“Bless you” under my breath, until my father says, “
Bleshyew, bleshyew
—what does it mean?”
“Something about hell,” I fumble, embarrassed by the sudden beam of his attention. “So you won’t go to hell.”
I am relieved when he grunts and turns back to sensible Lynne Russell and her smooth, sculpted cheekbones. I look at the hair on the back of my father’s hand, a wild tuft above each knuckle, in the exact place where lately I have seen one or two hairs of my own. This is my dad, I think. Today I am going to call him Dad. After my mother goes to bed, I will show him what I obtained at great risk during recess, when I asked to use the bathroom and instead jimmied open Wes Lipkin’s locker. His violin case fit neatly into my drawstring gym bag. At the end of the day, I was the first one on the bus.
The opportunity doesn’t seem to present itself. My father appears more haggard than he did yesterday evening. His eyes are bloodshot. Every so often he takes small sips of orange juice from a big plastic cup. When I ask for a sip, he says no so quickly that tears spring to my eyes. “I’m sick,” he adds, without looking at me.
During the weather report, my mother comes in holding the violin case in both hands. She demands to know where I got it.
I say that my friend Wes Lipkin let me borrow it.
“Then why did Mrs. Lipkin call just now and say you stole it?” she asks. For this, I have no answer. I assumed that Wes Lipkin would figure it out, but I never guessed that he would tattle. “Lying and stealing—this is what you learn at school?”
She takes two long strides and I brace for the blow, but my father’s outstretched legs are blocking her path. He has been sitting between us, looking back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. “You’re her father,” my mother reminds him. “Yell at her!”
My father sits up with the cup in his hand, spilling a bit of juice on his knee before setting it under the coffee table. He turns to me, dropping his voice low. “Why did you do it?” Myface goes hot and cold at once. I pinch my own thigh. “Huh? Why did you steal that thing?”
“I wanted to hear you play.”
My mother and father stare at me.
“So you can play like you did last night,” I say, a strange sense of panic filling my chest. “The way you used to play over there, in Dubai.”
My mother snorts. “Play what?”
My father listens to me, for the first time, without scorn, his face opening up with faint surprise. Then he glances up at my mother and waves me away. “What kind of nonsense. I don’t know what she’s saying.”
“Remember, with the radio?” I mimic his playing, but he won’t look at me anymore and my arms fall to my sides. I try to steady my voice. “Your friend, the girl who plays the violin?”
“Girl?” my mother says in a voice that is small and strained. It does sound strange when I say it aloud. His friend, a girl.
My mother turns to my father, and as his eyes search mine, I understand that he isn’t lying. He simply doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember saying,
You are the only one who gets me
, the loveliest compliment of all my eight years.
Quietly, my mother tells me to go to my room and get dressed. She says that she will drive me to the Lipkins’ so I can apologize and return the violin.
Before I have closed the door to my room, the fight has begun. Their voices are subdued and tense, nearly unintelligible until they start shouting, and I learn certain truths at terrible speeds: there is a woman in the Gulf, a woman he left behind for my mother’s visa, a woman who may be watching the road and waiting for him as we once did. And though none of us will ever again call up her presence, the woman will takeup space in our house, as ubiquitous as a vapor, a woman at my window with one hand on the sill, tapping on the glass with the bow of her violin.
My mother and father stop fighting only when the old man who lives below us bangs
Bleshyew, bleshyew
—what does it mean?”
“Something about hell,” I fumble, embarrassed by the sudden beam of his attention. “So you won’t go to hell.”
I am relieved when he grunts and turns back to sensible Lynne Russell and her smooth, sculpted cheekbones. I look at the hair on the back of my father’s hand, a wild tuft above each knuckle, in the exact place where lately I have seen one or two hairs of my own. This is my dad, I think. Today I am going to call him Dad. After my mother goes to bed, I will show him what I obtained at great risk during recess, when I asked to use the bathroom and instead jimmied open Wes Lipkin’s locker. His violin case fit neatly into my drawstring gym bag. At the end of the day, I was the first one on the bus.
The opportunity doesn’t seem to present itself. My father appears more haggard than he did yesterday evening. His eyes are bloodshot. Every so often he takes small sips of orange juice from a big plastic cup. When I ask for a sip, he says no so quickly that tears spring to my eyes. “I’m sick,” he adds, without looking at me.
During the weather report, my mother comes in holding the violin case in both hands. She demands to know where I got it.
I say that my friend Wes Lipkin let me borrow it.
“Then why did Mrs. Lipkin call just now and say you stole it?” she asks. For this, I have no answer. I assumed that Wes Lipkin would figure it out, but I never guessed that he would tattle. “Lying and stealing—this is what you learn at school?”
She takes two long strides and I brace for the blow, but my father’s outstretched legs are blocking her path. He has been sitting between us, looking back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. “You’re her father,” my mother reminds him. “Yell at her!”
My father sits up with the cup in his hand, spilling a bit of juice on his knee before setting it under the coffee table. He turns to me, dropping his voice low. “Why did you do it?” Myface goes hot and cold at once. I pinch my own thigh. “Huh? Why did you steal that thing?”
“I wanted to hear you play.”
My mother and father stare at me.
“So you can play like you did last night,” I say, a strange sense of panic filling my chest. “The way you used to play over there, in Dubai.”
My mother snorts. “Play what?”
My father listens to me, for the first time, without scorn, his face opening up with faint surprise. Then he glances up at my mother and waves me away. “What kind of nonsense. I don’t know what she’s saying.”
“Remember, with the radio?” I mimic his playing, but he won’t look at me anymore and my arms fall to my sides. I try to steady my voice. “Your friend, the girl who plays the violin?”
“Girl?” my mother says in a voice that is small and strained. It does sound strange when I say it aloud. His friend, a girl.
My mother turns to my father, and as his eyes search mine, I understand that he isn’t lying. He simply doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember saying,
You are the only one who gets me
, the loveliest compliment of all my eight years.
Quietly, my mother tells me to go to my room and get dressed. She says that she will drive me to the Lipkins’ so I can apologize and return the violin.
Before I have closed the door to my room, the fight has begun. Their voices are subdued and tense, nearly unintelligible until they start shouting, and I learn certain truths at terrible speeds: there is a woman in the Gulf, a woman he left behind for my mother’s visa, a woman who may be watching the road and waiting for him as we once did. And though none of us will ever again call up her presence, the woman will takeup space in our house, as ubiquitous as a vapor, a woman at my window with one hand on the sill, tapping on the glass with the bow of her violin.
My mother and father stop fighting only when the old man who lives below us bangs
Similar Books
