We Rip the World Apart

Evelyn Toronto

Evelyn

Toronto

1997

Over a decade later, Kingsley embraced Evelyn, tilted her head back, then pressed his lips to hers, long and full of feeling—the way he used to when they were two kids standing in the island sun, warm breezes dancing around them, her dress flowing in a way that made that scrawny-legged girl from Nova Scotia seem like another person entirely.

Kingsley released her and clapped a hand on Antony’s shoulder. At seventeen, he was still a scrawny kid, with shoulders that were starting to broaden, a chin that was losing its baby-faced softness as it morphed into the defined lines she’d fallen in love with on his father.

“Full professor.” Evelyn took Kingsley’s hand. “A new house.” After three apartments, and in Scarborough Junction, the type of neighborhood they’d dreamed of.

“We’ve made it.” He squeezed her hand back as they headed toward Dulcie’s yet again, his easy island gait, which was never as easy in him as in other men, nearly a thing of the past.

“We’ve made it,” echoed Evelyn. Except that it should have happened at least five years ago. They should have been celebrating tenure by now. The men who started alongside Kingsley had been tenured for two, three, one as long as five, years. Twice as hard for half as much, Evelyn had heard people say. But with his drive, his determination, she’d somehow thought Kingsley would escape that. She somehow thought—despite the derision she’d heard from time to time in her childhood, despite having never even seen a Black person until, at eighteen, she’d moved to Jamaica—that here, in Toronto, a place with culture and diversity, the saying wouldn’t apply.

But it had. Just as they’d quickly learned she needed to be the one to show up at apartment viewings or meetings at the bank. That if she wasn’t the one behind the wheel, they were exponentially less likely to get where they were going without being stopped. She hated it, but it was the way things were.

Lately, Antony had been pushing for his license, and they’d been pushing back, saying it was an unnecessary luxury. Which was true, of course. Transit would take him anywhere he wanted to go. But so many other things were true, too.

“What’ll it be?” Kingsley pulled up a chair in the small restaurant, looking somewhat out of place in his dress shirt and tie, suit jacket, hair perfectly combed and cropped close. But the venue was used to that, and used to her, the only white woman in this long-standing hole-in-the-wall.

Only Antony looked like he belonged, with clothing that adhered to what she’d learned was “hip-hop culture” and short poky dreads Kingsley despised but had given up arguing about. Because when it came to Antony, it was pointless to argue.

“Ackee, for sure,” said Antony, scanning the menu with the excitement of that six-year-old he once was. “Rice and peas. Oxtail. Curry goat. Ma, you in the mood for jerk today?”

“Whatever you want.”

Antony nodded. “It’s a celebration, right? Let’s do it up.”

“Yes.” Kingsley leaned back, smiling at his son. “Rundown too. Plantain chips. Festivals. And pudding for dessert.”

“Where do you suppose we’ll put it all?” Evelyn laughed.

“In this growing boy. And we’ll pack what’s left if we need to.” Kingsley grasped her hand under the table. His eyes, the twinkle in them, even after all these years, made her stomach flip-flop, made her able to fool herself—just for a moment—that life had turned out the way she’d envisioned. Kingsley looked to Antony. “Place the order?”

“On it.”

Once Antony was out of earshot, Kingsley turned to Evelyn. “How much longer do you think we can hold off driving lessons?”

“Not long.”

“Where did de time go?”

A grin spread across Evelyn’s face, for the double nostalgia, the lilt and hardened the that had slipped in, such a rarity these days.

“Wish we’d had more.” He sighed before bringing back the grin. “But if one is all we get, what a one!”

Evelyn forced a smile, the now-familiar guilt what flipped her stomach this time. It was a choice they should have made together. But also, it was her body. She who would have had to go back to lugging a stroller through these crowded streets, take time off work, endure the looks she received in this city—which held more vitriol for some reason when it was a baby she held in her arms rather than a child who walked beside her. And so she’d gone to the doctor. Such tiny pills—that let her determine her own life. That let her deceive this man, who, in every other way, she loved more than herself. “What a one, indeed.”

Antony leaned against the counter, grinning at the young girl who worked the cash, who clearly was enamored of their son despite being at least five years his senior. It was hard not to be enamored. Antony. Vivacious. Smart. Passionate: as a child, about G.I. Joe, Transformers, and oceans, equally; as a young teen, about track and basketball and the harms of pollution, making them set up recycling stations throughout their house, urging them to reduce and reuse; and in the past year, about Jamaican culture, about politics, opportunity, civil rights, anything and everything about what it meant to be a Black man in the world, about making the world better for Black people.

Antony plopped a tray with three waters on the table, splashing the liquid. He sat, legs spread, slouched, one arm dangling over the back of his chair. Kingsley, with his proper posture, proper presentation, held back the criticism that would typically pour from his lips. Evelyn squeezed his knee in appreciation.

“Pretty lady there,” said Kingsley, winking at Antony. “Know her name?”

“Sure. Lily.”

“Seems to have an eye for you.”

“To joke.” Antony grabbed a straw, ripped the paper, then played with it, folding it in his hands, looking at it rather than Evelyn or his father.

“What do you mean?” Kingsley leaned forward.

“I mean…” He scrunched up the paper, then tossed it on the table. “She knows I’m a zebra.”

“A zebra?” Alarm flared through Evelyn.

“Girls like her,” said Antony, seemingly missing the question, “aren’t likely to get with someone like me. Which is the weirdest thing, because in Jamaica, it’s not such a big deal, right? There’s lots of mixing?”

Kingsley looked to Evelyn, his jaw tightening, his eyes softening, then back to Antony. “It wasn’t uncommon, no.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” Antony laughed, the sound brittle and short. “Isn’t that the motto? Out of many, one people?”

Kingsley nodded.

“Here it’s like… I don’t know. They can’t be sure whether I’m white with black stripes or Black with white.”

“You’re neither,” said Kingsley. “You’re a man, not an animal. You don’t have stripes.”

“A man?” Antony straightened, eyes wide. “That’s the first time you’ve said that.”

“Well, you are,” said Kingsley. “Or you will be soon.”

Evelyn’s chest tightened. A zebra. She’d not heard that one before. Oreo. Checkerboard. Whitewashed. She wanted to smack the smirk off whatever kid had called her son that. She wanted to take her family to a place where none of this mattered, where they could teach him to drive—the only words of caution to make sure he was conscientious and careful, rather than to make sure he was aware of how his skin, his hair, his clothes could draw undue attention.

“A man drives,” said Antony, snapping Evelyn’s attention back to the conversation.

“A man drives.” Kingsley nodded. He tapped his fingers on the table, staring at their son. “I’ll take you out this weekend.”

Antony whooped, pulling his fist down to his side in victory.

Evelyn inhaled, wishing the impossible, that they were back in Jamaica—not the country that existed now, but the Jamaica that they had intended to live in—raising their children, many instead of one.

She sipped her drink, her gaze on her son, his tan skin, a perfect fifty-fifty mix of her and Kingsley. And her anger simmered to a thread of hope. If that girl over there saw him as different, not “one of them,” maybe the people she worried about would, too. Maybe life here wouldn’t be so bad for him or as hard as it’d been for Kingsley.

A zebra. A checkerboard. A coconut.

Maybe it would help.