“What do you think of these, Gina?” she asks, holding a pair of H&M jeans. They are baggy and grey. I can tell they are heavy by the way she moves as she is trying to hold them up, a marionette, gently maneuvered, her arm slightly descending and then quickly pulled back, like with a fishing rope.
The tag reads “willow” but Hanna doesn’t know that’s the name of a tree, and she wonders, but very briefly, why a pair of pants would be called “hollow”. She does that often, misreads tags and street signs, ads, or names of stores, or fruits. She does it in a way that’s mellow, so soft it caresses the air.
“They are nice,” I say as I walk towards her, and begin to inspect the fabric and texture.
“Okay”, she smiles, “I need more than that. Let’s keep looking.” She’s already moved on; with one hand she pushes through hangers while the other holds still in mid-air like she is using it to balance herself.
I remember Hanna being a flamingo.
“Look, Gina, I’m a flamingo.” She yells from the kitchen, standing on one leg, the right one bent upwards close to her body, one arm open in an attempt to remain stable, her neck stretched out, her eyes looking for me around the room as I walk in. Our mother throwing circles of zucchini in a hot pan. The pungent air like someone drew clouds with garlic markers.
“These are almost perfect”, she says, pointing at another pair of jeans, sitting on top of a large and tall stack of clothes. I can tell her sentence is intentional. I see it in front of me before her words reach the top of her mouth. It’s simple, then she adds almost. Somewhere before now, she said that same sentence, to which my mother replied “Nothing is ever perfect.”
We are in a changing room, inside a store, inside a mall, she’s next to me as I’m trying the jeans on, and for a moment I wish I could envelop her, make her smaller like the size of a sea shell, make a pendant out of her.
The jeans fit me well, we both agree, but we don’t say it. We just stare in the mirror, looking at me, at her, the yellowish curtains of the changing room, the stool she’s standing on. Maybe for two or three minutes, until she says “Do you think they will find us if we stay here?” And for a moment I don’t know who she is talking about. I think of my mother. I see her flower dress, the green one with pink tulips, the one she wears only in summer.
I start crying, not much, and not for long. Slow-motioned tears, four, maybe five, like I’m holding my face under an empty water bottle.
She meant the H&M staff. She says “Don’t cry Gina, I’m sure they would find us, they have cameras, I saw them.”
I realize maybe I overreacted, maybe the jeans don’t look as good as I thought, maybe I hate this store, maybe she doesn’t know what’s happening, maybe it is all good, maybe nothing is perfect.
She opens the curtains and holds my hand. “See, look”, she says."There are people; they have not forgotten about us.”
And I think of all these people, looking for unnecessary gifts. I’m sorry shopping, thank you shopping, give me what I want shopping. And then I think of Adam, and all the gifts he could have given us but chose not to.
“Let’s get out of here,” I tell her.
“But what about the jeans?”
“Fuck the jeans; let’s get ice cream.”
“You said fuck, Gina.”
“I know, frog. It was necessary.”
She stays silent, actually contemplating that possibility.
“Can we stay a little longer? Just one or two more stores.” Hanna says.
We walk out of the H&M store in the deep ocean of sweaty elbows She is holding my pinky finger with her entire hand, her body slightly ahead of me. I can hear her excitement, it’s loud like the church bells outside our house. I see it in her movements, poised, controlled, unafraid.
“There are soo many people. I’ve never seen so many people all in one place. Maybe somebody is also shopping for jeans like us. What do you think, Gina?”
“Possibly,” I say.
“Look, Gina a baby guitar!” She says pointing at a ukulele. “Maybe one day I can have one like you. Maybe I can learn to play like you do. I hope I can play one day. Can you teach me, Gina?”
I look at her; like she is a giant ball of all my favorite things. A lemon slice that tastes like barbecued chicken, rosemary stuck in my teeth, watermelon, scratching the back of my feet, cold water on my head.
She is so beautiful. She is real. The way she plays with her fingernails when she is waiting for an answer, the way she eats raw onions like I eat tomatoes, the way her chest fills with air when she wants to ask you something, the way she goes about speaking, using the same propositions, repeating sentences she heard, the way she calls out your name like you’re the only thing that matters.
“That’s a ukulele.” I say. “It’s a smaller version of a guitar but anyone can play it, there is no age limit.”
“I see, thank you, Gina.” She has her back to me, facing the storefront and looking at the wall of instruments. Strands of hay-coloured hair decorate her small round head. I picture her brain, only it looks like a human heart, pounding, racing to assimilate all that new information. I see her skin shedding, her body taking strange distinct forms, like she is made of objects that live through all the things nobody wants to feel. I want to stop this process, cover her eyes and ears, take her back to the shape she had before she came into this world.
I have this recurring dream. I’m walking through a field of giant strawberries like the size of buildings. It’s a labyrinth. Each time I think I’m getting closer to getting out, strawberries keep popping up. Once I told Hanna, and she told me it meant I like sweets.
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