer his.  The house seemed so empty and melancholy that he could imagine he was revisiting it after an apocalyptic event, or perhaps that he was a ghost trapped in his own memories.

            If Jessica had been there, she would have laughed and said: “Don’t be such a gloomy Gus.”  He would have chuckled at his own folly, smiled back at her, and forgotten the whole uncomfortable picture.  But Jessica wasn’t there, or, if she was, she wasn’t making herself known.

            Ephram dared to gaze at a photograph of his wife on the selves to his right.  The silver frame was slightly tarnished, and the Poloroid itself was a little faded, but her smile was as bright as ever.

            Six months.  It had been six months since Jessica died, but as far as Ephram was concerned it might as well have been six minutes.  The pain when he looked at that cheerful face, frozen forever on film, was sharp, immediate and fresh.  He stared at her darling countenance for as long as he could bear, and then turned away as if averting his eyes from the stinging sun.

            The problem was that everything in this house reminded him of her.  The Victorian reproduction living room set that she had loved so much.  The wooden swing set he had built for their children that had later been fitted with a porch swing when the youngest moved out.  The backyard that had seen birthday parties, cookouts, and autumn barn fires for forty-two years.  When Ephram looked at the old fireplace, he saw his young wife and children roasting marshmallows and singing Christmas carols.  When he turned the corner into the hall bathroom, he saw his teenage daughter Tamara painting the walls that dreadful bright blue.  When he opened the laundry room door, he saw Jessica folding towels.

            And whenever he tried to sleep in his bedroom, his was forcefully reminded that this was the place he and Jessica had shared for forty-two years, and this was where she had drawn her last breath.

            It was painful, but it was also bitter-sweet.  This house wasn’t much, but he and Jessica had worked hard to make it a home, and he loved every care-worn corner of it.  He missed his wife, but he wanted to be reminded of her, and he wanted to live out his last days in the home they’d shared.

            His children, however, didn’t seem to understand that.  Jacob, a Sports Science professor and assistant coach at Kentucky State University, had suggested that “living alone in this old place with nothing but memories” might have an adverse effect on Ephram’s psyche, and had suggested moving him to an assisted living facility.  Tamara, who was now a successful lawyer, had agreed, and had offered to find and pay for a suitable place.  Only the twins, Charles and Clarissa, had disagreed, but neither had the money to provide for Ephram, and Tamara insisted that as long as she was footing the bill, they would do what she thought was best for their father.

            Which brought Ephram back to the bourbon in front of him.  He had always enjoyed a good bourbon on Friday evening, but hadn’t touched alcohol since he had been diagnosed with liver cancer two years before.  It hardly seemed to matter now, however.  Ever since Jessica’s death, he had dreamed about waking up to find her washing dishes or pruning her roses, as if the last six months had been a bad dream or a mistake that had finally been rectified.  Last night, however, had been very different.  He had walked into his living room to see that someone had erected a makeshift stage between the sofa and the hearth, and that crowded upon were his brother, Henry, and his three best friends, Joseph, Arlan and Kip.  Seated on the sofa watching them were his mother, his father, and Jessica.  For some reason, the men on stage were playing a song by one of Ephram’s grandson’s favorite groups: a Celtic rock band named Enter the Haggis.  Everyone seemed to know the words and were merrily singing along.

I’ve had a life that’s full,

Everyone’s been good to me,

So fire up that fiddle, boy,

And give me one last drink!

When the sun comes up

I will leave without a fight.

The world is mine tonight!

            Something about the scene had seemed odd to Ephram, but he hadn’t been able to recall what it was until he woke up and remembered that everyone there was dead.  He had almost expected to feel frightened, but he hadn’t.  He had felt oddly comforted yet simultaneously disappointed.  He had laid awake, straining his ears like a child listening for reindeer hooves on Christmas eve, hoping to hear strains of music echoing from the living room.

            The following morning he had risen late and, dressing himself in his Sunday best, had walked to the local shopping center.  There he had purchased the ingredients for a spectacular breakfast that included everything the doctors told him not to eat: sweet roles, bacon, sausage, eggs, ham, canned biscuits and a packet of gravy mix that he could only hope would imitate Jessica’s home cooking, instant grits, a pad of butter, and regular coffee.  His next stop had been the liquor store across the shopping center, which opened only minuted before he walked in to procure a small bottle of his favorite bourbon.

            He had made a huge mess in the kitchen, and feasted on sweet and fatty foods he hadn’t tasted for years.  Then, because Jessica had always hated for the kitchen to be left in disarray, he’d cleaned up before going out to the garden.  There he’d cut long stalks of blooming Oleander, and put them in a vase to admire a while.  He’d selected a favorite CD to play on the stereo, lit up his old pipe with some old tobacco he’d kept as an odd memento, and enjoyed a glass of bourbon while he looked at the beautiful flowers.  When the glass was empty and the pipe smoked down, he’d taking the plants, broken them to pieces, and stewed them– stalks, leaves and blooms– in a pot with a little water.  A couple of tablespoons of this deadly liquid had been added to his second glass of bourbon, and now he sat at his table, listening to music he and Jessica had danced to when they were young, trying to decide whether today would be the last day of his life.

            He’d been surprised to realize that there were a few things to hold him here.  He worried about his children, and about what they would think.  Tamara especially would probably assume that this was his desperate escape from life in a luxury-style nursing home.  He also had to wonder if he had his affairs all in order.  He and Jessica had agreed upon and made a will years before, and he had quietly begun setting aside savings for their funerals, but he had a nagging fear that he might be leaving something unattended to for his children to deal with.

            Nonetheless, he wanted to go.  He wanted to get this over with and join that singing throng in the living room.  He wanted the last things he saw to be things he loved, that reminded him of the happy past he’d shared with his family.  It was unfair, terribly unfair, to ask him to end his life in a strange place far from home.  He wanted to die on his own terms, in the same place he had lived.  Was that so much to ask?

            On the other hand, the more he thought about it, the more he felt there was precious little he needed to do.  The mortgage had finally been paid off, thank God, and he had recently seen his children and grandchildren for a Memorial Day barbeque.  It seemed that everything was ready for his grand send off.  But could he do it?  Up until now he had had fun, enjoying all the things he wasn’t allowed to enjoy any more.  Now that it was finished, could he actually take that last step?

            The CD changer moved to the next disk, and Ephram was surprised as the first quick, cheerful melody began.  He realized suddenly that it was the mixed disk his grandson had brought over on his recent visit, and he felt his face brighten at the familiar lyrics.

I’ve had a life that’s full,

Everyone’s been good to me,

So fire up that fiddle, boy,

And give me one last drink!

When the sun comes up

I will leave without a fight.

The world is mine tonight!

            Ephram smiled, toasted Jessica’s smiling picture, and drank his last bourbon.