Chapter 22: GOGO MONEY
God's Little Drop of Water
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One afternoon, Taliya was downstairs with her brothers, playing under the mango tree until dinner was ready and they were called upstairs to eat. There was a dust storm coming, and Ima had already closed and locked every window in their apartment. Ima had also warned them not to stay out too long. Taliya did not need to be told. She had seen the sky turn brown and she did not care for it.
But as they sat in the grass beneath the mango tree, Yair began making strange sounds. Each time he tried to draw a breath, he struggled more and more. Before long, he was breathing only with great difficulty.
Taliya took off like a shot. She ran upstairs to tell Ima and Abba that something was wrong.
Within moments, they were downstairs and had Yair in the car and were on their way to the hospital, while leaving Taliya and Yaroni in the care of a neighbor. The neighbor wanted Taliya and Yaroni to come upstairs and wait in her apartment. There they could eat something and watch television. But Taliya refused. She insisted upon waiting in the lobby of their building. There, they would see Ima and Abba and Yair arrive.
The waiting stretched on and on, until at last the woman declared that she was going upstairs. Taliya didn’t care. She wasn’t moving. She and Yaroni sat on the cold, hard floor, waiting.
The sky grew dim as the dust storm approached, filling the sky with the fine brown powder Abba said came from Egypt or Saudi Arabia after it was gathered up by powerful winds blasting across the desert.
The sun had set and the sky had grown dark by the time Taliya saw the headlights she recognized as being those of their family’s car, the Sussita, which meant small horse.
Ima and Abba entered the lobby with Yair, who was now breathing normally. Ima said it was an asthma attack and that the doctor had prescribed an inhaler. If Yair had another such attack, he was to take two deep breaths from the inhaler, after which he would be alright. Ima also mentioned that the medicine was very expensive.
Once everyone was upstairs and the dinner preparations had resumed, Ima began to speak, quite loudly, about why Taliya and Yaroni had been waiting in the lobby by themselves and why the neighbor woman was nowhere to be seen. Taliya went into her bedroom and retrieved all of her Gogo money from where she’d hidden it in her desk.
She brought the money to Abba and held out her hand for him to take the money.
“What is this?”
“It’s for Yair’s medicine. Ima said it was expensive. I want to help pay for it, so he’ll be okay.”
With great pride and affection, Abba swept Taliya into his arms.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “we already bought the medicine. Yair is very healthy. Keep your money.”
With immense trepidation, Taliya relented. She did, however, appoint herself as being in charge of making certain that Yair had his inhaler with him always.
The next day in school, Taliya used her brief lunch period to run across the school yard in order to find Yair and make certain that he was breathing normally, and that he had not needed to use his inhaler.
Yair assured Taliya that he was fine, and that he did in fact have his inhaler in his pocket.
Relieved, Taliya returned to her classroom and resumed her duties of being an exemplary student.
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