Preparation
by Bhavika Malik
Two words slipped from Mama’s wine glass and rested on the kitchen table. As she wished for repentance in silence, she fixed her earrings, picked up the plates, and tried to dust off her mistake. But Papa already noticed it, and so did I. Just a month before our relocation, Mama mentioned a headline. It didn’t belong to this year. She picked an old scar and made it fresh again as she dug out the memories.
Three years have passed since that headline. The dirt is firm on the graves, and Austin’s Bar and Grill has replaced the old meat shop around the curb.
Mama didn’t react to the news then, and she didn’t have anything to say about it now. Her face was a tight grin looking over the window. But my mind was a drain clogged with many questions; I knew that she was testing me, so I stayed silent.
“Don’t let anyone feel strongly about you,” Mama always told us. She believed that neutrality would keep us protected. So she wrung her wrist every morning, forcing out every ounce of heritage and history connected to her body. She expected me to do the same.
Papa had a lot to say but kept quiet. He was afraid, but he knew that a successful man must live in America, even though success meant building a house in the mouth of trauma. And tying knots around your joints so you can turn into an effigy when night mocks you with a game of cat and mice.
We all knew that discussing headlines was the last resort. News was the estranged mother of racism who visited daily, but we never invited her to dinner.
If dinner starts at eight, then everyone must ask why the dinner didn’t start at seven-thirty. If dinner starts at seven-thirty, you complain about the delay in the dessert. Once the family completes the dinner discourse, you wait for your Papa’s signal to talk about grades.
After Mama complains about your screen time, you swiftly change the discussion to tomorrow’s dinner.
The dinner is over.
At nine, you help Mama clean the table and rush to your room before Papa turns on the TV. You sleep. When the voice of the news anchor enters your room from gaps in your door, it clings to your ears like tar. You can never get rid of it. It lingers in your ears until you are deaf with reasons to hate how the letter R rolls off your tongue and how you softly cradle the Ts. Or how your barley-colored skin can detonate at any moment, especially at airports.
***
On the porch flooding with moonlight and dust, they stared at the newspaper cut out in Mama’s palms. They imagined sitting on a similar porch in a yard with sunlight glistening on the snow as they yelled at their daughter for being late to school, knowing that it might be the last thing she hears from them.
They picked out the trash in their new home, collecting tears and debris from the cedarwood floor left there by neighbors who taught them that brown was synonymous with terror. Meanwhile, at school, the long looks and stolen glances weighed me down. None of us knew if the smiles were out of fear or affection.
Walking back home, we wondered if the next name we hear on the news would be ours. It wasn’t a matter of “if,” but a matter of “when.” Everyone knew that. Like rust on metal, we were the fading remnants of forgotten history, stuck together until we turned to nothingness.
About the Author
Bhavika Malik is an emerging writer with a few scattering pieces published in journals such as Ice Lolly Review and Cathartic Literary Magazine. She is currently a high school freshman in Gurgaon, India and an editor for her school magazine.