“What a
beautiful summer.”, My Mom murmured.
“Summer?”,
I said with marks intonation.
“Yeah, it’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”
I could see she was so exciting. I
nodded, totally agreeing her.
We took a taxi –a taxi was enough to fit
me, my mom and all of suitcases without Faela, Safa and Dilla in it- to go
home, my grandparent’s home. I could imagine what the house would look like.
Beside it must be homey house, like Mom said to me and very few memories in my
mind told so, ten years would totally mess it up.
“Maria!”, an old women welcomed Mom from
front a beautiful house when our taxi had just stopped.
“Lily!”, Mom went out from taxi hastily.
They hugged for long while I was trying to put out some of suitcases so I could
put myself out too finally then.
“Mom..”,
I reminded my Mom of myself and the taxi.
“Oh I’m sorry Drey. Do you remember Mrs.
Conley?”, She asked me while paying the taxi’s bill.
I waited my Mom paid the bill. “Mrs. Conley?
Hmm..”, I refused.
“Drey! You grew up girl.”, that
agreeable old woman welcomed me with her lovely face expression.
“Hi Mrs. Conley, nice to see you.”, I
kissed her hand with my cheek. In Indonesia, a kid used to kiss the older
people hand when they were shaking hands. It was a kind of honor behave thing.
“Lily, you can call me Lily.”, she told
me.
“Hi.. Lily.”, I felt so weird to say
that. It used to be an insolent behave in Indonesia if we called the older
people’s name –whoever they were and however close we were- only with their
name.
“Oh dear, you must be so tired, come
on.”, Lily let us in to a beautiful house.
The house was so warm with broken white
paint outside. The colorful of flowers and soft pink things on the furniture
made it looked so beautiful while the friendly sun heat touched the green
plants and grasses on its garden.
“Wow, Lily, thank you so much.”, My Mom
stopped when Lily opened the door.
“Never mind, I hope you like the flowers
too Maria.”, She pointed her gaze on the table where some white roses had
already beautiful on glass vase. “So, welcome home dear, dears, just take a
rest well and I’ll come to bring you two some breakfast okay?”, she walked out
the garden to another beautiful house right in front of this beautiful one.
“Wow
Mom?”, I was surprising by the house.
“Don’t you remember Lily dear?”
I
shook my head, showing my surrender.
“Lily was like my Mom too. I called her
last month, told her about our plan and asked her help to set up this house for..
a little bit.”, but we both knew that a little bit was not a correct word to
describe this house improvement now.
My grandparent’s house was a one floor
building with three bedrooms, two bathrooms –one in main bedroom and one was
between the another bedrooms-, one big kitchen include dining room in center of
the house, a simple living room and also a garage and small porch outside.
Mom picked my grandparent’s room and
picked me her former room. It was smaller than my room in Jakarta but it’s
nice. I loved the window. I could see the garden, quite road view clearly and
something wonderful of blue. “Mom, is that sea?”, I was surprised what a close
the sea was. I thought that won’t be over than 30 minutes to go there on foot.
“Ocean!”, Mom confirmed from another
room.
“Hello kids.”, Lily’s voice gathered us
in dining table. “Hey Drey, your Mom had told me everything about you. So, I’d
cooked a simplest Indonesian receipt. I hope its taste is good.”
“Oh thank you so much Lily. You are very
kind, thank.”, I thanked her for the fried rice with egg and some vegetables. It
looked tasteful.
“Don’t worry Drey, these foods are halal for
you. I used fresh oil and had cleaned up my pan and spatula. Come on!”, She
held my shoulders when I was just looking at it. “I don’t like pork too
anyway”, she added.
“Oh, thank Lily. Okay, let’s get
breakfast now!”, I pulled a chair to sit. I was so hungry and the foods really tempted
me.
We sat around square dining table. I sat
beside Mom and Lily sat in front of us, waiting for our comment about the
foods.
“I wanted to cook some beefsteaks, I
have the best receipt for that, but I was not sure about the halal. So, I chose
egg for you.”, Lily informed us about the story behind.
I knew that it was about me. “It’s good.
I like it Lily.”, I complimented her foods. The foods were good though it
tasted unfamiliar on my tongue.
At least, I didn’t have to clean up the
house for a week of overtime work, thanked to Lily for that. I took a bath and
changed my cloth. I preferred to wear my hijab though there were only me and my
Mom in this house. Some part in my heart still felt that I wasn’t in home yet.
I took my compass out of the bag, directing its position to North Pole and
calculating the degree to kiblat in Mecca, it was about fifty six point eight
of degree from north. I held my prayer mat facing the window then. I looked
over the window. The shadows of the trees were too long for the middle of the
day. So, I wore my prayer’s wear and did Dhuha pray. I lay down on my old new
bed and trying to enjoy my early day sleep.
I thought I was on jetlag. The
difference of time, it should be a late night in Indonesia. “Mom, what time is
it? Why the sun shine at ten p.m.?”, I shouted from my room, confusing with my wristwatch.
“It’s ten in the morning dear!”, my Mom
shouted me back with laughing voice. “It’s Maryland!”, she reminded me.
“Day
and date?”, I shouted again.
“It’s Friday,
seventeenth of June!”
“Wow, I think we had more than one day
on sky Mom!”, I thought I had lost my orientation. I went from Jakarta on late
of afternoon on the day before. I flied about twenty eight hours and I had
arrived in Maryland just in the next morning.
“Honey, it’s a round planet. You know
that. Try to rest, okay!”
“Okay Mom.”, I reset my watch. I never
used it on plane. I knew that my watch wouldn’t work well in such as a time
machine, so I used to ask a stewardess often. I grabbed my bag that was on my
bed just beside me, pulled out my note paper. I searched the Maryland word and
set my alarm at one o’clock. Dzuhur pray time in Indonesia was usually around
twelve. So, I thanked to God for added one hour in Baltimore which meant extra
time for took a nap.
I woke up before my alarm awoke me. I
had slept a lot during flight. I just missed the bed to lie down. Sleeping on a
chair made my blood couldn’t reach my brain. I got up and did some stretching
activity. It felt so much better after did that. I started to arrange my cloths into an old
clipboard and set up my table with Mom and Dad’s photograph and me and my
friends photograph too.
I put my blue notebook on table. I
turned it on. My animated under sea wallpaper made me in silent, imagining one
thing, sea.
“bip bip..bip bip..”, my alarm startled
me.
I turned off my notebook after reset the
time quickly, get ready for Dzuhur pray and read Al Qur’an then. It felt so
peace, beautiful book.
It was a very long of day. I had written
about twelve pages but the sun was still right up there. I looked at my note
paper again, considering about my pray times in Maryland. It was really a
summer, sun along the day. The twilight would be come on eight and thirty five
o’clock. It was too late to be twilight in Indonesia.
