I sat at my desk for what felt like an eternity. I looked up at the clock every few seconds, wishing time would move faster.

The substitute teacher called attendance. I prepared for what was coming. 

She called my name. A few kids behind me snickered. One whispered something I couldn’t quite hear. 

I raised my hand. She had butchered my name, but I didn’t bother to correct her. This was a situation I was all too familiar with.

The day was almost over. That was all that mattered. Everything else felt irrelevant. 

It was almost time for my favorite part of the day: going to Ba’s house. I always looked forward to seeing my grandmother.

When the bell rang, I gathered my things and sped out the door. I managed to escape the kids that sat behind me—barely. 

As usual, the moment we arrived, Ba smothered us in her embrace and herded us inside.

I plopped down on the recliner. My sister and I sat in the living room with Dada,^, our grandfather.

Ba bustled around the small, flowery kitchen, making us our favorite meal: macaroni and cheese with a dash of ketchup.

She sang along to the Indian songs playing on the radio. We watched the cooking show Dada had on the TV.

I had shut my eyes for only a moment before Ba called for us to wash our hands. My sister and I ran to the dining room. We slid across the slippery wood floors in our socks.

“Stop that! You’ll fall and hurt yourselves!” Ba scolded in Hindi. But the smile on her face always gave her away.  “Hurry up and eat! I have something special in the drawer to show you today.”

The drawer was possibly the most valuable chest of treasures ever to have existed—and it was right upstairs in Ba’s room. We shoveled down the macaroni and raced up the stairs to her room. 

In the bedroom, she had a large dresser. It had an upper compartment and three drawers below.

The upper portion and the first two drawers held her and Dada’s clothes. But the last drawer had trinkets Ba had saved over the years.

Her treasures.

Ba would surprise us with a trinket every time we saw her. From little toy cars to bangles, she always had something. 

We sat cross legged on either side of Ba and watched as she carefully opened the drawer.

It felt as though a light came from the drawer, illuminating our faces as we craned our necks to see inside…