Lonely in Chicago

Amanda

She never considered the practicality of what she was doing and in fact, practicality was never really the point. Her coworkers thought she was being characteristically kind by using some of her breaks at the diner to rummage through an old, black, leather notebook some customer left behind in what appeared to be a highly unlikely attempt to track down the owner. Normally, forgotten objects like this book would be tossed into the lost and found box under the register and later tossed out altogether if never claimed. But Amanda was intrigued by this notebook the moment she picked it up. It was an old but clearly expensive and well-made leather-bound notebook that someone used as an address book. She only realized it was an address book because she flipped to the back half. The first half was filled with faded characters she did not recognize. Likely Arabic a co-worker suggested. Amanda was intrigued. Who still used address books? Did the book have different owners, or just one who learned or otherwise began using English at some point? What Arabic speaking country was the owner or owners from? Was it a tourist or one of Chicago’s many immigrants? Whatever the case, Amanda intuitively knew that if someone was walking around with this book during the lunch hour, it was for a reason. The book was clearly of value and irreplaceable. She committed to herself to find the owner. First, she had to identify the origin country. This was difficult as people generally do not include the country when writing an address. Its understood. But they often include cities. She eventually worked out that the owner was Moroccan, with lots of friends or family Fes and Chefchaouen.

Now armed with a country code, over the course of the next several months when she had a few minutes, Amanda tried a few of the phone numbers through WhatsApp. Many of the numbers were no longer in service or were answered by people who did not speak English or did not understand her question: do you know anyone in the United States – specifically Chicago. When the phone numbers proved a dead end, she began sending handwritten postcards to some of the addresses. Sure. Maybe it started as an altruistic deed, but as the months wore on and Amanda’s first Chicago summer turned to her first Chicago winter, the project became more of a very welcome distraction. The bills continued to come while permanent job offers did not. For years, she’d downplayed the severity of her debt – a constant reminder of the startlingly poor choices of her 20s – to her friends and family, but it was becoming more urgent each month. Focusing on the Moroccan stranger sometimes quieted her mind.

Omar

For all the things that he and his late wife anticipated before immigrating to the United States fifteen years prior, constant loneliness was not one of them. So many things they had not considered in their excited days of planning their long dreamed of move. They took for granted that they would spend their years seeing America and helping with their grandchildren. There was a significant Muslim community in Chicago, so although it would take some time, they would undoubtedly make new friends and build a life. They never considered that their daughter and her American husband and children would leave seven years after their arrival for a job offer in San Diego. It certainly never occurred to Omar that cancer would come along three years later to ravage their lives and ultimately steal his wife of fifty-eight years. No one told him that once he was alone, dementia could come along and begin to steal his memories.

Until Amina fell ill and then passed, Omar had never given much thought to how much of their social lives had been engineered and maintained by her. She diligently sought and found a suitable mosque and made plans with other couples. Once she was gone, Omar found himself increasingly less diligent about worshiping at their mosque or reaching out to their friends. It was clear that these couples were primarily Amina’s friends. They reached out to check on him less frequently. He hated admitting to himself that he was lonely, but he was. He assumed that lots of widows his age were lonely on some level, but could it feel the same way? Many of them were born and raised in Chicago. They did not have the added burden of longing for a home to which they might never return.

Speaking of home, it was harder to keep up with friends and family in Fes. Old friends were beginning to pass away or move. He did not talk to his siblings as frequently as he did when Amina made it a point to call on birthdays on holidays. Which is why it was such a surprise to get a call from his niece in Fes one Sunday morning. Her father had received a strange postcard asking if he knew anyone in Chicago, Illinois. And something about a book of addresses. Someone had found it! Amina had begun keeping a record of addresses and phone numbers years ago. He had never given it much thought until he was going through her things and started thumbing through it. Somewhere along the line, Omar had convinced himself that if he could remember the people and places in the book and stories associated with them, the dementia was not winning. He was. Worthy adversary that it was, however, dementia one upped him one day when he realized the book was gone. He often tucked it in his pocket when he went for walks in case he stopped for coffee or lunch and would prefer his self-made mental exercises to reading the paper. He assumed that it had fallen out into a street, never to be seen again. He knew finding it was unlikely, but he couldn’t help keeping an eye out for it in gutters and along sidewalks as he walked. He had an almost childlike glee when he went to the diner to collect it. Completely unbelievable that a stranger would go to such lengths to find him! He thanked the woman so profusely that she began to look embarrassed.

As he left the diner, he knew he had to find some thoughtful way to thank the young woman. After all, he could not remember his own daughter doing anything quite that thoughtful for him in some time. He feared that all too soon, he would forget this woman, her kindness and the book she returned to him. He wanted to make a grand gesture and soon. Before he could talk himself out of it, he walked to the local branch of his bank and asked to close out the account he and Amina opened to save for their grandchildren’s tuition. Truth was that both his daughter and her husband were successful physicians. The money would mean far less to them than it would to a diner server. Omar requested a cashier’s check for the balance, $20,000. His regular bank teller graciously arranged a courier to deliver the check to Amanda at the diner that very afternoon.