It’s the red door that fools you. It leads you to believe that you’re entering friendly territory. Once you step through it, cross over the welcome mat, you’ll know that you’ve punctured the reality of things at this home. It’s decidedly charmless and unwelcoming. Even the doorbell is a ruse. The melody it chimes is the first and last upbeat thing you’ll hear at my parents’ home. The house itself is large but doesn’t quite commit to being garish. There are a few tasteful touches: the marbled foyer, the piano in the main living room, the sunroom addition where the books live, the old woodstove in the perfect corner of the kitchen, even the reimagined fourth garage in which my father stores all of his filing cabinets looks thought-through and appropriate. But there’s sadness here too, so real and familiar I can hear it trudging through every room of the house.
I’m busy thinking about Miles and his self-harm situation and I don’t have time to rehearse what to say to my parents, like I typically do. But I’m not too worried. These folks aren’t the type to deviate from the script. My dad will be a mix of surprised and low-key disappointed that I’m on their doorstep, early and delivered by taxi, while my mother will be my mother: a chilled hello and a hesitant, stiff one-armed hug before telling me in which room to set my bags.
Not gonna lie. Seeing a slight dash of surprise in Mum’s raised forehead when she opens the door will be an interesting twist to our usual performance. The woman’s default look is that she couldn’t give the thinnest slice of a shit about you and whatever it is you have the effrontery to step to her with. She’s always had that “don’t try me” face, but there used to be warmth there behind her crinkly eyes. Over the last ten years, the whole thing has crystallized, forming this rigid screen, a steely layer, beneath it only more hardness.
But twist on the twist: She barely blinked when she opened the door to me. And after the first hello in the doorway, not another word was exchanged until we were well into the kitchen. As I walked behind her down the wide, bright hallway, I scanned the walls and tried to angle my eyes into the nooks of certain rooms to see what looked different. The last time I was home at this house was two years ago. I was able to skip out on the memorial last year because the gods showed me grace and kindness and placed pneumonia in my lungs. I was actually thankful for the legit excuse to miss out on the Montreal mourning because I’m awful that way, but when things moved from fever, chills, and bone-rattling cough to diarrhea, delirium, and blood-tinged mucous realness? I was chanting the Act of Contrition and praying the rosary like I was in a goddamn nunnery. Tyson, the only one still in the city for the holidays, would stop by every evening with Gatorade and flat ginger ale and to sing his grandmother’s greatest gospel hymns over me. Of course I didn’t tell my parents how bad off I was. All they knew and all that mattered was that I wasn’t coming home to honor my brothers.
I noticed some new framed art on the wall in the living room, and the piano is gone. All of our school photos had long been boxed away. The only picture that remains, looming large by the winding staircase, is the one of the whole family, extended—aunts, uncles, and all brands of cousin—at the Grantley Adams airport in Barbados, when we arrived for our grand and rare vacation. I learned not to linger on those smiling faces in the photograph. It sets me back.
Watching my mother’s body move slowly toward the belly of the house, I see that she’s slimmer—scrawny even—and I think about how much more of her there was back when I was a kid. There was real comfort for me, nestled in her literal form. Walking behind her in the mall, or to our car in the parking lot, or up the church aisle to our usual pew, her wide sturdiness made me feel strong and safe, like nothing bad could get past her and brush up on me and drag me toward awful.
We all felt some version of that. Benjamin had this habit of stroking her arm, up near where it met her shoulder. I jammed my hand up her sleeve a few times to see what all the fuss was about. It made sense; her arm was soft, smooth, and thick and warm like the most perfectly perfect blanket. Bryant got in on the action too, though he latched onto her unwarm, unsmooth, uninviting elbow. Such an odd egg, that guy. Our father teased both his sons about all of it, of course. Li’l leeches, he’d call them. Didn’t bother them. I should say, it didn’t bother them until real-live girls became a viable option for them—for Benjamin, really. He started kicking it to girls early, like nine or ten. Bryant took the tortoise route. He’d rather look up at the stars than clock girls. He only got his first run-to-the-bedroom-close-the-door phone call from a girl a few days after his fourteenth birthday. Michelle. I can never remember her last name. Two things come to mind when I think about her: First, that she was really cute—Bryant showed me her picture in their yearbook. And second, how horribly upset she was at the funeral. Michelle sat with her parents several pews back, but I could hear her crying, this hollow weeping. She cried through the whole thing. I kept glancing back, checking on her, making sure she was still standing. That wailing was tough to hear, but it also served as a distraction, and I have to say, I was kind of grateful for it.
“You want something to eat?” My mother pulls out a chair for me, sets a place mat on the table. “I not too long made some plantain. I could fry up an egg to go ’long with it, and there’s bread from Vincey’s bake shop in the tin.”
“Oh, don’t worry yourself, Mum. I’m fine. I had some tea and stuff earlier.”
She sits in the seat she had pulled out for me. “Your father said you were coming later in the week.”
“I know. I got an earlier flight last minute. It was easier. You know, the storm.” She’s trying. Why shouldn’t I? “But I apologize for not calling, letting you know that I was coming early. This morning was a rush, and then the roaming charges . . . anyway, sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“I’m also sorry about before, when we talked, and I said I wasn’t coming. It was work and I couldn’t get around it, but—”
“You’re here now.”
“Right, I’m here now. I still have to work, though. An interview in Toronto; Ajax, actually. A day trip, maybe overnight. It’s just an interview. Otherwise, I’m here . . . for you guys, and stuff.”
“Your father will be happy.”
“Right.” I take a few steps farther in, peek through the bay window out to the yard. “Where is he, anyway?”
“He gone to the market.”
“Ooh. That’s good. What’s on the menu?”
“I couldn’t tell you. It’ll be tasty, though.”
My mother returned the place mat to the short stack under the fruit bowl in the center of the table and promptly got up. Her sudden moves jolted me out of my blurred ideas of actually having a real and sustained conversation with her.
“Should I get my bags and . . . ?” I say, pointing with my thumb through the archway behind me.
“I have to iron some sheets,” my mother says. She’s standing close to me, true arm’s length.
“I can help with that, if you want.”
She frowns and I turn toward that archway. I know what’s coming, what she’ll say next, and I wait for it.
“That’d be nice,” she says.
(As this early-morning trip has already shown, I don’t know anything.)
My mouth is open a little and I stutter out a delayed response. “Oh, okay. I can do that. I can help. Lead the way.”
I hear him padding around the room, the change in his pockets clinking together, but I keep my eyes closed anyway. As he gets closer to the bed, I smell the alcohol. It drags me out of make-believe and I turn to greet him.
“Hey, Dad.” I pull myself up and out from the thick covers. My voice is sufficiently groggy, and I’m sure I look confused. It’s dark out; the blinds are half-open and the lights are dimmed. My purse is open and jumbled, scrunched up by the pillow next to me.
“Didn’t mean to wake you.” He doubles back to the small table near the door. “I was gonna leave this for you.” It’s a tray with food.
“Oh, you didn’t have to—I’m
sorry I missed dinner. You weren’t back from . . . the market. I came in here to chill for a bit and wait until you got back . . . anyway, I’m sorry I slept through it.”
He’s smiling, but clearly concentrating on balance, both his and that of the wide tray. As he draws closer, I see my favorites: Trini chow mein, pow, and Chinese cakes. There’s even a short glass with pale orange fizziness. “Is that my fave—pineapple soda? Dad, this is great. You really didn’t have to do all of this, bring all of this food to me on a tray.”
“Nonsense. You’re here now.” He rests the tray down next to me on the bed and sits on the wood chair at the foot. “You took the early flight this morning?”
“Yeah, it was easier. You know, that storm and everything. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I know you like the airport run.”
He nods his head slowly, gentle like Nik would. “Glad you reach here safe.” More nodding. “You go ’head and eat while the food is hot. You know my feelings about them microwaves.”
I lean into the plate of golden noodles and inhale its tangy heat. The third bite is even more delicious than the first. His smile is wider now and seems to delight in each forkful I savor. I take a deep sip of the sweet soda, letting it tickle the inside of my nose as it likes to do. After that, I’m full, but it has nothing to do with the food. I slide the tray off my lap. I don’t realize the words are tumbling out of my mouth until they are. My eyebrows hoist my forehead to the ceiling and I trying to swallow the lump expanding in the back of my throat. This is a mistake; I know that much—but I also know that I can’t stop it from happening.
“You’ve always taught me to speak up, don’t shrink in a corner—for anyone.”
“That’s right. That’s what I always tell you children. You’re nobody’s sheep.”
“Right. Not sheep.” I swallow hard; the sound is loud in my ears. “I’m not a sheep. I can’t do this anymore, Dad. Can’t just follow along.”
His eyes narrow and his chest rises to take a breath and maybe speak, but I keep going, keep talking, putting my focus back on the tray. “Can’t keep reliving what happened that night, Daddy. It’s not about not honoring them. A day doesn’t pass—not in these ten long years—that I don’t think about them.” I finally glance over at him. “And I don’t want to upset you or Mum more than you already are, more than you always are, but I can’t let this continue to define me, define my life here. It can’t be the only thing that brings me back home to you. I . . . I want to have Christmas back.”
The look that takes over his face makes me want to suck all those words back in, gobble them up and stuff chow mein in my mouth down behind them. He’s not ready to hear any of this. His lip quivers, but he’s trying to fight it.
And now I feel empty, despicable.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m still tired from the flight and stressed over work stuff and I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he says, finally. “I know.”
“I’m out of place. I’m sorry. I have no business saying any of th—”
“No. No, it’s your business, Best. It’s fair and it’s your business to say it. Truth tell it, those first three or four years, man, I didn’t want to do it either. But the pictures on the wall, all the memories, I can’t do nothing else but let them in and remember. It’s my business to remember. I make it my business to honor them boys.” He leans back on the side of the bureau; his gaze resting on my plate of food. “When they birthdays come ’round and I pull out them birth certificates from the files, study each crack in the little black-ink footprints, draw over that messy scratch of my signature with my fingers . . . it’s real cruel, and I feel that at the base of my heart, at the seed of it. It’s like a torture. I don’t like doing it, but I do it. I honor them because I loved—” He brings his hand, balled up in a tight fist, to his mouth, and I wonder if he’s going to be sick.
I don’t reach out. That’s not what we do here. But I want to. I want to squeeze his hand, hug him, pat his back, pour him another drink—anything that would pick his shoulders back up.
“Dad . . . They’re always going be in our lives, in our minds, circling around us. They won’t disappear. They can’t. We wouldn’t let them disappear.” Tears blur my vision. “They’re not in the ground, under those stones. They’re here, with us. Always.”
My father’s sad, heavy gaze falls away from me and then to the floor between us. After a long pause, he shakes his head once and says it: “They’re not here.”
Before I can draw my next jagged breath, he’s standing straight and moving over to me on the bed. I brace for something: a tight squeeze, his total collapse, a wash of tears. I try to be ready. But he only leans into the side of the bed and gently pushes the tray toward my crossed legs. He shakes his head again. “They’re gone.”
I can see him straining to steady the low bounce in his chin, and it breaks me. He’s moving to the door with quick, even steps.
“Dad”—my voice is cracked and gravelly—“I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense,” he says, barely looking back at me. “God need be sorry. Not you.”
CHAPTER 18
Is there anything gloomier than a cracked snow globe? (Spoiler: The answer is always no. ) My dad has one sitting atop some crinkled papers on his dusty desk. And I say dusty because there isn’t yet a word created to aptly describe the thick, fuzzy grayness that coats every surface of this man’s narrow lair. The clunky computer beneath the shaky desk, the stained keyboard draped over old international newspapers, the jumbo fax machine (yes) teetering on the tower of Yellow Pages, even the old-school brown extension cord stretching across the room: all of it chalky and gross.
I could say that this isn’t like him, that things have fallen away over the years given everything that happened. But that would be a shameless lie. My father bought into the archetype of reporter-as-natural-mess a long time ago. The way he sees it, who has time to neaten this and organize that when you’re too busy being dogged and relentless while driving the truth home?
I want to check the train schedules, but can’t bring myself to reach for my phone. The truth is, I just don’t want to deal with the toxic crap waiting for me on it. Between Bauer’s voice mails and Trinity’s the-sky-is-falling squawks, I’m fairly certain the hard, shiny plastic thing will self-destruct by week’s end. I already turned it on quickly last night to retrieve Fatima’s cousin’s phone number and house address, and the notifications on that fucker nearly sent me into a seizure: e-mails, tweets, texts, Facebook; just endless. And Jesus, the number of voice mails was truly staggering. Turning that phone on again is a fool’s errand.
What a steaming mess, and I’ve stepped all the way in it. But my focus needs to be like a laser right now. This interview, this story, it’s all that matters. I’ll just do it classic-style and make a landline call to Via Rail from my mother’s side of the house.
I dip into my dad’s office anyway. Maybe his grandfather clock of a computer could dial-up the internet or his favorite ancient AOL or something so I can see what’s happening in the news up here. But visions of some random wire catching and the whole dingy deal going up in smoke has me shook. I don’t want to make any swift moves in this Luddite cave.
The newspapers on my dad’s desk catch my attention. Two are French-language papers and one is in Arabic, maybe Farsi? Strange, but also not strange. This is my dad, after all. There’s a bulky folder in the pile of papers. It’s labeled in his crappy, wobbly handwriting. I can’t make it out. I try to push things around without leaving tracks. Something I credit my mother for teaching me. Back in the day, we all referred to my mother as the detective. The credo around our house was simple: Don’t bother, Mum already knows.
Using an unsharpened pencil—there are, like, eight of them gathered in a grubby mug—I’m able to drag the folder out more, even lift the flap a little. The paper to the very top looks like a faded form, maybe something medical, definitely official. There’s a seal and possibly a stamp
ed signature to the bottom.
“You in here noseyin’?” my dad says.
I’m sure I look startled. There were no tip-offs this time: no change in his pocket, no reek of booze drifting into the room just ahead of him. I can feel my eyebrows shoved up to my hairline.
“Oh, no, Dad. I’m just sitting, waiting.” I tap the pencil like it’s a drumstick on the arm of the mug and slip it back into place without once shifting my glance from him.
“You got a fax coming through?”
I glance at the jalopy. “What, from 1995? No.”
“People still send faxes, you know?”
“No, they really don’t, Dad.”
“You don’t know,” he says and swats his hand at me. His mood seems stable, bordering on fine. “When you leaving for Toronto?”
“Probably in a couple of hours. I have to make some calls, reach out, check in on things with my interview.”
“So why you so nervous then?”
“I’m not.”
He steps in, but stays close to the door. “Denial. Now I know for certain that you’re really nervous.”
“I’m not denying anything, Dad. I’m not nervous; I’m just . . . preoccupied. There are a lot of moving parts.”
“Do you want to run through your questions?”
“You followed the case?”
“Here and there. Don’t have the stomach for that kind of thing these days.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty gruesome. But this interview is less about all the horror-show stuff, more about her, the survivor.” My dad looks instantly uncomfortable, like red ants are scratching at him from the inside. “I don’t really have a list or anything. Just some notes, you know? I’m going to do what you’ve always taught me, and let the story tell. The most important question I have is: And then what happened?”
“Good. That’s how it’s done,” he says, and moves into the room, walking over to his black cabinets. It gives me a chance to slide the fat, mystery folder back under the newspapers.
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