We don’t have any more time to talk because that’s when the police get there. Because I’m shook and I’m babbling and Ma’s right beside me listening to every word I say, this is what I tell the cop: I don’t even think about Dad when he’s around. A long time ago I learned to pretend he wasn’t even there. I have a dad, yeah, but he could be anywhere in the world. Most likely back in Trinidad, at his house he shares with another woman.
Where in Trinidad?
Um, a place called Diego Martin.
And what did he do there?
He could be doing anything, but he’s definitely not doing anything with me.
It sounds bad, that part, so I adjust and say that he owns a garage and he works there, too. Fixing cars. Though I have never in my whole life seen him fix a damn thing. Or get anything, or do anything for himself. He just looked at me and said Missy, pass me this or Missy, go and do that. Missy, am I talking to you? Missy, don’t you have something else to do?
Missy, hey you. Never Trisha, my name.
I try to listen to the cop, but it’s hard because Ma is paying real close attention to what I’m saying, and also to the things that I’m not.
The cop asks some questions, but I start to feel real queasy. Worse than when Noor landed her teep and I threw up over the garbage bin.
“You were driving, right?”
I nod.
“How fast were you going?”
“I don’t remember. I just turned the corner into the parking lot, so probably not fast.” Dinner isn’t sitting well and I’m so nauseous after what happened that I throw up on his shoes.
That ends the interview quick.
The cop already talked to Ma and Pammy. I heard Pammy tell him that she’d seen the whole thing from her window. Now he moves on to Aunty K, who manages to keep all her greasy Chinese food down while he asks her questions about tonight. Questions about Dad.
Apparently Dad had a split lip that didn’t look like it happened during the accident. Aunty K says she doesn’t know anything about that.
He asks why she showed up inexplicably to take me and Ma to dinner. All the way from New York, closing up her roti shop for a few days. She tells him that she just wanted to spend some time with Ma and me. She doesn’t tell him that Dad didn’t come with us because he was never able to look her in the eye, on account of his messed-up relationship with Ma. Maybe that’s why he went out with his friends tonight. Could also be why he was sneaking around in the parking lot in the rain. He didn’t want us to notice him. If so, he did a pretty bad job of staying out of the way. All things considered.
The cop thinks so, too. That he wasn’t good at dodging, especially tonight.
What a tragic accident.
eight
Thank God for Columbus. His constant presence in our house can be a pain sometimes but after the accident, I actually appreciate it.
Two days after Dad dies, I come into the kitchen and no one’s around but him. He’s making a grilled cheese sandwich, and even offers me some of it. He breaks it in two and hands me the smaller piece. “You need to fix the back door. It’s broken or something.”
“You didn’t use your key?” He normally comes in through the front door like he owns the place.
He finishes his half of the sandwich in seconds, still standing, and rummages through the fridge for more food. “My mom has it in her purse and I don’t know where she went. Kind of dangerous to have a broken back door in this neighbourhood, Trish. I put our door blocks in there for you guys, but you should get a new lock.”
Like I don’t know that. “I’ll deal with it,” I say.
But actually, I forget all about it, because it turns out that Ma wants me out of the house almost immediately. Apparently, my studies are the most important thing right now. She says. And she must be right, since she’s been watching me real close ever since Dad died.
So I’m back at school and everyone who knows about the accident treats me like I have the plague. The lunchtime Desis don’t know how to talk to me, so we just play cards and pretend that nobody died. While we sit there eating our PB&J, they silently imply the loss of a father should be a bigger deal. I should be weeping and pulling my hair out like I’m in a Bollywood film or something. But I can’t be bothered because I have training to do and a mother to wonder about.
I can’t stand their pitying looks during our lunchtime card games. Like I’m the broken one. Me. Not Dad.
The only person who acknowledges something is up to my face is the school’s only guidance counsellor, Mrs. Nunez, but she’s too day drunk (as usual) to care that much. I sit in her office, which is full of psychology books I bet she’s never read. She takes her sweet time to go over my file, to remember who I am and why I’ve been sitting in her office for the past five minutes. When she reaches the part in my file where it says my dad just died, she puts on an appropriately concerned expression. I spend about ten minutes saying I’m sad. Yes, it was a tragedy. Horrible. Some other adjectives thrown in. Once, an adverb. She asks if I need help. I say no, because of the warning glances Ma has been shooting me at home.
Omertà, Ma. I get it. My lips are firmly sealed around my mouth guard.
My English teacher hands me a book after class on my first day back. He’s been giving me sad looks ever since he heard about Dad.
“What’s this, Mr. Abdi?” I say, even though I can see it’s clearly a novel.
“Soucouyant, by David Chariandy. A local Trinidadian author. I thought you might want to do your final essay on this. It’s from your culture.”
Okay, hold up. This diversity thing has gotten out of hand. I don’t need to be racially profiled like this! Why can’t I have The Great Gatsby like everyone else? But I don’t say that, obviously. I say thanks and slip the slim volume into my bag. I’ve heard about soucouyants but I don’t know why anybody would want to write a book about some unknown vampires from the Caribbean.
“I hope you take some English classes when you go to college. I think you have something, Trisha.” Then he looks embarrassed, like he shouldn’t have said this at all.
I smile at him like I’m gonna think about it, but what’s the point? I’m on my way to a degree in business management, no matter what he thinks. All this “books improve lives” BS he doles out from time to time falls deaf on our cash-strapped immigrant ears. We all know what’s up. Get good jobs, marry richer or up the colour-line, buy houses, take care of our overworked parents who keep reminding us that they put us into the world and they can take us out of it at any time. We don’t have time for this literature shit. How are we supposed to pay off student loans with an English degree?