six
Maybe the fumes from the bake and cheese went to his head, or it could be that I finally did something right, because Dad comes to pick me up from the gym the next day for some extra quality bonding time.
I’m sparring when I see him watching from the doorway.
He looks…proud? I mean, I’m doing pretty well if I do say so myself, so why wouldn’t he be? I guess it’s just a new feeling, is all, and it’s super freaking weird to see him there. He usually has other things to do, like…okay, I can’t really think of what else he does when he comes up from Trinidad. Whatever it is, it’s not picking me up from anything. Dad’s a big believer in using Ma’s car while other people take public transit.
“How’s your Mommy been?” he asks, as we walk to the parking lot.
“Good.” I can feel the sweat cooling on my body, turning sticky. I don’t mind taking the train in this stench, but I am glad for the ride. Even though I’d never say it to him.
“She working a lot?”
I shrug. “I guess.” Ma always works a lot, though. So it’s not been much different.
“She going out and seeing she friends on the weekend?”
What’s with the interest in Ma’s whereabouts and weekend activities all of a sudden? “I don’t know. I’ve been busy with school,” I say, because I’m not going to snitch on anybody. Even if Ma was missing for months, I still wouldn’t tell him.
It doesn’t look like he believes me but suddenly he grins and puts a hand on my shoulder like we’re old pals. The thing about my dad is that when he smiles it really suits him. You’re not supposed to tell people they should smile more because they look better when they do, but with him it’s actually true. I can almost see what Ma sees in him when he’s like this.
Almost but not quite.
On the drive home, he asks some questions about school and I tell him about my plans to be in business management. He likes the sound of that a lot but flat out tells me I should get a part-time job to supplement my student loans for college because he’s saving for his retirement.
I nod and say that’s a great idea but obviously it isn’t. How can I train, go to school and work? This is why I lost my job at Foot Locker. It’s like the man doesn’t even know me.
I should ask Kru if there are any tourneys with cash prizes. Maybe when I turn pro.
* * *
For the next several days I just try to live my best life before I have to get a job to pay for college, on top of everything else. I tell Ma about the conversation in the car.
“He picked you up from the gym?” she asks again. She’s frowning. I guess we’re both shook by that. “Why did he want to know about how I spend my weekends? Don’t I deserve a break, too?”
She’s completely missing the point about how getting a job would interfere with my training. I try to explain it to her, but she waves it away. “Tell me again exactly what he asked about me. His exact words, Trisha.”
Does she think I don’t know what exactly means? But I know better than to say that out loud. As I start to recap the whole boring event yet again, she gets a look in her eye that I don’t understand. One that I don’t particularly like. I guess I should be paying better attention.
Toward the end of Dad’s latest stay with us, Aunty K comes to spend the weekend, all spontaneous-like.
Aunty K lives in New York and often spends her holidays with us because she’s alone, never been married or had kids, and has no other options.
So she’s our burden, I guess?
Ma forces me to go to dinner the evening Aunty K arrives, even though she knows I’m trying to cut weight.
“Ma, do I have to go?” I ask. I got a few rounds of sparring in earlier and I’m sore as hell. But also hungry. “Can you bring me some takeout?”
“Get in the car, Trisha,” she snaps.
You know, there’s no talking to her when she’s like this.
I do get in the car, in my elastic-waist sweats because we’re going for Chinese food and I already know how this night is going to end. With me bloated and regretful.
But I’m wrong.
I mean, not really. I do end up bloated and regretful, but that’s not all.
It ends up being the craziest night of my life.
seven
We’re in the car on our way back home. Outside of the restaurant, Ma said I should drive and got in the passenger seat before I could ask if she was sure. It’s raining, one of those fall showers that started in the afternoon and goes into the night. Ever since I got my learner’s permit, Ma has let me drive as much as possible, but it’s weird for me to drive in this wet darkness. Maybe she thinks I need the experience.
We don’t speak.
It feels like we’re waiting for something, even as we coast down our street, into the co-op townhouse complex, and pull into the parking lot.
That something is at home. We can feel it, sense it. Drawing closer.
I don’t want us to go home yet but Ma is tired. I can see it in the circles under her eyes, the set of her jaw. There’s something else, some other look that I might have put there. Nothing I seem to do tonight is right. Ma’s on edge and has been snapping at me more than usual. Aunty K starts to chatter to cut the tension, but this is just for her own benefit.
Maybe the rain is why it happens the way it does. A screech of tires and a dull thud against the front bumper. A scream coming from somewhere. It hurts my ears, rings through my head, blurs my vision…
“Stop,” my mother whispers. Aunty K is silent now, for once.
The scream dies out in my throat.
It seems like forever before Ma gets out of the car to see what we hit. Rather, who. She’s trembling. Kneeling beside Dad. Checking to see if he’s alive.
He’s not.
Before the police come to the crime scene, Ma leaves Aunty K for a moment while she takes me aside. I can’t speak. Now the screaming is done, I have nothing left. She gets real close and we’re now eye to eye. “Listen carefully,” she says. And then she tells me what the story is.
“That’s what happened, okay?” she says, when she’s done.
Why is she so calm? “Okay.”
“Remember: you were driving.”
I nod. It’s true. “I was driving.”
“And you didn’t see him.”
I look away from her. It happened so fast. I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know what anyone saw.