Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,30

tires. The thud along the bumper. The darkness. The rain. Dad’s face. A busted lip. A broken back door with the wind whistling through. The sun nowhere to be found.

It’s so cold.

I wake up shivering and feel a roiling in my belly, the heavy meal I ate before bed sitting like a boulder.

If he was a monster, what does that make me?

eighteen

I’m usually out all day but as long as I’m back by 9 p.m., King Ravi can’t say anything.

Training isn’t going great, though I try to be there four to five times a week. Florida is going to be hot and humid, so we have to make sure our conditioning is on point or else we’re chum. My conditioning is tight, but my technique is off. Kru said so last pad session, as rivers of sweat poured off me. He said my head isn’t in the game, shouted it, and I was so embarrassed I didn’t stick around afterwards like I usually do. Every day we’re in, Kru has us on the basics to make sure that no matter how dead we are, we’ll never forget the essentials.

One, two, slip is what I work on today. Over and over, until it feels like it’ll be in my memory forever.

After you come in with the jab and cross, you’ve got to make sure you’re anticipating their next move, their next punch. That’s why the slip is so important. And after you slip, your right cross comes in strong.

That’s the whole point of it.

You slip, you fake, you dodge, you let them think one thing while you’re setting them up for another.

When Dad died, the police should have been on the lookout for a fake, but a car full of distraught women on a rainy night? Please. They didn’t stand a chance. Especially when Pammy came out in hysterics and threw her arms around me and started bawling into my shoulder “Poor baby. Poor, poor baby. Your dad—he’s with the angels now!”

I think even Columbus was shocked when he heard about that part. Pammy in hysterics? Going on about freaking angels? Crazy talk. Except it did happen and I’ve got the beige foundation stains on my jacket to prove it.

* * *

I’m with Columbus in his kitchen, eating takeaway jerk chicken, when Pammy comes in from work in her scrubs. “Good to see you both still have an appetite what with all that homework you’ve got on,” she says, nibbling on a leg Columbus passes to her.

Why wouldn’t we have an appetite?

She sits, eats silently with us and then looks at the hole in the sleeve of my sweater as though she’s never seen anything like it in the world before. “Trisha, how old is this thing?” she exclaims, plucking at the tear with her manicured fingers. “Tell your mom to give you some of that insurance money to buy yourself some new clothes, for God’s sake!”

It takes a few moments for this to sink in.

Columbus looks at me. “What insurance money?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, just to piss him off. But I’m wondering the same thing. I glance over at Pammy, who has gotten up and left the room without another word to us.

“What’s up with your ma?” I ask Columbus.

He frowns, then shrugs. “She’s been weird lately. Did you see her nails?”

I did. Pammy with a manicure. Also with a little flash of diamonds at her ears when she pulls her hair back. Buying a car, even a used one, with cash. When Columbus isn’t looking, I open the cupboard above the kettle again. Still no chamomile tea. And Pammy hasn’t just been weird lately. She’s been weird since the night Dad died. Since the angels comment.

“What are you doing over March Break?” Columbus asks.

“Going to New York to see Aunty K.” Which reminds me. I need to get my passport from Ma.

“Can I come with?”

“There’s no room at her place, and plus, you wouldn’t want to. Trust me.”

Ravi has the weekend off, so I wait until Monday to go into Ma’s room to look for the little fireproof box she keeps in her closet. I need my passport but I’m also wondering about what Pammy said, something about insurance. Ma keeps all the important stuff in that box, so maybe there’s some kind of explanation for Pammy’s comment.

The box isn’t there.

I search everywhere and eventually find it in the basement, under some old clothes. I take the key she gave me for it in case anything happened