Read Online A Simple Distance by K. E. Silva - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: K. E. Silva
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Social Science, Sagas, Family Life, Ethnic Studies, Cultural Heritage, African American Studies
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yourself.
Thank you for coming, Jean. But it is time for you to leave Baobique.
CHAPTER 10
At my table in the coffee shop, I had forgotten to drink my latte. My fingers, turned cold as milk, curled tight around the circle of the mug and heavy with the weight of remembering, felt for the envelope in the outside pocket of my briefcase. Thin, blue airmail stationery worn thinner from handling. Mine.
I already knew each line, what it asked that never got answered. I opened it up, even though I didn’t need to, skipped to the same part I always did, like a broken record since I’d received it, months before:
They do not read the mail here, you know, like they do at the Post Office in Bato. So if that is what is stopping you from writing, it shouldn’t.
My residency in Nassau will end in six months. I have options, J. There are fellowships in California well within my reach. But they are of no interest to me without a reason to be that far from home. And you would be the best judge of that. You need to tell me if I have a reason. If you want me, you have to say so.
I can come to the States. But this is not a decision I will make without you. It is hard for me to believe that you’ve yet to respond to any of my letters. You are not alone, J. I am also confused. But I know we both felt a certainty in Baobique. And I cannot get that back by myself. Tell me, how on God’s green earth can you hide from me? Even now, I see you. I know you better than you know yourself, Pascal. You are so damn difficult.
I would never force a decision on you. But I am telling you, now, I will not wait forever. You are making a mistake.
I would like to believe that love feels better than this. I would like for you to be the one to convince me of that.
The meanest thing I ever did was never write her back; never tell Susan that if we were in the second grade I’d have picked her for my best, best friend, told her everything in my whole world, like who was cuter, Mark or Brennen, candy bars just went up to twenty-six cents, and how to cross the monkey bars two by two. But I am not in the second grade anymore, and wanting her that much got all complicated and threatening. And so I tripped. Left us both to land on our own.
There are things I’ve done I can’t forgive. I know what it is to disregard an outstretched hand.
A fog had settled along the trendy street, unusual for early afternoon, obscuring visibility. I bussed my table of its still-full mug, readied myself to leave the coffee shop, leaned against the glass door, taking three tries to push it open, and retraced my earlier frantic flight, diffuse in the blue-gray mist.
Making sure to make noise as I climbed the steps, I opened the door braced for the chill of my mother’s reproach. But she wasn’t there, the only things staring back at me, my four bare walls and all her bags.
* * *
At 10 o’clock I called the Oakland Police. My mom, missing only eight hours, was not a priority for them, but they did, after half an hour on hold, take my report over the phone. They told me to look in places familiar. And to check the local hospitals.
But I didn’t move. I didn’t make any other calls. I sat in the center of my futon, wedged between two of her too many bags, stared out the window, and waited.
That, I knew how to do: wait. The day my sick uncle looked me in the eye and asked me to leave his island—disgraced that I’d been caught with Susan—I did as I was told. I kissed both his cheeks, drove back to Godwyn, a passenger in my mother’s jeep on an unfamiliar side of the street, and packed my backpack. I hadn’t needed the black mourning clothes, after all.
And then I waited. I sat on my mother’s bed, stared out her open window, out past Grampy’s grave, the spreading baobab, the steep drop to the bottomless ocean—Baobique nothing more than an ancient volcano, raised to the surface of the water from depths unimaginable.
I sat there for hours, until Rascal and Lucia
Thank you for coming, Jean. But it is time for you to leave Baobique.
CHAPTER 10
At my table in the coffee shop, I had forgotten to drink my latte. My fingers, turned cold as milk, curled tight around the circle of the mug and heavy with the weight of remembering, felt for the envelope in the outside pocket of my briefcase. Thin, blue airmail stationery worn thinner from handling. Mine.
I already knew each line, what it asked that never got answered. I opened it up, even though I didn’t need to, skipped to the same part I always did, like a broken record since I’d received it, months before:
They do not read the mail here, you know, like they do at the Post Office in Bato. So if that is what is stopping you from writing, it shouldn’t.
My residency in Nassau will end in six months. I have options, J. There are fellowships in California well within my reach. But they are of no interest to me without a reason to be that far from home. And you would be the best judge of that. You need to tell me if I have a reason. If you want me, you have to say so.
I can come to the States. But this is not a decision I will make without you. It is hard for me to believe that you’ve yet to respond to any of my letters. You are not alone, J. I am also confused. But I know we both felt a certainty in Baobique. And I cannot get that back by myself. Tell me, how on God’s green earth can you hide from me? Even now, I see you. I know you better than you know yourself, Pascal. You are so damn difficult.
I would never force a decision on you. But I am telling you, now, I will not wait forever. You are making a mistake.
I would like to believe that love feels better than this. I would like for you to be the one to convince me of that.
The meanest thing I ever did was never write her back; never tell Susan that if we were in the second grade I’d have picked her for my best, best friend, told her everything in my whole world, like who was cuter, Mark or Brennen, candy bars just went up to twenty-six cents, and how to cross the monkey bars two by two. But I am not in the second grade anymore, and wanting her that much got all complicated and threatening. And so I tripped. Left us both to land on our own.
There are things I’ve done I can’t forgive. I know what it is to disregard an outstretched hand.
A fog had settled along the trendy street, unusual for early afternoon, obscuring visibility. I bussed my table of its still-full mug, readied myself to leave the coffee shop, leaned against the glass door, taking three tries to push it open, and retraced my earlier frantic flight, diffuse in the blue-gray mist.
Making sure to make noise as I climbed the steps, I opened the door braced for the chill of my mother’s reproach. But she wasn’t there, the only things staring back at me, my four bare walls and all her bags.
* * *
At 10 o’clock I called the Oakland Police. My mom, missing only eight hours, was not a priority for them, but they did, after half an hour on hold, take my report over the phone. They told me to look in places familiar. And to check the local hospitals.
But I didn’t move. I didn’t make any other calls. I sat in the center of my futon, wedged between two of her too many bags, stared out the window, and waited.
That, I knew how to do: wait. The day my sick uncle looked me in the eye and asked me to leave his island—disgraced that I’d been caught with Susan—I did as I was told. I kissed both his cheeks, drove back to Godwyn, a passenger in my mother’s jeep on an unfamiliar side of the street, and packed my backpack. I hadn’t needed the black mourning clothes, after all.
And then I waited. I sat on my mother’s bed, stared out her open window, out past Grampy’s grave, the spreading baobab, the steep drop to the bottomless ocean—Baobique nothing more than an ancient volcano, raised to the surface of the water from depths unimaginable.
I sat there for hours, until Rascal and Lucia
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