How Stories Get Born

By Shqipe Malushi
 
It’s almost midnight I just left the mosque to go home with my five
and a half year old niece Chloe who I was babysitting today. She is a
beautiful child with long breads, blue dreamy eyes, too tall and too
smart for her age.
I tucked her in her seat, placed the seat belt on her. I was sure to
feed her all night with all kinds of food trying to make sure that she
would not be hungry. To top that I gave her a coughing syrup that her
mom had packed for her, before we left.
“This is too much,” she said. “I only take a little.”
“Well you better take more so you get well,” I said pushing her to
drink it and thinking all the kids don’t like medicine.
“Did you have a good time?” I asked her while pulling the car out of
the parking.
“Yes.” She answered.
“Is it better this time or last time?”  I said.
“I can’t tell,” she said.
“Did you like the girls?” I continued.
“Yes but they did not play with me,” she said.
 I drove. The night was too slippery and rainy.
I looked at her, she was quiet.
“Did the girls like you?” I asked.
“Everyone liked me.” She said.
“They did of course,” I said.
“Everyone told me I was beautiful.”
“Oh, you know it,” I said. “But you should be humble.
“What’s humble?”
“Hm, humble is when someone doesn’t brag how beautiful they are.”
“What’s brag?”
“ I  guess when you are modest and don’t talk much about it.”
“What’s modest?”
“Modest means simple you know.”
“What’s simple?”
“Simple means you are like everyone else neither more beautiful nor ugly.”
“What’s everyone else?”
“Well everyone else is people.”
“I am not people.” She said, “I am just a kid.”
“Listen I am just trying to be a mother for a night, all right.” I said.
“You’re not a mother,” she said. “You are my aunt-babysitter.”
We both became quiet for a while.
I put gas on my car and tried to drive faster so we can watch Sinbad
because she said last time we watched the “Sound of Music,”

and it was for grown ups.
 
All of a sudden in the middle of the highway on the route 4 east

she says:
“I don’t feel well.”
“Listen take a deep breath and close your eyes, we will be home in a
few minutes.” I said.
“I can’t.” She said. “I want to throw up.
“Open the window,” I said. “Should I stop the car?”
Before I finished my sentence she started throwing up, shooting up
all her Mediterranean food, French, Turkish, Moroccan…all the sweets,
the medicine everything covering her, my car even my shoulders…Aye…I
want to scream…I want to cry…She is crying and throwing up she can’t
stop. Shit it stinks…I stop the car in the middle of the highway, with
a kid, turn on all the lights…Pull her out of the car, nothing to wipe
her with, the car is wet from the rain drops thank god…I gather those
rain drops clean her hand and her face…It’s disgusting…I don’t say
anything. I take off her jacket and turn it inside out and cover all
that shit with her jacket so at least we don’t have to look at it…. My
heart is crying thinking here goes all night cleaning up Aye…God what
did I do wrong today? I have to drive some friends tomorrow to a farm
two hours away…How am I going to do that?
“Are you mad?” she says.
“No God forbid.” I said calmly “How can I get mad at my angel!”
I sit her on the other side of the car, the clean part, tuck her in.
Leave the window a bit open so the smell won’t kill both of us.

I drive again.
Suddenly she says:
“Did God made me throw up?”
“Sure did.” I said.
“Why?”
“So He can test me.”
“How he can test you?”
“Well, if I would have gotten mad I guess.”
“So did you pass the test?” she said.
“I hope I did.
“But God is a cloud how can He test you?”
”I have no clue.” I said.
“Well I tell you,” she said, “You didn’t pass the test because you
are a bad babysitter.”
“What do you mean I am a bad babysitter?” I was all defensive.
“Well when kids throw up you should have some water, or tissues at
least to clean me up?”
“Tissues! Water! You got the point. OK…I will get tons of them
tomorrow…But who the hell would have predicted that

a kid would throw up.”
“And if God is not a cloud then what is He?” She continued.
“He is love inside the heart.” I said.
“Silly God doesn’t fit inside the heart it’s too small.”
“Yes it does.” I said. “It does.”
“God is a cloud.” She insisted and I remained silent thinking more
about her words: “bad babysitter.”
I brought her home and took off her clothes and put her immediately
in the bath tub. It’s almost 1:00 am; I washed her first, and then
dried her hair to take out all that smell. Put on her clean pajamas,
wrapped her hair with the towel, gave her a glass of water, put her on
the couch, and turned on Sinbad.
I started washing. First her car seat. Then her coat. Then her
clothes…Shit, my bath tub got clogged. Nothing moves. I can’t stand all
that dirt. It’s all most 2:00 am. The kid won’t have anything to wear
if I don’t clean up everything. I don’t have anything to unclog the
bath tub, the superintendent is asleep. What do I do?
I take a hanger and straighten it up and try to unclog the tub…I am
silently bitching. Life gets tough sometimes. The water goes slowly but
it worked after half an hour pushing. Then pouring boiling hot water
and the water finally run down with the dirt.
I was finished with the first part and was just getting ready to go
down with a bucket full of water to clean up my car. I went down and
washed every corner piece by piece. As I cleaned  my car, I asked God
if I this was to show me how hard it was to have a kid…Or what parents
go through often…I thanked Him zillion times for not giving me a kid,
it was all right for everything I didn’t have,

I did not need all these lessons….
I cleaned up my car and all the people who drove by looked at me as
if I was crazy cleaning the car at the crack of dawn.
 Chloe is still watching Sinbad and waiting for me so we can go to
bed together.
I come back at the apartment, take a shower, put on my pajamas and
look at her beautiful tired face.
”Are you ready for bed?” I asked her thinking, her parents would kill
me to know their kid is not asleep yet.
“Yes,” she said. “But I want to tell you something.”  
“What?”
“You are not such a bad babysitter after you cleaned me up.” She
said, “and I am having so much fun.”
“Fun!”
“You can have me another time too if you want, and I can bring more
movies for us to watch.”
“Listen another time we will talk about it…Let’s go to bed.”
Petrified at thinking she is going to wake up at 6:00 am like last
time?”
She is sound asleep now; as I am trying to capture how the stories
get born wondering is God really a cloud?