Free One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

trapped Tariq, the stairwell was blocked, floor to ceiling, by chunks of debris too large to be moved without the help of machines. He had reminded them not to talk or move about too much. He wasn’t sure how good the air was down here. How much oxygen they had left. People were trying to deal with the fact that their greatest hope—that the door, if only they could open it, would lead them to safety and sunlight—had evaporated. Until now death had been a cloud on a distant horizon, colored like trouble but manageably sized. Suddenly it loomed overhead, blotting out possibility. Panic darkened each mind, and Malathi’s questions— Have they forgotten us? Will we die trapped down here? —beat inside each chest.
    Tariq heard Lily, but he kept his eyes shut. He was mortified by having caused more trouble, by having required rescuing—by the African American, no less—when he’d hoped to lead their band to safety. That’s why, although he wanted to, he wasn’t able to tell Lily how grateful he was for what she had done for him out in the passage, when terror had spread through him like squid ink. She had been brave, far more than he. He had sniveled and sobbed underthe weight of darkness and debris. Even if no one else found this out, he knew it.
    Holding the Quran in his lap, he tried to pray. God was the only one he could bear to connect with, because surely over the ages He’d seen more contemptible behavior than Tariq’s and forgiven it. But Tariq couldn’t recall any of the traditional words. He would have to make up his own prayer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had undertaken that. Removed from the elegant choreography of the chants he depended on, he was stumped. What did people say to their Maker, anyway? In which tone did they register their complaints or pleas? How did they (not that it appeared that Tariq would have a reason to do this anytime soon) offer their thanks? Allah, he tried tentatively. But even inside his head his voice sounded querulous, and he fell silent.
     
    WHEN MRS. PRITCHETT HEARD ABOUT THE BLOCKED PASSAGE, she backed away from the group until her shoulders came up against a wall. How could this be? She was meant to go to India. She had felt intimations stirring within her since the time the night nurse had appeared in her hospital room. They had coalesced into certainty when Mr. Pritchett, who disliked travel because it was messy and uncertain, had held out that magazine, offering her a palace. But now unsureness stirred within her, muddying things, and she collapsed into a chair. With no way out but the imagination, she closed her eyes and let a memory take her over. In it she sat at her mother’s yellow Formica kitchen counter with her best friend, Debbie. They were both eighteen; they had just graduated from high school; they each had in front of them a piece of peach pie that Mrs. Pritchett (except she wasn’t Mrs. Pritchett yet) had baked from a recipe she had created herself.
    The peach pie was excellent, with a light, flaky crust and the golden taste you get only when you combine fresh peaches of just the right ripeness with a cook who has that special touch. But the girls had barely taken a bite. They were too excited. Each of them had a secret, and the telling of that secret would change their futures.
    How tangible and powerful hope had been in that kitchen, like freshly grated lemon zest on her tongue. Every dream that came to her in those days was possible—no, more than possible. Even dreams she had been unable to imagine yet waited like low-hanging fruit for her grasp. What happened then? How did she get from there to here, waiting against a wall like a deer dazed by headlights? If she took birth again (she had been thinking about reincarnation a great deal since her time in the hospital), would she regain her early ebullience? Would she know not to let it slip through her hands this time?
    Yes, I would, Mrs. Pritchett told herself. She visualized, once