All We Have Left

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016

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Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “Alia”

Alia is unable to accept the fact that the punishment administered by her parents will preclude her attendance at the NYU program, noting that “I dare to dream, and they wallop it into oblivion” (36). She also reflects that, due to the tension in the family, her decision to wear the hijab, “[…] a white scarf covered with swirling yellow designs and delicate flowers in green and crimson” (37), has created a challenge in terms of coordinating other clothing items. Hoping that music will lift her mood, Alia is immediately admonished by her mother for annoying the neighbors. Imposing, despite her petite stature, Mama thinks that Alia’s decision to wear the scarf that morning is a joke made in retaliation for being grounded, or a ploy to cajole them into reconsidering their action. Alia wonders why Mama wants to make her feel “[…] like something she needs to wipe off her shoe” (39). As their argument escalates in the kitchen, Mama notes that Alia often fails to consider the consequences of her actions, e.g., the pain experienced by her parents when Alia had run away the previous year. Mama makes it clear that the parental decision remains unchanged and that Alia will see them in the principal’s office later that day. Alia fantasizes about what Lia’s reaction would have been: “Imay not be the person you want me to be, but I am trying to be the person I want to be, and isn’t that good enough?” (43). Instead, Alia advises her mother that she hates her, and flees the room.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Jesse”

Jesse advises her more socially-conservative friends, Teeny, Myra and Emi, that she has phoned Nick. Her sense of having been invisible to her own parents that afternoon had motivated her to do this, since she felt that Nick might understand this feeling. Much to the studious Emi’s chagrin, the study date is immediately curtailed in order to outfit Jesse appropriately for her upcoming meeting with Nick, whom Teeny characterizes as “Just not your style” (46) and Myra declares to be “…more than passingly weird” (46).

Myra notes that she hopes to meet a boy who writes poems for her and holds her hand, although the more cynical Jesse doubts the existence of such a creature. She does express the hope that Nick will be the sort of person who will listen to her, but she senses a nagging feeling that Nick is an unsafe prospect. Given the tumultuous state of her family life, Jesse feels a sense akin to the fear experienced in mountain climbing: that she is ready to drop down a cliff face without having tied a knot in her rope.

Jesse arrives at Nick’s house and finds him lounging on an unmade bed in a room decorated with murals that he has painted on the walls. She notes a dog lying beside him, and Nick explains that “My brother likes to get her drunk and watch her fall down the stairs” (51). He leads Jesse out the door, explaining that they are about to go “bombing.” Jesse doesn’t understand this reference, but describes herself as being “all in” (51), while realizing that Nick is aware of this.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Alia”

Alia leaves the family home to go to school and meets with her brother, Ridwan, who notes that she gives her mother “[…] a lot to worry about” (53). Ridwan, who calls himself “Ricky” at school, has a Filipino girlfriend of whom his parents are unaware and allows many people to believe that he is Hispanic. Good-natured and affectionate toward his sister, he advises her to “chill out” (53) occasionally.

Alia meets her friends en route to the subway: Tanjia, who is of American and Trinidadian descent, and Kaitlin. They help her to adjust her new hijab, and take a picture to commemorate the first day that it was worn. The trio discusses Alia’s now-forbidden attendance at the NYU program, and the much-anticipated sequel of the adventures of Lia, Alia’s comic-book heroine.

Alia realizes that she has forgotten her gym clothes, and rushes back home to retrieve them. She enjoys gym, and, in view of her current punishment at home, does not want to get into trouble with the gym teacher. The group disperses as Alia heads back home.

Chapter 8 Summary: “Jesse”

As Nick leads Jesse to his car on the way to their mystery destination, he suddenly says, “Your brother’s dead, huh?” (59). Recalling the image of her mother sleeping next to the birthday cake, Jesse responds in the affirmative. Nick pulls off the roadside and introduces Jesse to a young man named Dave, whom Jesse realizes is Nick’s older brother. Dave lost a leg in Afghanistan several years earlier. Hailey Brinson, who was referred to by Jesse’s friends as “Hook-Up-Hailey,” and is reportedly in love with Nick, also joins the group.

Nick merely states that they will start in the bathroom since “They’ve already buffed us out…” (61), and that Jesse will serve as a lookout. Unaware of her specific task, or the errand at hand, Jesse stands outside the restroom and starts to smell paint. The others zip up there bags and exit, while Nick invites her to look at their handiwork scrawled on the bathroom wall: “NOTHING” (62), the same word sported on his tattoo. He explains that it is their “tag.” Over the course of the evening, Nick repeats the word in spray paint behind a gas station, on a bank, a bus, and on closed stores. When they are pursued down an alley, Jesse’s mountain-climbing experience allows her to climb a fence; she helps the faltering Hailey to vault over the top by extending her hand. Nick exults in the triumph of painting graffiti images without being caught, and kisses Jesse as part of the celebration.

The following day, Jesse’s girlfriends complain that she has failed to return their texts on the preceding evening. Nick interrupts their conversation when he leads Jesse away from her friends in order to eat lunch with Dave, Hailey and himself. Without prior confirmation from Jesse, Nick advises his brother that she will help them procure spray paint. Jesse feels that she is “[…] blowing up the box” and that it is “[…] dangerous, and wonderful and completely necessary” (67). The chapter ends as Nick declares that Jesse is part of the crew, and that Hailey will have to accept this as a fact.

Chapters 5-8 Analysis

Alia has a characteristic clash with her mother at the beginning of Chapter 5, when Mama chastises her for playing loud rock music in the early morning. As is her pattern, Alia compares her own impulsive reactions to these quarrels with those of the more rational, philosophical female superhero of her own creation, Lia. Hurt by her mother’s implication that Alia has chosen to wear the hijab on this day in order to sway her parents’ decision to forbid her attendance at an NYU afterschool program, she is angered by the fact that Mama fails to see the many ways in which she has changed for the better. Mama reminds Alia of the pain caused when she ran away from home for two days the preceding year, emphasizing the importance of maturity and responsibility.

This mother-daughter conflict is revisited in Chapter 7, when Alia’s more relaxed, easygoing brother, Ridwan, suggests that she try to “chill out every once in a while” (53). He avoids conflicts with their parents; while he has been instructed to accompany, and protect, his sister while they travel to school, the siblings have a tacit agreement that precludes him from doing so. Alia meets her friends, Kaitlin and Tanjia, on the way to school. They take a photo of Alia to commemorate her first day wearing a hijab. Alia leaves them to rush home to retrieve her forgotten gym clothes. Both the photo of Alia wearing her scarf and the dramatic impact of the clash with her mother will figure dramatically in the conclusion of the book. The ongoing theme of the triviality of mundane relationship conflicts when viewed from the perspective of imminent death is woven throughout the book.

Chapter 6 finds Jesse advising her friends Emi, Myra and Teeny that she has agreed to meet Nick that afternoon. They imply that he may be an inappropriate boyfriend. Jesse is mesmerized by him, despite her realization that “He’s not safe” (48). She meets Nick at his house and he leads her out on an unexplained errand. Jesse realizes that Nick, his brother, Dave, and “Hook-Up-Hailey” Brinson are painting graffiti slogans on local restrooms and buildings, while Jesse serves as a lookout. Their message is the same word that composes Nick’s tattoo: NOTHING. This sense of meaninglessness is evidenced in Nick’s behavior; the author eventually seeks to rebut this worldview by depicting the emotional solidarity that existed among the victims of 9/11 during their escape attempts, and that of the survivors of the tragedy.

Jesse’s increasing sense that she is a non-person in the eyes of her unhappy, withdrawn parents leaves her vulnerable to Nick’s cynicism and diffident attention. She fails to respond to attempts made by her girlfriends to reach her, and she leaves them at lunch when he acts in a proprietary fashion and assumes that she will eat with himself and his fellow graffiti artists, Dave and Hailey. Foreshadowing upcoming events in the book, Nick assumes that Jesse will help procure spray paint for the group; without consulting her, he announces that “Jesse is part of the crew now” (67). Despite his apparently radical worldview, Nick is archaic in his assumptions regarding Jesse’s function in their relationship. It is only when Jesse learns to value herself more that she is able to gain a more accurate view of Nick’s character.