The Daughter Who Walked Away

by Kimia Eslah

  “Okay. Shall we sort that out first?”

  Roy had helped Taraneh secure a room at the YWCA housing complex and convinced her to enroll at the alternative school instead of dropping out. Taraneh had struggled to understand his reasons for helping. She watched him closely as he helped students find housing, apply for welfare, and source food hampers. This old white man who was no relation of hers, who worked on her behalf, and who asked for nothing in return, contradicted one of her mother’s fundamental truths: no one cares for you as much as your family.

  In the three-storey complex where Taraneh rented a room, she was comfortable but there was no sense of community among the young female residents. Except for small talk in the kitchen or greetings in the hallway, the three other women who shared her floor didn’t socialize. Though her roommates were several years older, Taraneh observed that they had many things in common. All of them went to the food bank, and from the collection on the kitchen counter, it seemed that none of them liked canned tuna. Three of them listened to R&B and Motown, and sometimes the same Sam Cooke album played from multiple rooms. In spite of these commonalities, the four women made no effort to become friends. Taraneh, who had never lived with anyone other than her family members, accepted this as normal.

  When she became friends with Avanti and began spending Friday nights at the Groundhog, she had been elated to belong to a group of friends. No longer the outsider, the freak, or the irrelevant one, Taraneh was part of a group who asked after her and cheered when she arrived. On her last day of school, a moment of applause and praise was all she wanted, even if it was a moment squeezed in between sets of jarring songs and pitchers of beer.

  It was intolerable to think that the four new hires, who looked collectively like a full-page ad for Esprit, would encroach on the one place where she felt wanted. In front of the row of vending machines, Taraneh stood paralyzed as she conjured up cruel and dramatic scenarios in which the teenagers caused her friends to reject her. Nearly in tears, she tried to push aside the miserable thoughts and conceive of a plan to save herself from imminent loneliness.

  “The Hostess Ketchup is the best,” said the boy who sat a few steps away from Taraneh.

  Taraneh realized he was speaking to her but she had no interest in engaging him.

  “I mean, if you’re stuck deciding,” said the same boy, the one with the dark windswept hair.

  He walked over to Taraneh and stood to the left of her, facing the vending machine. She stepped to her right and made herself larger. This was a reflexive act she performed when she felt threatened, especially by young men; she stood taller, rolled back her shoulders, puffed out her chest, and put on a stern frown.

  “Maybe you’re more of a Cheetos person?” he asked in a playful tone.

  In the reflection of the vending machine pane, Taraneh could see that he had crossed his arms and seemed to be studying the junk foods. He wore an amused expression and nodded importantly. Quickly, she put her coins into the pop machine, pressed the button, and waited impatiently for the can to drop.

  “Ah, a fine vintage of soda,” said the boy in mock appreciation. “Orange Crush, good choice.”

  Without looking at him or speaking, Taraneh left the staff room. On the way out for her smoke break, she found the hallways and elevator empty. Everyone was already halfway through their break. Avanti and Danny were smoking in their usual spot, around the side of the building and facing the evening rush hour traffic on Mt. Pleasant Avenue.

  Danny had started working at the call centre a few months prior. In his early thirties, he was well-spoken, tall and muscular, but his appearance and mannerisms gave Taraneh the impression that he preferred to be younger than his age. Danny dressed in t-shirts, cut-off jeans, and army boots, all in black. In his happy-go-lucky way, Danny talked incessantly about the merits of grunge rock and the new bands emerging from Seattle and Washington. Most of his spending money went to buying pitchers of beer and tickets for rock shows at Lee’s Palace, on Bloor St. in the Annex. Taraneh pretended to understand his references, out of respect for his enthusiasm and to avoid seeming immature.

  The Annex was a neighbourhood that Taraneh associated with thrift stores, pubs, and dingy coffee shops. For a time when she wasn’t earning enough as a dishwasher, she had panhandled at the corner of Bloor and Bathurst along with the squeegee kids, who cleaned the windshields of cars stopped at red lights. Taraneh had felt defeated after a few weeks of sitting on grimy sidewalks and receiving disapproving looks from passersby, only to collect a sum that was too meagre to pay for groceries.

  It had been summer, and she had thought that she might enjoy hanging out with the street punks and getting high. For two weeks in a row, she had spent the afternoons washing dishes, the evenings panhandling, and the nights getting high with the street kids. Taraneh had been happy to drop acid or snort PCP because the drugs offered a few hours’ break from her real life. When she was high, she didn’t think about the heartbreak of parents who disliked her or the complications of being a child and an adult.

  Despite the nightly relief from getting high, after a few weeks it became too difficult to spend time with the street punks. She lived in a reality that was worlds away from theirs. To Taraneh, panhandling was a useless loop: she would panhandle enough money to get high, and then get high to forget about needing to panhandle. She envisioned a future with a steady, well-paying job, but she was uncomfortable talking about her future with the street kids. Nearly all of them struggled with drug addictions. Few of them had more than a grade nine education. None of them expected any improvement in their situation. Their most exciting news had concerned new tattoos and one-time cheques. Taraneh had feigned enthusiasm until the day that going down to the Annex lost all appeal.

  Riding the subway home from work and eavesdropping on a couple of veteran vagrants, she had learned how to supplement her scant supply of groceries. The next day, she started to volunteer at the newly opened, five-storey warehouse of the Daily Bread Food Bank. On the first floor of the 1920s brick building, Taraneh sorted cans and cartons. At any time during her shift, she could head to the third-floor cafeteria to eat a hot meal and pack a few items for home. Often, she began her meals with a chocolate chocolate-chip muffin the size of her two fists. In the corner of the small cafeteria, she sat at the same stained Formica table, faced the wall, and avoided conversation with the other volunteers. She wasn’t averse to the others but she felt content to sit in solitude and eat as much as she liked. The pervasive hunger pains that had preoccupied her since she began living on her own were finally remedied.

  In her shared kitchen, she struggled to cook appetizing meals, dinners as enticing and fulfilling as her mother prepared. Her homemade macaroni and cheese, noodle soup, or spaghetti never smelled or tasted mouth-watering. She would eat an entire pot of food and still feel hungry for something more substantial, something with meat, vegetables, and spices. At the Daily Bread cafeteria, she could eat a proper meal and try dishes that she’d previously only heard of, like scalloped potatoes, meat loaf, and shepherd’s pie. Shyly, she would ask the servers for a small helpings of each dish before sneaking back into her usual corner. She worried that she’d be called out as an imposter, a person who didn’t need to be there, who didn’t deserve to be there. She felt certain that if the administrators knew that she came from a middle-class home, that her parents had a large TV set and gold-plated cutlery, they would oust her and deny her assistance. When these fears manifested, her eyes filled with tears, her jaw trembled, and she hunched over her plate of food to avoid exposure. To reassure herself that she was deserving of their food, Taraneh worked extra hard. She even grew to enjoy her reputation among the older volunteers, particularly when they began to call her Terry the Terminator.

  After work and volunteering, she would return home to get high alone and replay the conversations of the day. Sometimes, she had a beer. Usually, she had a dime bag of weed or e
nough roaches to roll a fat joint. Always, she had enough to pass out. Chain-smoking cigarettes in her room, she spent the rest of the night listening to Patti Schmidt on CB and deliberating whether she was a good person. People tell me I’m good, thought Taraneh, but they probably have low standards. Or they might just be being nice. Taraneh would remind herself of a few of her mother’s fundamental truths: trust your family to tell you the truth about yourself; trust people to tell you lies to avoid upsetting you. She found it difficult to banish these beliefs from her worldview. Trying to balance her skepticism, she reasoned, My mother loves me and wants my happiness. She gave me advice to help me, not hurt me.

  In her sober contemplations, Taraneh perceived a world of black and white choices, wrong and right decisions. The road she walked was grey, cluttered, and painful. She lived life on her own terms but in hurtful proximity to her parents. Their disapproval and disregard hadn’t diminished with distance, and she had ceased crafting openings for them to offer their sympathy or admit their faults. Instead of an independent life filled with agency, she lived an injured life filled with such agony that most days she didn’t want to live at all.

  The road ahead had spilt into two distinct paths that would never meet. The path bathed in glorious light was an existence where she returned to her parents and to being wanted. She could change to be the daughter they approved of. Growing out her hair and changing her wardrobe seemed to be simple undertakings. Her rock albums and punk zines were dispensable. The most difficult change required her to be demure and compliant. Remembering her childhood use of physical pain to banish her unattractive habits, she wondered whether it might work again.

  The other path began as a shadowy lonesome trail, with deformed silhouettes lurking in the distance that hinted at a stark existence awaiting her. This was the future where she distanced herself entirely from her parents. Indeed, she didn’t depend on them for anything. The thought of severing ties with her parents scared Taraneh viscerally. Her chest cavity hardened into a rigid mass, her throat constricted, and her jaw clenched. She became crippled with sobbing gasps. To stop her mounting anxiety and regain composure, Taraneh learned to apply intense pain. Smashing the side of her head against a wall was the fastest tactic. Sudden jarring sensations engrossed her awareness wholly and left her with one longing, to sleep. This darkened path that excluded her parents also shut out their uncaring tactlessness, their unsolicited judgments, and their unwavering belief that the cause of their woes rested with Taraneh. Though a life without her parents triggered her anxiety, the thought of a life without their mind games gave her pause. She was aware that many people carried on without a relationship with their parents. They seem like they’re doin’ fine, Taraneh thought about two of her twenty-something roommates, each estranged from their parents. Then again, they’re white and they do things differently.

  Taraneh studied the non-whites around her, including Danny, who had refused to see his parents following a heated argument, a decade earlier. When she pressed him about his estrangement, he had talked fervently for a few minutes before his cadence slowed and his expression saddened. Over the course of a smoke break, Danny had confided that he had fought his father for control of his future.

  “My dad is obsessed with success. I know, stereotypical immigrant,” Danny had started, smoking agitatedly. “With him, there is no finish line.”

  Mr. Truong often reminded his children, typically at the heels of a common childhood complaint, that their family was fortunate to escape South Vietnam during the first wave of asylum seekers, before Canada’s progressive yet tightened immigration policy of 1976. Despite his well-intentioned soliloquy, the disgruntled child, who sat respectfully through Mr. Truong’s sermon, left feeling invalidated and disaffected. An authoritarian figure, Mr. Truong misconstrued the children’s attentive silence and compliant response, “Có cha. Yes, father,” to mean acceptance and agreement.

  “My dad founded the only Vietnamese Catholic church in our borough,” Danny said with a hint of pride. “He got it going right after we arrived in Toronto. You know, refugees from Vietnam.”

  Taraneh nodded but truthfully she knew very little about the Vietnam War, or any war. She made a mental note to look it up the next time that she went to the library.

  “Even before he got here, my dad knew he was going to build his church,” Danny took a drag. “Probably, he figured that shit out on the flight from Hong Kong.”

  In Vietnam, Mr. Truong had served as president of Huế University and upheld the Catholic foundations of the school. A driven person with a severe disposition, he had mapped out his family life, his professional life, and the lives of his five children. Danny was the eldest. In Huế, Danny had nearly completed secondary school and Mr. Truong had already enrolled him in the joint science and business program at the university. When he immigrated, Danny was seventeen years old and he had a new future, dutifully planned by his father.

  “All the time, he’d tell me that he was very proud of me,” Danny had said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head in memory. “Yeah, only when I did what he said.”

  At the time, Danny had been content to follow his father’s directives to complete a three-year finance degree, serve in their church, and live at home to help with the household. “It was an easy enough to do what he said. I mean, he wanted the best for me,” Danny had said in a sympathetic tone. “I just got really tired of hearing him say that they came here for us, that we shouldn’t waste this opportunity.”

  Taraneh marvelled at how closely Danny’s description of his father resembled the stereotype of a domineering immigrant parent and a defiant child. Yet, Taraneh could relate to it, to some degree. She heard the same lines from her father. She sensed the same pressure to succeed. She felt the same guilt when she deviated. The civil war in her home was a confrontation between two righteous factions. Her parents feared that any act of rebellion was an attack on their cultural identity and morality. When Taraneh wore tattered clothes or listened to loud music, her parents felt insulted. They interpreted her behaviour as evidence that she had been corrupted by the ominous influence of Canadian culture. They ignored memories of their own past when they also broke with convention to dress in Western clothes and dance in jazz clubs. Their overwhelming concern for Taraneh blocked out rationality and drowned out her appeal for empathy.

  Over the first two years of high school, Taraneh had asserted her right to self-determination but the result had been a series of ineffective battles. Each time her parents disliked her clothes, her friends, or her music, she had argued for her rights and presented her laurels for credibility. It had been a useless exercise, repeated time and again. Her parents hadn’t wanted to hear about her honour roll status because good grades weren’t achievements, they were requisites. They hadn’t wanted to hear about her work around the house because being helpful at home was not praiseworthy, it was customary. Most of all, they hadn’t wanted to hear about what was normal for teenagers because fitting in with Canadians was not important, it was a trap. Her parents didn’t negotiate or compromise. They demolished her defence with their contingency arsenal of one nuclear bomb: we came to Canada to give you a better life. What a cliché, Taraneh thought.

  Taraneh remembered an argument about wearing jeans that were torn open at the knees. She had been eating breakfast before school when her father noticed her ripped jeans. He had ordered Taraneh to change into proper clothes. Despite the reasonable volume of his voice, everyone at the table had stopped eating but continued to look at their plates. When Taraneh refused to change, her father had pounded a fist on the table and yelled at her. Taraneh remembered quivering and her voice squeaking when she had argued that other people at school wore the same clothes.

  At their mother’s subtle cue, Nassrin and Omid had bolted from the room. When Taraneh had stood to show her father that she was wearing tights underneath, he had yelled even louder.

  “We came her
e for you, Taraneh. So you could have a better life,” her father had hollered. “Not to throw your life away like this.”

  “I am not throwing my life away!” Taraneh had protested. “They’re just pants.”

  “Taraneh, your father and I want you to succeed. You’re a good girl,” her mother had said diplomatically. “What about your nice black pants?”

  “There is nothing wrong with these pants,” Taraneh had exclaimed, waving her hands in frustration.

  “Not for a slut. Is that what you want to be?” Her father had glared at her with a furious expression. “Huh?”

  Incredulous at her father’s question, Taraneh had stormed off to her room to change. At school, she struggled to explain herself to Jennifer Ward, her closest friend.

  “I know what you mean,” Jennifer had said as she crammed her bulky winter coat into her locker. “This morning, I told my mom I didn’t want to wear this stupid coat. She didn’t get it. It makes me look like a loser. No, worse. I look like a fat loser.”

  Jennifer had puffed out her cheeks and waddled into Taraneh, who laughed along with the joke. There was little satisfaction in venting about her parents to Jennifer. Certainly, Mr. and Mrs. Ward employed their own parenting tactics, but they had never referred to the heart-wrenching sacrifice of leaving their homeland or the subsequent onus on their children to succeed beyond measure. Jennifer saw her teenage experience reflected in the storylines of rebellious characters on screen. Similarly, Mr. and Mrs. Ward accepted Jennifer’s defiance as a stage in her normal transition to independence. No one demanded Jennifer to be exceptional; no one deserted her if she wasn’t.

  Having grown up with the same depictions of teenage rebellion, Taraneh accepted tentatively that her angst was warranted. When she and Jennifer had exited onto bustling Yonge St. after watching The Breakfast Club at the Uptown Theatre, Jennifer had grabbed her arm with both hands and exclaimed, “I am totally Allison! Right?”