Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,67
him and saw him at the bottom of the ravine there. Must have slipped on her way down. You came back from your tournament and saw their cars, but not them. Found them like that. When you got down there, Ravi was already dead.
* * *
Me, frowning: “It’s a short story.”
Pammy interrupts. She’s brought some coffee for Aunty K. “Those are the ones that’ll stick. Overdose on meds? Happens a hundred times a day. Besides, he’s been addicted to painkillers since his warehouse accident, everyone could see that. Your Ma suspected it, at least, but she didn’t want to believe something like that about her childhood sweetheart.”
Aunty K nods at her. They’re nodding at each other. Jason is watching us from the waiting room. Columbus is asleep. Ma is still broken.
* * *
“A tragedy,” says the cop, when he finds us. He’s looking at me for signs that I think maybe it’s not. I can feel Aunty K and Pammy behind me, their stillness, their intense focus. Their faces twisted in grief, their eyes saying, yes, yes it’s such a tragedy and everyone here thinks so.
He nods at the bandages on my nose, the bruises on my face. “That happened in your kick-boxing tournament?”
“Yeah, I had three fights. I won a belt.”
“Where’s the belt now?”
I can see it’s a trick question, that he’s trying to trip me up. Thinks maybe that I’m the weak link. So I give him Kru’s number and tell him he can find the belt at the gym tomorrow, probably. He can find the tournament results online, too, if he wants.
“She even spoke to the press,” Jason says. “There are videos online.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. It seems like such a long time ago. It seems like another lifetime. I wonder how he knew about the videos but then realize he must have seen them on the gym’s social media. Everyone knows everything these days. Except for what really goes on behind the scenes.
“I’m going to need a minute with your girlfriend,” the cop says.
Jason doesn’t blink at me being called his girlfriend. He squeezes my hand and walks away. I catch Pammy’s eye, then Aunty K’s.
Where the tears come from, I don’t even know, but now they’re falling from my lashes and the cop softens and in that moment we have him, we really do.
It’s such a good story.
six months later
thirty-six
I think of rain on galvanized roofing.
The sun warms my back as I pass my hands over her hair, fingers combing coconut oil through the strands that have turned solid grey over the past few months. I turn the wheelchair so she can feel some of the heat, too. We’ve moved out of our townhouse and the new ground-floor apartment we’re in gets a lot of light. She closes her eyes to the sensation and falls asleep. Since the accident, being wheeled into the warmth is what she loves the best. I guess when you’re paralyzed from the waist down, you take whatever you get.
“You’re so gentle with her. Such a good daughter,” Pammy says from the doorway. She’s staring at me in that new way of hers. Trying to see what I know, what I’ll say, if I’ll stick to the story, if she needs to call Aunty K.
She doesn’t need to worry. The story is as much mine as it is hers, Ma’s and Aunty K’s.
The story is ours.
She doesn’t shift from the doorway, seems content to call to me from just inside the room. “Christopher tells me you’re focused on school now. You don’t even go to the gym anymore.”
“I don’t have time with university and everything.” It’s only part of the truth. The fight in me is gone. It died the night I stood with Pammy up on the lip of the ravine and watched Ravi fall asleep for the last time. I’ve tried to go back to training, but it doesn’t feel the same. Nothing will ever feel the same again. “Aunty K is coming for Christmas this year. Will you be around?”
“Of course.” She smiles at me. “We have to be there for each other, especially in times like this.”
When Pammy leaves, I separate Ma’s hair into two sections and braid both, leaving a little tail hanging over each shoulder.
She wakes, putting a hand over mine. You can see how much she’s aged in the new lines on her face, carving deep furrows at the corners of her mouth and eyes. You can hear it in