Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,18
silence, let it wrap around me, pull me close and down into sleep. But silence has never been my friend. Out of it, a sound can come hurtling at me, something mean and dark, a slap across a cheek, a cry of pain. Cries of other kinds, too, which I never want to hear or think about, even less than the pain-cries.
I wait in the silence, listening for some new shift in my existence. I don’t want to say my heart beats faster or my belly’s full of butterflies, or anything corny like that. I know better and, because of Mr. Abdi, I also know these are lazy descriptions for a feeling that I can’t even put into words. I’m not scared right now or even angry. I’m tired, but I stay up just in case. On the off chance that there’s gonna be something more waiting for me tonight.
twelve
The next morning is Saturday, thank God. So I won’t have to be at school, pretending that every inch of my body isn’t sore. And although I heard Ma leave earlier, there are sounds downstairs that I can’t place. When I emerge from my bedroom in shorts and a tank top, Pammy is in our kitchen, making pancakes. “Hey, Trish. Come eat.”
She holds out a chair for me, so I slink into it and stare at the pancakes. They’re hot, and they’re there. Once I start eating, I can’t seem to stop.
“Christopher might come over for some in a bit. I hope you don’t mind,” she says.
I shake my head, mouth still full. Why would I mind Columbus being here? He practically lives at my house when Ma isn’t around, as Pammy well knows. But she’s being careful, and I get the feeling she wants to talk about last night, what she might have heard. But I don’t have the patience for all that. I hurt everywhere.
“Thanks, Pammy,” I say, trying to sound okay.
Not sure if she buys it, but she doesn’t push. “You’re welcome, hon. Your mom had to leave early, and she said I could come over and use your television. She’s got a whole season of Sherlock recorded and I need to get some knitting done.”
Something about the easiness in her voice tells me that nobody is fooling anybody. She’s deliberately not looking at the dent in the wall that is shining at us like a bruise. She’s here to make sure I’m fine, and that my mother is, too. Because we’re a village, in this section of the co-op. I don’t think she knows about the beating (I don’t think she’d be okay with that), but she knows my mom will fling things about when she’s good and mad. Which isn’t often, but when it happens, Pammy hears it all.
Maybe it’s because I’m so relaxed with all the carbs in my belly (which I’ll have to work out later), but I feel like I can trust her with something that’s been on my mind.
“Hey, Pammy?”
“Yeah?” She turns back to me.
“Remember that night? The night my dad died?”
Her expression shutters closed. “I do.”
“I saw you talk to the police when—after it happened. You said you saw the whole thing from your window.”
She knows exactly what I mean by it. “I was in my kitchen, making some chamomile tea, and happened to look out. I heard your car pull into the lot.”
“Right. I know about that. But did you…did you see anyone else there that night?”
She goes still. “No. Why? Why do you ask?”
“No reason. It’s just we didn’t even see my dad when we drove into the lot. But you saw everything and I was wondering if there was anyone else who could have seen it.”
“I didn’t see anyone else. It was raining, hon.” She looks at me closely. “Have you been sleeping enough? You look tired.”
“But if you could see what happened from that distance, then maybe you could see him? Dad. Did you know he was there?”
“Nobody knew he was there,” she says sharply. “Honestly, Trisha, I think you need to try to forget about it. I think you need to move on.”
The door to our little townhouse opens and she brightens.
“There’s Christopher! And just in time for some pancakes, too. If you can spare a few for him, that is.” Then she winks at me, which freaks me out as Pammy doesn’t do things like “brighten” and wink. But I don’t have time to think about it because Columbus has made it up the stairs