“But if, sometimes, an unspeakable horror arises from the smallest error, I choose to believe that it’s possible for an equally unimaginable grandeur to grow from the tiniest gesture of love. I choose to believe that it works both ways. That great terror is the result of a thousand small but evil choices, and great good is the outcome of another thousand tiny acts of care.”
Judge Kohler looks around when he is talking. I can tell that he has practiced saying this. He doesn’t really look at the papers in front of him, and his voice is kind of like a speech. I wonder if this is what he always says.
“Every single person in this room has chosen to act against the horror, has chosen to act in care. The death of Arjeta Ahmeti, and her loss to her children and her husband, whatever the circumstances were, created a hole in their lives. She may have been a lonely and frightened woman, but she loved her children, she cared deeply for her family, and they needed her. Without her, they are at risk.
“But against that loss, all sorts of people offered a gesture of love. Each of you offered one. And all these gestures are the reason why there’s hope for these children. That’s what I see when I look at this case, at this report. And so, I am granting the recommendation of the caseworker, Lacey Miller, and the CASA, Roberta Weiss. I accept the offer of Graciela Reyes, and the voluntary renouncement of rights of Sadik Ahmeti. It’s an unusual arrangement. But here in Nevada, where we are short of funds and services, where many people are without family, where we are accustomed to working creatively, I think it’s a far better plan than we might have thought possible.
“I remand Bashkim and Tirana Ahmeti to the care of Graciela Reyes, and grant her full physical custody, with the following conditions.
“Sadik Ahmeti and Graciela Reyes will share legal custody of the minor children.
“Sadik Ahmeti will have the right to full and unconditional visitation with his children.
“Sadik Ahmeti will move into the Sierra Nevada Apartments, near Mrs. Reyes’s home.
“Bashkim Ahmeti will stay at Orson Hulet Elementary School, at least until the end of this school year, and through fifth grade if he so chooses.”
WHAT? TIRANA AND I ARE
going to live with Luis? With his mother? How did this happen? Does the judge know who he is? I can’t stop myself. I jump up.
“No! He killed a boy!”
Luis stood up as soon as I did, but he moves more slowly than me, so when I turn to look at him, he is still trying to get his balance, his hand gripped on his cane. He looks right at me, and the expression on his face stops me cold. He looks as if I have struck him and also as if he will cry.
I stop, because I hadn’t meant to hurt him. I remember how nice his letters were. I remember that I wrote him over and over right after Nene died. So we just stare at each other. And I don’t know what I think. I don’t want to live with someone I don’t know. I am afraid to live with Baba. I think I should stay with Mrs. Delain and Daniel and Keyshah, but what about Tirana? I have to live with Tirana. If Tirana lives with someone else, she will be part of their family. Like when she walked in holding her foster mother’s hand. She already seemed part of a different family.
I start to sit back down, and then I notice that the caseworker and the judge are talking, and that the CASA is approaching the judge too. Mrs. Delain holds my hand, but she doesn’t say anything to me; her face doesn’t tell me what she is thinking.
Luis is still standing where he was before, looking stunned and so sad. The woman who came to Mrs. Delain’s house is looking at me, and then she stands up and motions for me to come toward her. Tirana sees this and grabs my hand, so that I won’t leave. The woman notices Tirana, and she walks slowly toward us instead.
“Bashkim, I’m Graciela Reyes. We met before. I would like to be your foster mother. Yours and Tirana’s. I am Luis’s grandmother. I raised him when he lost his mother.”
I look at her, not knowing what to say. Am I supposed to say yes to someone I don’t know?
“Your situation is very special, Bashkim. Your father has the right to raise you. He doesn’t want to give you up, and he understands that he needs help. Everyone has tried to come up with a solution. I can offer you and Tirana a home together, and Catholic Refugee Services has found an apartment for your father down the block. If the arrangement does not work out, Ms. Miller and Ms. Weiss will still be involved. They’ll be in touch with you often. You will have someone that you can trust.”
I like Mrs. Reyes’s voice. It is very calm and gentle. Even Tirana has noticed. Mrs. Reyes offered her hand while she was talking, and Tirana took it. They are holding hands right now.
I look at Mrs. Delain, who is watching me closely. I think about how she told me to be brave today and how she says that her foster children are going to make the world better. She is looking at me with eyes that say I am tough enough, that this is not my worst day, that I have already been through worse.
I look at my baba, who doesn’t look at me. He is sitting at the table, still seeming too small to be him, with his face in his hands. Even from here, I see his back trembling. I think of the truck, of the bad day, and of how Baba shook like that when the police officer came.
I think of my nene. I think about her picking me up at school, with Tirana. How Tirana would kiss me. How Nene would touch my hair. How I didn’t care that she didn’t talk to the other moms, didn’t know the teachers’ names. I think she was pretty. How I used to check quick, when I saw her coming, if it was a good day or a bad day. If her fingers were moving together, over and over. If she was talking with Tirana or just holding her face very still. How I would feel so light if she was talking, if she was just holding Tirana’s hand.
Nene would want me to stay with Tirana. She would not want Tirana to be a different family from me.
I think about how Baba will live near us; how we will visit him. I think that Baba knew Nene’s family, Baba lived in Albania with Nene, Baba knew Nene.
I think about how it is me that wrote the letters to Luis. That told Dr. Moore she could send my letters, that told Dr. Moore not to tell Baba or Nene. The judge was talking about me. I let Luis say he was sorry, because I knew about Baba and the prison and how a man might not be meant for a war. I let Luis say he was sorry, and that made Luis write to me, and that made Luis’s grandma care about us. The judge isn’t trying to hurt us. Because I let Luis say he was sorry, Luis’s grandma can help Tirana and me. That’s what the judge means.
And just then, just when I haven’t felt this feeling in such a long time, I think I feel Nene’s fingers on my head, soft, soft, like when we watched
Jeopardy!
And I think that I did something good, that I made it possible for Tirana and me to be together, for Baba to be nearby. I am the one who did the small good thing first. And I think that Nene is smiling at me. And that she has her hand very soft very soft on my head. And that maybe we are going to be all right.
Author’s Note
This is a work of my imagination, but the explosive event at the center of this novel was inspired by someone else’s explosive event.
In writing my novel, I didn’t know any more about the real event than I had read in the newspaper. I didn’t know the details of how the event actually unfolded. I didn’t know what led the real people involved—the mother, her children, her husband, the police officer—to that catastrophic minute; I don’t know how they have fared since. I didn’t write about them.
Instead I used certain elements of that incident—that they were Albanian immigrants, that the father had been imprisoned there, that they had an ice-cream truck, that the police officer was a veteran—as the catalyst for a fictional story with fictional characters. The immigrant family scarred by one set of political events, the young veteran scarred perhaps by another: for me, those ideas perfectly capture an essential quality of the boomtown I call home.
I am often caught by the way in which a disaster can be rooted in the trivial: by the terrible weight of an incongruous cause. One could spend a life thinking about the single step from a curb in front of an unseen bus; about the tossed cigarette that traps two children in a burning closet; about the toes gripping the edge of a bridge, the arms reflexively balancing, the mind racing, the millisecond before it is too late.
The one thing that almost kept me from writing my story was that it was so unbearably sad. It seemed to me that the world was sad enough, that some people have enough to bear, and that using my bit of a life to throw in another such story wasn’t a very good use of my time. So the challenge I set myself was this: could I write a story that accepted the full unbearableness, and still left one wanting to wake up in the morning? Could I do it without being trite, without relying on mere wishfulness? Is it possible to live past the unthinkable with beauty? Can a coffee spoon counter calamity?
Now that the book is done, now that someone has decided to publish it, now that it will go out in the world of sadness, I am left thinking about the event that first inspired me. I met the real mother once. She sold me an ice-cream treat while my son played baseball. It was a cool, dark October night; she had almost no customers. She told me she had to keep working because she needed the money. She told me she had a son about my son’s age.
I’d like to say to the real people involved in the real story: I remember. I remember the worst moment of your life. I remember its utter unacceptability, its utter finality, its utter inaneness. I remember it. I honor it. I wish you peace.
Acknowledgments
To that serendipitous someone who chose me for a Yaddo residency, I tip my hat. To Stephanie Cabot, who cheerfully sold the novel as if it were no more than eating a piece of pie, two tips of the hat. And to Trish Todd, whose light touch and savvy skippering made all the difference, the hat itself. Wear it in joy.
Simon & Schuster: you’re like a first boyfriend. I’ll remember every moment. In particular, thank you to Jonathan Karp, Richard Rhorer, Jessica Leeke, Lance Fitzgerald, Jessica Lawrence, Andrea DeWerd, Wendy Sheanin, Marysue Rucci, Cary Goldstein, Loretta Denner, and Philip Bashe. I am grateful as well for the generosity of my fellow writers: Eleanor Brown, Sarah Blake, Sugi Ganeshananthan, Carol Anshaw, Kathleen Grissom, Vaddey Ratner, Rebecca Wait, and Charles Bock.
With brimful heart, I acknowledge Deb Newman’s enthusiasm, Jamie Jadid’s encouragement, Jodi McBride’s insight, Dan McBride’s generosity, and the early support of Tracy McBride, Joan McBride, Vicki McBride, Catherine Angel, Rachel Beach, Sandra Bird, and Anna Worrall. Also, to the Corporation of Yaddo (lovely Yaddo) and the College of Southern Nevada. Finally, I am ever thankful for Barbara and Don McBride. To all the others, friends and family so dear, yes, you too. Yes, always.
Simon & Schuster Reading Group Guide
We Are Called to Rise
Laura McBride
We Are Called to Rise
is told in four distinct voices—an immigrant boy whose family is struggling to assimilate, a middle-aged housewife coping with an imploding marriage and a troubled son, a social worker at home in the darker corners of Las Vegas, and a wounded soldier recovering from an injury he can’t remember getting—voices that come together around a tragedy changing those four lives forever. Each of the four struggles with ramifications of the choices that have led to this event, and all four discover that our lives are connected and we are responsible for one another.
Discussion Questions
1. Which of the three main narrators—Bashkim, Avis, Luis, was the most effective?
2. The setting, Las Vegas, is so pervasive it is almost a character in its own right. Talk about how the author uses the dry desert town as a backdrop and as an integral piece of the story. Discuss the juxtaposition of glamorous casinos with the ordinary suburban lives so many of the characters lead. How does the backdrop of the world of gambling, sex, and money impact the characters in their everyday lives? Do you think this story could have taken place anywhere else?
3. The landscape of Nevada is compared several times to that of Iraq and Afghanistan. What other connections do you see between the Western state and the war zones of the East that affect so many of the characters?
4. Throughout the story Avis struggles with how much responsibility she has for her son’s actions. How does her own childhood impact the parenting decisions she makes? What about the loss of Emily? How much blame does Avis bear for what has happened to Nate throughout his life? When are parents accountable for the actions of their children?
5. Luis carries guilt for not protecting his partner, Sam, and also for accidentally shooting a boy in Iraq; when we first meet him, he is recovering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He suffers both mentally and physically, but which bothers him more? Is his recovery more about healing his body or his soul? How does the act of writing to Bashkim help him with both?
6. How does seeing events through Bashkim’s eyes influence our understanding of the story? Do you find Bashkim’s narrative of the novel’s more serious events to be reliable? Why or why not?
7. Roberta is, in many ways, the narrator we know the least about. She has the fewest sections, and the parts of the story she narrates are almost entirely focused on other people. How is seeing this story through the eyes of a largely unknown character different from a character’s life story that is more fleshed out?
8. Avis is heartbroken over her husband’s infidelity and desire for divorce. But we find out that she, too, has been tempted, and that she even secretly kissed another man. When Jim says that Darcy was somebody he could talk to, somebody who “helped him think about things,” Avis wonders,
W
hat does that
have to do with ending our marriage?
Is she questioning why Jim thought he couldn’t just have a woman friend? Or is she saying that she’d prefer to go on not knowing that Darcy and Jim are now lovers? What do you think she means by this question? (Would you want to know if your partner were cheating?)
9. We’re more than halfway through the book before we begin to see how each of the characters’ stories intersects with the others. What is the narrative impact of seeing each story unfold individually? What are the benefits of this story structure? What are the drawbacks? Do you think the way the stories come together is effective?
10. At the final court proceeding the judge says, “If, sometimes, an unspeakable horror arises from the smallest error, I choose to believe that it’s possible for an equally unimaginable grandeur to grow from the tiniest gesture of love. . . . Great terror is the result of a thousand small but evil choices, and great good is the outcome of another thousand tiny acts of care.” Do you agree with this?
11. “Things happen to us that are more than we can take. And we break. We break for a moment, for a while. But the break is not who we are.” These words are spoken to Luis by Dr. Ghosh. Do you agree that the break is not who we are? Or do you believe that what we do when we break shows who we truly are? How do you see each of the main characters reflected in this statement?
12. The title of this novel is quoted from an Emily Dickinson poem—the epigraph at the beginning of the book. What do you make of the poem? How do you see each of the characters in this story rising? Do you see the title as ultimately optimistic? Do you see the book the same way?
13. Anton Chekhov famously said that if a gun appears in the first act of a play, that gun must go off before the end of the story. This book opens with the discovery of a gun, but that gun is tossed away partway through the book. Guns, however, are an integral part of the plot. Discuss the role of guns in this story, both in actuality and as metaphor.
14. What do you make of the judge’s decision to place Bashkim and Tirana with Graciela and Luis? Does that seem realistic to you? Why or why not? Do you think they would have been better off with their father? What solution would you have chosen for these children?