I felt that as I looked at my father. What I would never be able to know is if his regret only surfaced because he was caught.
I had become my mother, and she was now Rebecca.
My mother and grandmother had both fought to prevent so much, to achieve that much more, and yet, in some ways, their fight ended with too many losses. Now I knew and saw their predicaments all too well. Could I help change the outcome? How could I protect both my father and mother? How could I keep our family intact? Was it worth it to do so?
My aunts placed themselves like obstacles between my father and mother, between husband and wife. I walked around jiggling the baby, and voices flared, but I couldn’t seem to focus on who was speaking. One aunt turned to me and asked if I had anything to say to my father. What I wanted to tell her was I had something to say to them all, I wanted them to get the hell out, to just give us the space to deal with this as a family, but I couldn’t; that would be disrespectful.
I stroked baby Carly’s hair and planted a kiss on her forehead. I didn’t have any questions. I wanted this whole thing to disappear. Someone took the baby from me, and while I didn’t want to give her up, I did. My mother was slumped on the couch, crying, tissues balled up in her hands. She wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear to see her so broken, and as much as I wanted to fix it, I had this urge to protect my father as well.
Dad, I said really searching his eyes, yuh rheally do wah dey say yuh do? I didn’t need confirmation. I knew the truth, but for some reason I wanted him to say it. In my own way, I did want to punish him, just not the way everyone wanted me to. While I waited for some kind of acknowledgment, I began to think he was going to ignore me, just as he’d been ignoring everyone else.
Why allyuh hah to bring meh dawtah een dis? Yuh eh see allyuh is nasty wutless people? my father said.
Yuh nasty, Dharmendra! my mother said. Not we. Not dem. Yuh is ah nasty stinkin liah.
Her strength returned for a bit and would continue to fluctuate in the coming weeks and months—rising and waning before me like the tides of the Caribbean Sea.
She was right, he was a liar. But I was his daughter, and her family wanted me to be his prosecutor.
WE ENDED UP STAYING in America for some time—my father at his brother’s and us at my grandmother’s. My mother used the few houses in between as a barrier.
It was wintertime and, unaccustomed to the cold, all I wanted to do was find warm pockets in the apartment and go to sleep. I prayed for it to snow so I could go back to the tropics and brag to my friends that while they were sweating to and from school, I caught snowflakes on my tongue just like in the Christmas movies that aired once a year in Trinidad. I thought of how they’d stand back in awe and want to hear more, and I’d stand in the middle, under the hot sun, spinning tales, suppressing my pain. Snow never fell, but I spun tales anyway.
My Auntie Reeya’s genius idea was to throw a party at her house. My mother ironed a dress for me and laid out white stockings and black shoes with silver buckles. I didn’t know where she’d gotten these clothes because I’d never seen them before. Even though I didn’t like any of them, I put them on. She pulled my hair into a ponytail and hairsprayed springy tendrils into place.
Though careful with the way my sister and I looked, my mother was not at all mindful of her own appearance. She stepped out of the shower and halfheartedly blow-dried her hair. Her curls tumbled in limp spirals down her back, not buoyant like normal. There was no make-up on her face and no jewelry on her body, save her wedding set on her left hand.
Tumblers and carafes littered the tables and countertops. Rings of condensation from the bottoms of glasses merged to form pools of water. Gyrating bodies congregated in the living room and the den, and outside on the pool deck. Inebriated, friends and family hooted and hollered while kicking back more shots of Caribbean rum. Under different circumstances I would have been dancing up a storm on their makeshift dance floor, making fun of all the adults getting drunk, and playing games with my cousins in the basement. But my father was locked in the basement, tucked away in the farthest room.
I moved from watching drunk people in the living room to watching my cousins and their friends play video games. They didn’t ask me to join, and I didn’t care. When I found my mother, she was in the kitchen with my aunts. They knocked back shots while my mother nursed a watered-down glass of alcohol.
Lick, slam, suck! they hollered while the golden liquid in the tequila bottle glinted next to them. They tossed bitten wedges of lemon onto the laminated countertop and hissed after each round. They seemed oblivious to their sister moping right next to them. Clumps of people grew smaller and larger around them in the kitchen. They squeezed in and around my aunts and mother, as unconcerned about her as her sisters were.
Some time passed before someone hissed the word divorce again, but when I realized it came from my mother this time and I registered the conviction in her voice, I felt something ripping inside me. One of my aunts pointed her chin in my direction to show my mother I’d heard what she said. I turned and pushed people out of the way to get to the bathroom. My Auntie Reeya followed me. She knocked, called my name, coaxed me to unlock the door. I didn’t want to. I wanted my mother to come and tell me everything would be okay. I wanted my mother to be the one pounding on the door. I wanted my mother. I wanted my mother to be there smiling with my father when I opened the door. This was not happening, I wanted to tell myself, but it was, and so I pulled myself together and unlocked the door.
My aunt drew me to her and rocked me to the sweet soca music blaring in the background, my face in her bosom, tears soaking her blouse. Her embrace felt awkward; her arms were too thin, and she was too short, forcing me to bend into her so she could comfort me the way she wanted, and all I could think as I let her feel better about herself for doing this was I want my mother.
WE RETURNED HOME TO TRINIDAD, but my father slept in the living room, my mother and my sister Colette in the master bedroom in the front, and I slept in my room at the back of the house. In my attempt to not choose a side, I declined my mother’s request for me to sleep with her. Colette, my sister, had always slept in their bed, and she continued to sleep with my mom. I envied my sister’s role, how everything was so simple for her while I felt tormented. Only six years old at the time, she barely remembered anything from these segments of our lives.
When they fought, it was loud. My sister and I cowered in my room, as far away from them as we could get. During all hours of the night my father pulled us from our beds and stood us before them. Yuh muddah wantah break up we family. She eh wahn we toh stay togeddah anymoh. She wahn allyuh chilren toh choose who yuh wantah live wid. So choose! My mother was horrified—eyes and mouth agape. She gathered us up to return us to our rooms.
No, my father yelled, pick nah. Yuh wantah go wid she oh stay wid me?
I was troubled because staying with him seemed to mean I’d be home, the only place I’d known my entire life. Where would my mother go? Do I choose my mother or my father? Does that choice mean home or the unfamiliar? My sister let go of my hand and stumbled over to my father, thumb in mouth and doll dangling from her other hand. It was so easy for her as she wrapped her hand around my father’s thumb. This proved my mother had been away working too much during my sister’s short life. Colette was more attached to our father. My sister called me to follow her, but I couldn’t move.
I looked from my mother to my father.
Dharmendra, my mother said, doh make dem do dis. Ah nevah wanted toh bring dem een de middle ah dis.
My father had a smug look on his face as though he was thinking, One dung and only one toh goh. I saw my mother’s pain. I must think rationally, I told myself—if my sister went with my father then I should go to my mother, one child for each parent. Even if that meant leaving everything behind.
I took my mother’s hand.
The agony I felt inside was clearly printed on my mother’s face, but I had to look closer at
my father to see it. He didn’t want to do this but couldn’t seem to find another way to get my mother’s attention. She spoke only to my sister and me, and so he provoked her through us. His actions were learned from men like him who were planted in the sands of our coast and the men who were rooted there in the island from times before. To communicate openly, cross the waters between him and his wife now, and show true emotion went against everything he’d been taught. Better to continue inflicting pain and now extend it to his children.
Yuh gone by yuh muddah? he said. Dah is yuh choice? Go den. Allyuh goh yuh whey. Me and meh dawtah go stay right hyah.
My mother took my hand and led me to my room. Stay here dahlin, she said. I followed her to the door. She pulled on a pair of sneakers.
Ma, whey yuh goin? I was frightened. It was late. Past eleven. Ma, do goh, please doh leave we, Ma. I tugged at the corner of her shirt. I wondered if she realized I uttered the same words to her that she said to her own mother.
Krys dahlin, she said, ah goh come back. Doh worry meh chile, and she kissed my head. But I didn’t believe her. Couldn’t. She was walking out the door with her keys, twisting the lock into place behind her. I barricaded myself in my room and bawled into my pillow.
She left me with my father after I didn’t choose him.
After some time, I went to sit by the back door. I turned on the light at the back of the house so she could see when she came home. It was past two now, and I knew how dangerous the streets were at this time.
The crime rate had been climbing, and the news advised people to stay home after six in the evening. We’d even been under curfew a few times. Dole Chadee, one of the most notorious drug lords in the Caribbean, lived in Trinidad. He trafficked cocaine through the islands, buying off whoever stood in his way—judges, policemen, politicians, even chefs if the need arose. And those he couldn’t buy, he murdered. To be in the wrong place at the wrong time could mean the death of my mother.
A crisp breeze blew off the river. I rubbed my arms and legs. Sleep and exhaustion from crying tugged and burned my eyelids, but I fought them. Late, after three, I heard footsteps. I tried to see through the bars of the burglar-proofed door. Someone was sitting in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs. Ma? I called out, ready to jump backward and scream for my father if it was an intruder. There was a sniffle.
Krys chile, yuh still up? Her voice was heavy. Sadness clung to her every word. She walked up the stairs, and I opened the door to let her inside, tears already springing to my eyes, my body shuddering with relief.
Whey yuh went, Ma?
She told me as much as she thought a ten-year-old should know, and filled in the gaps as I grew older.
Once again, my mother poured herself into me.
My mother had gone to meet the woman’s husband. She’d learned he was a pharmacist—ah rheal nice mahn, she always said, but he knew nothing of his wife’s infidelity. Though late, he agreed to meet her downtown in Chaguanas. We lived in central Trinidad, only one hour from Piparo, where Dole Chadee ruled from his hundred-acre estate. Chaguanas was very much involved in a drug war. My mother told me the pharmacist didn’t tell his wife where he was going.
Ma, I said, e coulda kill yuh, e coulda do anyting, Ma. De mahn couldah be mix up een drugs, wid Chadee evan. How come yuh truss im so easy? I wondered if my mother wanted to even the playing field between her and my father. I wouldn’t blame her if she did, but young, selfish, and terrified for my family, I cast it from my mind. I was not ready yet to think of my mother in that way.
They met to exchange stories. Things fell into place for him much like they did for my mother—the appearance of this policeman, long phone calls, the trip to the States, late nights, frequent absences. My mother felt sorry for him. At least she’d heard from a family member. She, a stranger, changed his world with one phone call. The Khans had four children of their own. While my mother knew she brought pain to this man, she was also the bearer of truth. Doubly satisfying, she wanted more than anything to spin havoc as forceful as a hurricane on this other woman’s life.
—Wah dey does say up hyah, Krys? Bout revenge? my mother asks. Dat revenge is ah sweet ting? Ah like de one bout how it does be ah rheal bitch.
My mother held on to this morsel, delivering it last of the stories she told me.
The husband, Arjun, when told of his wife’s infidelity, was devastated. After some time had passed, he called my mother and said, We should do toh dem wah dey do toh we.
My mother agreed.
They rented a hotel room in the center of the capital. They flaunted that they were with one another. With the right ears all around them, they knew word would get back to their spouses.
They flirted in the lobby, and Arya flounced her white skirt in the air. As they walked to the elevator, her heels clacked the ground in pleasant clicks. In the elevator, there were other people who knew their spouses. Arya fawned over Arjun, and Arjun doted on her.
As my mother told me this story, there was satisfaction in the curve of her lips and the crooks of her elbows, but I was terrified. My father worked in the Salvatori Building not far from where they were, and what he could have done to her would have left me motherless. There was revenge to have that day, but did she think of the risk she was taking then?
In the hotel room they sat on the bed next to one another, and Arjun put his arm around her; Arya instinctively pulled away, leaving him to reclaim his arm. They looked at their shoes, never at one another. Arjun tried to caress her.
—Boh when e touch meh, Krys, my mother says, it din feel right. Ah couldn’t do it.
Arya said to Arjun, Ah kyant do dis. Juss because dey do it doh mean ah could bring mehself toh do it. It juss doh feel right.
He was flushed with relief and toppled on the bed. Meh kyant do it eiddah, gyul. It eh hah nutten hyah. They waited hours before they left, but when they did, they exclaimed in the corridors, on the elevator, and through the lobby, Yuh rheal sweet, yuh know. Meh hahd a good time.
MY PARENTS STAYED TOGETHER, but not out of love or any desire to repair their marriage. Women on the islands strove to attain wedlock, and to reverse that process meant living as a branded woman at best, an outcome in which people shunned you and refused you their services, making the simple act of purchasing food a tribulation. Work became hard to find because you were no longer under the protection of a man, no longer respectable. Too many times, if a woman wanted to leave her husband, he beat her until she changed her mind or killed her for embarrassing him with this stigma.
My father was a high-ranking police officer, and that offered him special privileges. He could cover up actions other men couldn’t, and my mother, if she wanted to, couldn’t report him for anything. How much did this frighten her? Did it make her flee?
—Krys, my mother explains years later when I am old enough to understand, me eh hah no money, no job, no security. Wah ah oman like me go do on ah island like Trinidad? Ah leave im an crapaud smoke meh pipe, nobody goh even look meh way toh help meh. Ah wouldn’t geh a cent, and yuh faddah wid e job wuddah geh toh keep bot ah allyuh. Ah stay foh meh chilren. Boh ah was desperate. Rheal desperate and ah come up wid a plan. Ah wait foh de chance toh goh America. Ah hol on toh dat tight tight tight and when it come ah take it.
Like my grandmother, who also waited for the opportunity to escape, my mother gathered herself up and was lifted above the islands she’d called home her entire life. She flew to a country quite unlike the place she came from. The land of opportunity, people told her, but she hoped it to be the land where people forgot.
LETTERS
MY MOTHER LEFT TRINIDAD IN 1999. Not a woman to be taken advantage of, my mother knew the only way to reclaim her self was to sever ties with the Caribbean and its men.
My mother didn’t uproot us solely for selfish reasons; Trinidad was unstable. Dole Chadee, the notorious drug lord, was finally convicted of murder, but that put our country in a tumultuous state. Police corruption was flayed open, an
d everyone was unsure of who to trust. My father felt the pressure at work, seeing the outcome of dealings with the Chadee gang daily—brutal deaths and the kidnapping and raping of young boys and girls. These families, scared for their lives, couldn’t talk to the authorities. If my father was approached for a bribe and refused, my mother wanted us removed from the consequences.
When the untouchable Dole Chadee was arrested for ordering the wipeout of the entire Baboolal family, the death penalty returned to Trinidad and Tobago. He, with eight members of his gang, were hanged in June 1999 over the course of three days. It aired on the news every minute and hit the front page of every newspaper. Try as they might, my parents couldn’t hide the violence from me. Because people owed money to Chadee and that money was owed to the Colombians, “kidnap for ransom” became the slogan now, and children were being taken daily. Our plans had been in place for some time, but while doors were being broken in and houses set ablaze, my mother wrapped us up and brought us to the United States.
Because of my father’s job commitment, and also because of his pension, he couldn’t leave with us. That did nothing to deter my mother, who held our hands firmly at the airport and walked toward the plane, never glancing back at our crying father.
It took me years to acclimate to New Jersey weather. The winters were too harsh and the beaches opaque, riddled with mussel shells that cut our feet. My sister, at the tender age of eight, absorbed everything around her and slipped seamlessly into American culture, losing her accent. At twelve, I never got used to the weather and fantasized about moving back, holding steadfast to my native tongue. With my father still in Trinidad, I hoped we would one day return.
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