decided to ignore my advice on the paint and went with the yellow instead. “Brighter,” she says.
Yeah, so bright you could go blind from it.
The next day in World Issues class—
Why is World Issues a prereq for Business Management, anyway?
Who the hell actually knows?
—I start thinking about how the people around me are changing. Ma with Ravi, Aunty K with her expansion. Everyone but Columbus, who’s exactly the same but with a new (old) car.
Pammy buying him a car in cash, though. That’s something different.
Ever since her divorce, she’s been teaching Columbus the value of hard work and saving. All that jazz. Her ex was kind of a deadbeat and she wants to make sure Columbus doesn’t become one, too. Plus, she works as a dental hygienist. She does okay, but it’s not like she makes tons of money. I mean, not enough for that car and also to save for his tuition next year—which I know she does.
I mention the car to Ma later that night at the dinner table, but she changes the subject.
Ravi talks a bit after that about how single women spoil their children too much and this is why they’re always broke. Ma looks uncomfortable and changes the subject again. I don’t know why. She loves to gossip about Pammy, even though they’re best friends. Pammy’s life is something of a mystery to her, I think. Pammy kicking her ex out the way she did. Putting her foot down the way she did.
Must sting for Ma because she never had the courage to get rid of Dad. She just kept taking the beats until he died.
“You’re a wound,” Ravi continues, because I guess he thinks we want to hear what he has to say on the subject. “You women. Press on you just a little and you all just scream. Give everything up.”
And Ma’s boiling, she’s so furious. Ravi is slow as usual. He doesn’t pick up on it, but I do. The sudden anger. I wait for her to whip something at him, to get up with a burst of energy and shout at him. Every now and then I’d seen her do this with Dad, though she always got in trouble for it later.
But letting a comment like that pass?
I’m confused, then I’m frightened because it seems that Jason was right. I’m cursed. I’m doomed. It’s never going to change with her, except I catch a glimpse of something under the table. It’s her hand, clenched around a fork, pressing the tines into her thigh. She sees me looking but doesn’t stop.
“Ma,” I say. There’s something dangerous about her right now.
Ravi frowns. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the two of you today.” He leaves the room, pressing his hand into the small of his back like a pregnant lady.
It’s only after he’s gone that she puts the fork back on the table and massages the imprint she’s made on her thigh.
Ravi falls asleep on the couch, which is a normal thing now, I guess, and I hear Ma moving about in her bedroom. I think about Dad’s phone in the front pocket of my backpack, where I keep it now, and I want to ask her why it was in Ravi’s bag. Did she give it to him?
It doesn’t make any sense.
The questions are there, just waiting to spill out.
I pause just outside of the room because I can hear her voice now. The door’s closed, but I listen anyway. She’s talking real quiet to Pammy, like always, but this time it’s charged. Something in her voice is so determined and so powerful that I can’t believe she let anybody ever knock her about. That she’d let Ravi talk down to her like that. Maybe this power is new. Maybe my dad’s death is feeding it somehow, because I feel it strong, and feel something in me rise up to meet it.
The fear, you know, the fear in me doesn’t ever go away.
seventeen
“I mean,” Columbus begins, “you sure it’s a good idea to go for a driving test right now?”
“They said I wasn’t at fault for the accident, okay?”
“Okay, but the last time you drove, a man died.” Columbus isn’t exactly known for his tact, but still. It’s pretty rude of him to bring it up.
“Are you going to lend me your junk car or not?”
“With that kind of attitude…Look, I’m not saying you’re a terrible driver, but you’re a terrible driver and maybe you need some time to not be as