“Something to remember me by.”
“I will see you again,” Ranee had said, insistent. “America is not so far away.”
But her mother was not listening, her attention already on one of the other children. A year after their arrival to America, Ranee received notice that her mother had passed on and her father had married a widow from a neighboring village. Ranee took the sari from her closet and tucked it away in a drawer so she wouldn’t think of the mother she barely knew.
There are pictures of the girls’ childhood birthday parties alongside dozens of Brent. He loved having his picture taken when they traveled. Like a child, he would hand the camera to Ranee and slip in next to the three girls, whether it was standing in front of the Grand Canyon or the monuments in Washington, DC. Marin’s and Sonya’s smiles turned into thin lines as they stood rod still, afraid of doing anything to rile his anger. Only Trisha seemed relaxed, unafraid of his presence.
Ranee roams over the other photographs, realizing there are none of her. She checks again to make sure. But she was always the one behind the camera, instructed by Brent on how to focus and aim for the right shot. Never did he ask to take one of her, her beauty emblazoned forever on paper. The irony was the daughter he hated the most was the only one who shared his passion for photography.
“What are you doing in here?” Sonya flips on the light, squinting to help her eyes adjust. “Mom?”
“I saw Gia.” The wound still open and bleeding, Ranee has no idea how to stop the gushing blood. “She knows.”
“How?” Without further explanation, Sonya understands.
“I don’t know.” Ranee takes the pair of scissors she had sat down with and begins to cut. With precise strokes, from every picture, she begins to remove all traces of Brent. “Marin thinks I told her.”
“You didn’t.”
Ranee looks up, nipping her finger with the scissors as a result. “Is that a question?”
Sonya glances at the mutilated pictures, taking her time. “You have no reason to tell her.”
“Yes.” Ranee starts to gather up all the images of Brent. “Gia had permission to be beaten.” Ranee drops the pictures into the trash, a lifetime of memories torn to shreds. “I gave it to her.”
Sonya glances toward the door, making clear her yearning to be elsewhere. “Maybe she just needed an excuse.” She kneels down and begins rifling through the pictures, the faces staring back at her a collage of heartbreak. “I used to hate the birthday parties.”
Ranee is genuinely shocked. “Why?”
“I had to pretend to be happy.”
Suddenly Ranee needs to know the answer to a question she has always wanted to ask but never dared to. “Do you wish we had aborted you?”
Sonya doesn’t look up, doesn’t show any shock at the question. “Yes,” she says simply, “I do.”
“I’m sorry.” Ranee drops her head down, lost in her own home, the revelations of the day too much to handle. “I’m so sorry.”
TRISHA
When I was in second grade, there was a girl, Melinda, who used to torment me daily. Whether it was about my hand-me-down clothes, my braided hair, or the cheap bag Mama said I had to use as a backpack, she was relentless in her teasing. I wasn’t the only one she picked on, however. Nobody unfortunate enough to come to her notice was left unscathed. Melinda was one of the popular girls. With that status, she enjoyed the support of a loyal and large entourage. Her friends were quick to attack whomever Melinda chose that day. If you were the victim, you had no choice but to listen to their taunts. The others didn’t come to your aid out of fear they would be next.
I was so grateful when, in the middle of the year, a teacher overheard Melinda making fun of the roti and sakh I had brought for lunch. The teacher warned Melinda never to say such things again or she would be sent to the principal’s office. The reprieve was my blessing, and I continued happily through second grade, safe in the protection of the teacher’s warning. But it was not to last. Melinda’s mother fell ill and died a few months later. Suddenly, Melinda could do no wrong. A victim of circumstance, she now had a halo over her head.
We were warned to be extra kind to her, to show her empathy, to be good friends. Letters went home telling our parents about the situation. Playdates with Melinda were encouraged, dinners dropped off at their home welcomed. I expected Melinda to become a new person, to be humbled by her loss. But if cheetahs don’t change their spots, then cruelty within humans has no chance. Melinda returned to her evil ways and for two years made my life hell. Only when her father moved them out of town did I get my freedom. But I learned an important lesson I have never forgotten—with weakness comes great power.
As soon as I heard about Gia, I considered texting Eric. He always had a soft spot for her and would want to know she had been hurt. In the end, I refused to use the excuse to reach out, no matter how much I yearned to. At a loss about how to help Gia, I went shopping. Hours I spent perusing aisles of knickknacks, trying to find just the right things that would brighten Gia’s day. A few stuffed animals, tons of chocolate, some newly released CDs of her favorite artists that I recalled her talking about, and a diary, among other things.
I drop by without calling. My mistake, since no one except the housekeeper is home. I leave the basket with a note for Marin to call me, knowing she won’t. If it wasn’t for Mama, I never would have known what happened.
As I’m settling back into my car, my phone buzzes. I’m expecting Mama, and my heart rate accelerates when I see it’s Eric.
Do you have time to talk?
Yes, I do. Absolutely. Like a schoolgirl, I text back in seconds.
With our lawyers.
The phone drops onto the leather seat. Sweat lines my hand, dampening it. He wants to make the separation permanent, no going back. Unable to text back, I drive. Aimlessly at first, then to run irrelevant errands. I pick up dry cleaning and then groceries for one. Arriving home, I see a forgotten embossed invitation to a charity luncheon on the counter. Glancing down at my outfit, I decide my slacks and summer blouse will do. Leaving the milk and eggs on the counter, I head out, anxious to make it on time.
“Trisha,” they exclaim on my arrival, “we weren’t expecting you!”
No, I imagine they weren’t. Bad news spreads faster than good as a rule. Everyone knew that Eric had left the house, but no one knew why. They would have made guesses, finding proof in their own minds to support their theories. No one could have imagined the truth. “I wouldn’t have missed it,” I say, faking a smile.
I sit with my friends around a table, laughing at whatever they say. We talk about mundane things, the weather, local fashion, and Hollywood gossip, as if those lives affected ours. A few catty comments about locals, but nothing too abrasive for fear it may be repeated and credit given. Checks are made out for a local charity, the flavor of the month. I take out my checkbook, ready to donate as I always do, and ask the name of the charity.
“It’s the shelter in San Francisco for women and children victims of domestic violence,” a friend from years past tells me, signing her own check with a flourish, her manicured nails perfectly done. “God, I can’t imagine what those people go through. Can you?”
No, I want to say, keeping up the illusion I have created, but I can’t. Instead, I start to write but my hand begins to shake. My father is lying in a coma. Eric wants me gone from his life forever. My niece—our future, beaten. No straw breaks the camel’s back. Instead it is an avalanche. I stare at the wine goblet and wonder what it would feel like to throw it against the wall. Disturb the perfect setting I have lost myself in. Glass doesn’t break cleanly. It shatters into a million pieces, making it impossible to put back together. Leaving the glass untouched, I stand, the check unwritten.
“Yes, I can imagine,” I say to the group, shocking them into silence. My friends for years, but not one of them knows as I was sure there wasn’t anything to tell. “I know what they go through because I watched it my
entire childhood.” A tree that falls in a forest doesn’t make a sound because no one is there to hear it. Believing that, I hid my past, sure it didn’t exist if I didn’t speak of it.
“Trisha, what are you talking about?” another friend asks, staring at me like I’m a stranger. “That’s impossible.”
I had tried so hard to make it seem as if it were, but I was fatigued by the act. The façade was harder to maintain than I realized. I had convinced myself that if I mastered the part, if I was queen of the stage, then I would become the person I was playing. But the mask has started to slip and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to keep it in place. Accepting the past that belongs to me I murmur, “I wish it were.” Meeting their shocked gazes, I stare at the friends I called my own. “My father beat my sisters and mom our entire childhood.” Sure I can feel their disgust, I turn away, wondering if this is how Sonya and Marin feel every day of their lives.
“I’m sorry,” a friend whispers, covering my hand with her own. “We never knew.”
Caught off guard by her sympathy, I lower my head in shame for where I come from, where I’m standing, and for not knowing where I’m going. With nothing left to lose, I return to my empty car and continue to drive aimlessly.
It is a formal conference room. Upon entering, I immediately notice the drapes and fabric of the chairs. The table is expensive, cut from cherrywood. Eric is already seated with a woman dressed in a suit. She is a partner at the firm, I’m sure. He wouldn’t settle for any less. Power demands power—the rules of the game are set.
“Where is your lawyer?” Eric demands, the first words he’s spoken to me since he left our house weeks ago.
“I don’t have one.” I am not trying to be obtuse or difficult. It just seems superfluous to me when we haven’t decided what the next step is. “I thought we could talk.”
“I’m not paying five hundred dollars an hour to my attorney for us to talk,” Eric bites out.
I try to gather my senses. This is not the man I knew, the one I married. The man whose smell still permeates every room of our house and reminds me of a time when I was happy. “Then why are we here?”
“To discuss the settlements of the divorce.” His attorney takes over, talking to me as if I’m a wayward child, needing to be spoken to slowly and with explanation.
“You want a divorce?” I ignore her, staring at my husband instead. “That’s it? We’re over?”
“I think it’s best if we keep the conversation to details about finances and division of property,” the woman says, ice in every word. “Eric is prepared to be very generous with alimony. I understand you have no means of income.”
She sees me as a kept woman, one who is easily bought and dismissed. Whereas she is someone used to taking over, to being in charge. But I am not in the mood to be taken charge of. “We’re over?” I ask again, ignoring her, facing Eric. “Because of a child?”
“Because you lied to me,” Eric answers, no longer able to stay silent. “Because I trusted you.”
You lied to me, I want to yell, fighting back tears. “You told me you would love me no matter what,” I say, throwing his words back at him. I ache to tell him that his belief that a family makes everything perfect is flawed. But I stay silent, remaining the holder of our secret. He can never learn that every scar, even those invisible to the naked eye, was once an open wound. “I guess we both lied.”
“If that’s how you see it,” he says. “There’s nothing left to say.”
We have reached an impasse. There is no turning back, no retreat that will make this right. The game is set, the final hand ready to be played. My father’s voice whispers in my ear, a memory from long ago that I had forgotten. I was playing with neighborhood children, each of us riding our bikes. I had yet to fully grasp the basics and kept falling off, fear driving me to be cautious. Enough teasing and I couldn’t help the tears that flowed. Escaping into the house, I ran right into my father’s arms. With a gentleness saved only for me, he wiped them away and said, “You are so special. Don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.”
“You’re right,” I say, returning to the present. Turning away from him and facing her, I show her who I really am. “There’s no need for alimony. I’ll be moved out of his house by month’s end.” I push my chair back, ready for it to be over. Walking toward the door, I look back to see Eric staring at me silently. I want to say good-bye, but I don’t.
I end up where I have never left—beside my father. I sit next to his bed, his chest rising and falling in perfect synchronicity with the respirator. I take his hand in mine, his cold seeping into my warmth, chilling me. I had hoped for the opposite—he had been the shelter from the storm, the one safe place I could rely on. When your anchor becomes unmoored, you are left to the whims of the vast ocean, unsure where it may lead you but forced to hold on nonetheless. “I have no one left,” I say to him. “I’m all alone.”
I wait and wait, watching for anything to give me hope. A sign that will lead the way, guide me to an answer for a question that remains unasked. But my road remains unpaved, with no marker to give me direction. But then history has proven that the events that uproot your life, the ones that remain so deep in the recesses of your mind that you can’t even imagine them, let alone fear them, are the ones that come without warning. No compass can lead you away from them, no alarm can caution you. They happen, and when they do you must make a choice—allow the wave to wash over you until there is nothing left but blessed blackness or fight with everything, even if in the process of struggling to survive you fill your lungs with salt water.
“I thought that’s why I stayed,” Sonya says quietly, arriving just as I spoke aloud.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, standing quickly, uncomfortable she heard me.
“I work here,” she reminds me.
“No,” I motion around the room. “Here. In Papa’s room.” Her uneasiness clearly matches mine, both of us wary. She glances around, as if avoiding my question. But I don’t let her evade the question. “You’re here to visit him,” I say, realizing.
“Yes.”
Saying anything else would be a lie, I can tell. She doesn’t bother, since I have known from childhood all of her telltale signs of lying. I used to catch her when we were children and hold it over her like an ax ready to fall unless she did my bidding. Fearing repercussions from my father, she always danced to the tune I played. Now I wonder if I too wasn’t a puppet, like all of them, the strings visible to everyone but me.
“How did it feel?” I say, softening as shame fills me. I think of the luncheon, charities set up to protect families like mine. “When he hit you?”
She takes a step back, ready to run. It’s a question I never asked, didn’t dare to. Hearing the truth would have changed Papa in my eyes into a man I couldn’t conceive. Even as I saw him beat them, I convinced myself that wasn’t really him. It was a mirage fueled by anger or disappointment and maybe, maybe it was just as much their fault as it was his. If only they could be more of what he wanted, needed, then they too would be safe.
“Like there was nothing left of me but the imprint of his hand,” she says, her voice a mere whisper above the roar in my ears. “He owned me. I was a vessel for his rage.”
“Then how are you surviving without him?” I ask, instinct driving the question. I know Marin and Sonya’s legs were cut from beneath them. They learned to walk with prosthetics, the true part of them taken away by force.
Something flitters across her eyes, a story untold. A secret she won’t tell. “By trying to forget.”
The young girl is walking down the hallway, her hands limp by her sides. Her throat is raw, her screams having gone unheard. The darkness is now welcome to hide the sins of her soul. There is only empty air all around her but she still can’t catch her breath. Gasping, she tries to remember her name, but even something as simple as that escapes her. She tries a door and finds it open. Finally, since every other one has been shut to h
er, refusing her refuge. She enters the pristine bathroom but the light has gone out.
Blackness causes her to stumble, hitting her head. Feeling wetness on her face, she touches her forehead. Even in the night, she can see the blood marking her hands. She hits the light switch, then she turns on the water, washing it off. Taking a hand towel, she wipes her temple, removing any residual proof of her wound. After, she throws the towel in the sink, watching with detached fascination as the blood seeps from it and swirls around the drain until disappearing from view. Once the water runs clear, she splashes some on her face, until she can recognize the face in the mirror.
I let go of Papa’s hand, a shiver running up my spine. Wrapping my arms around me, I ward off a chill. I have lost my footing. Thoughts of Eric, Papa, Gia—ghosts of the still-living—circle. Feeling my grip on sanity start to slip, my body begins to shiver.
“Hey,” Sonya says gently, her hand slowly covering my own. “You’re OK.” Cradling my hands in hers, she pulls me close with her other arm. And then, for the first time in our lives, we reverse our roles. Now she is the one holding me tightly, our clasped hands still between us, a bridge vulnerable to collapse. “Trisha, you’re going to be fine.”
Sonya is the sister I have loved because I had to. She arrived after me and followed me around like a puppy dog. Looked up to me, no matter what I did. All the childish cruelty that only children can create never swayed her reverence. She was in awe, and in her eyes, I could do no wrong. How many times, I wonder, did I take advantage of that? I’ve lost count of the times I accepted her worship as my right. Now, I realize that, for all the times I convinced myself she was fortunate to have me in her life, maybe I too was lucky.
“You don’t know that,” I whisper, sure she is wrong. I lay my head on her shoulder, the little strength I have acquired over the years seeping out of me. My father, my pillar, lay dying, but the one holding me up is the little girl I believed had never learned to stand.
Trail of Broken Wings Page 21