We Rip the World Apart

Kareela

I lie still as the door opens, ensure my breathing is deep and even. Soft footsteps, and then the pad of feet to the closet, the slight creak and rustle as Thomas reaches for his paramedic uniform and bag. It must be after seven. I’ve slept for four hours, another indication that a pregnancy test is unnecessary. I’ve never been a napper.

More pads, another pause, longer this time. I concentrate on my breathing as I sense Thomas above me, then feel the barely there touch of his lips on my forehead. The door closes and I roll onto my back, guilt swirling through me—for not opening my eyes, kissing him back, thanking him for his concern.

He’ll be at his practicum until late into the night, long after I’ve gone back to bed, and then I’ll be up, out of the house and on my way to work before he wakes. A three-day-a-week routine he laments, but that, lately, I don’t mind…too much.

Today’s ships-passing-in-the-night routine will grant me at least twenty hours before I’ll have to live through the continued conversation I know is coming. I lie in bed until I hear the click and various clanks of the locks sliding into place, wait another five minutes for good measure, then crawl out of bed, stomach rumbling. I drink the water waiting beside me but leave the acetaminophen untouched, slide my feet into the massive bear claw slippers that Thomas always chuckles at, wrapping his arms around my torso, kissing my neck, teasing me that the Caribbean blood must be strong in me if I need slippers throughout the year.

I head to the kitchen, which is clean, Thomas’s dinner dishes washed and stacked to dry. A smile crosses my face. It’s my night, but of course he did them, my sweet man. Another rumble, and I know just what I need. I reach into the cupboard, then open the fridge, setting down tools and ingredients—coconut milk, flour, salt, unsalted butter, brown sugar, bowls, a pan, sifter, and last of all, yeast—lining them up the way Gran showed me, her voice in my head, Yuh gat to do it right, now, yuh hear? None of dis running fah dis, running fah dat.

I pull out a baking sheet, rub the bar of butter over a sheet of parchment paper and then a bowl, greasing them, just suh . I heat the coconut milk, testing the temperature with my finger—an action that raises Thomas’s eyebrow and gets him booted out of the kitchen anytime I make what Gran calls “home food.” But it’s an excuse, really. Cooking together is our thing, yet when it comes to Gran’s recipes, making them, letting her movements become my own, I appreciate solitude.

I proof the yeast, mixing in the sugar, salt, a slab of butter, just suh, and am transported to the first time she invited me into the kitchen, almost a year after Antony’s death. How every time she visited, the pain of it seemed a little less, and every time she left, it was like losing my home, the only remaining true sense of family I had.

Next comes the flour, my arm jutting forward and back as I pour the powder over the sifter, smooth like, yuh see. Another belly rumble. I mix the wet and dry, set the ball of dough into the greased bowl with a cover over it, then set an hour on my timer. Coco bread wasn’t a practical choice, but I need that sense of Gran’s presence, Gran’s food. My relationship with my mother may be a wreck, but me and Gran, we’re perfect.

I open the fridge, grab a container of cut carrots and Thomas’s homemade hummus, then head to the couch, open my laptop, and navigate to a password-protected folder full of case files. It’s work I should do at the office, but that we all do at home—because there are never enough hours, never enough of us for all the hurt out there. Hurt we’re told not to take home, but do anyway.

When the jingle of the alarm sounds, I’m in the middle of Destiny’s file. A nine-year-old girl with a life that exemplifies my earlier thoughts. The world is shitty.

I’ve only met her once, yet her face is clear in my mind, even without the attached photo in her file, like all the faces are. Her smile—lit with so much joy, so much energy, despite the dump of a life she was dealt—seems to scream that despite all the shittiness, we should keep on. Because if this girl can smile the way she does, maybe there is hope.

Still, I wonder about the trade-off, continuing the propagation of the human race when it’s this massive mess, knowing future generations will face such pain and hardship simply for the rare moments of good.

I punch the dough, Gran’s invisible hands on the back of my elbow, my waist, guiding me to use the strength of my body— nah too ruff —but with smooth, sure power. Kissing her teeth when I do something wrong, then kissing my temple, hugging me to her side, letting me know it’s okay, I’ll learn.

I go through the rest of the steps with the warmth of her lingering over me. My hands become her hands, the motions a meditation.

While the dough rests, I open the freezer, knowing Gran would tut, telling me store bought and frozen is no patty. But it’s after eight thirty now, and the carrots and hummus won’t cut it much longer. Everything in the oven, I return to Destiny’s file, making notes, ensuring I have a plan in place for tomorrow’s visit. It’s never fun to remove a child from her home and I’m hopeful this won’t be the case. Her mother loves her, I can see that—envy it. The answer, then, is to help Tanisha see that her child needs her more than she needs the slime of a man she’s dating.

I brought it up last time, indirectly, as I was taught to do during initial visits, emphasizing Destiny’s safety and well-being, the importance of a secure environment, people she could look up to rather than be afraid of.

Tanisha leaned back, her brow raised, her mouth twisted. “What? You think I’m you?” She spread her hands to flow down the length of her. “You think some nice white boy gonna see me, see this place, these kids, and whisk me away?” She shook her head. “Nah, nah, nah—”

I stepped back, swallowed, ready to reply in line with my training, when she cut me off.

“I saw you. I seen you. You’re friends with Jasmine. At the club just a few weeks ago, trying to act like you one of us, like you down, though you can’t even move yo’ hips. Then you’re picked up by some bougie white boy, going hand in hand down the street, as we all gotta wait round forever trying to flag some cabbie who’s not too afraid to pick up a group of Black girls.”

“I don’t see how—”

“That’s why I’m telling you. You here, dancing around your words, telling me without saying it that I should get rid of my man if I wanna keep my kid. Well, that man brings food. He brings money. And he ain’t never touched one of my babies, no matter what you trying to say.”

I looked to my file, more to break away from her gaze than to find the notation I didn’t need to read. “There was her bruised arm,” I said, “characteristic of twisting. And a few months later, her broken—”

“She tripped,” said Tanisha. “I told Social Services that. She a klutz.”

I nodded, my chest tightening, my arms too. Because her words about me are true, words I’ve heard said in different ways, through looks and gestures and unmistakable intonation my whole life. I’m not one of them. But I’m not who she thinks I am, either…not quite. And all of it was irrelevant, because I was there to do a job, not to get shaken by my own insecurities.

“So do what you gotta do,” she said. “Take your little notes, do your little assessment, but you’re not taking my kid, and you’re not telling me what to do.” She paused, looking down at me, even though we’re almost the same height. “Not you.”

I inhaled, hating the way her gaze, her tone, ripped me of my training, sent me back years, to another part of the country, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my best friend’s house, a place I thought I was welcome, belonged. A place full of laughter, rubbed shoulders, whispered admittances of crushes we were nervous but also excited to share, because the risk was so low. The boys in the pages of the magazines we spread out on the floor couldn’t reject us, tell us our hair was too nappy, our noses too big or lips too plump—not to mention our skin, which I would never point out, my hand being so much lighter than the one that turned the pages.

And then the moment—along with that month’s issue—was ripped from us. “People should stay with their own.” My friend’s mother, towering above us. “Makes me so angry. Not a single Black boy in this magazine.” Looking at me sideways, as if the sight of me put a sour taste in her mouth. “White boys are what our girls are taught to want, what their girls are, too. And yet, white women trying to take all our men. Our good men. Ones with solid jobs and education. They make them think they’re better than us. Well, I’ll tell you this.” She stared at her daughter, then slammed the magazine down on the table. “Stay with your own. Be interested in your own.” At the last moment, her gaze met mine, stayed there, before she walked away.

Stay with your own… The words echoed in my mind, echo now, have echoed countless times in between. Stay with your own. But where does that leave me?

The oven’s timer jolts me out of my thoughts, and I jump, finally noticing the sweet, spicy-warm scent that always feels like a hug. Tonight I wish I could sink into it, bathe in it. I pull the warm buns out of the oven, set the pan on a cooling rack, then reach for the patty, hoping the leftover buns will be a peace offering. Of all the home food I make, coco bread is Thomas’s favorite.

I slump onto the couch, about to take a bite, when my phone dings. It’s Jasmine.

Impromptu BLM meeting tomorrow night to discuss the success of the march, plan next month’s events, etc. etc. I know you’re resistant for some reason, but just come, okay?

Before I can even think to reply, another ding.

Not taking no for an answer, so see you after work tomorrow. We’ll take the bus together. No need to reply, because your reply is Sure, Jasmine! Wouldn’t miss it! xoxo

I drop the phone to the couch, something between a laugh and a sigh in my throat. At least it’ll let me procrastinate the conversation with Thomas even further. He won’t be happy. But when I tell him why I’m not coming home, he’ll act okay with it, supportive even, though when he sees my text, he’ll get that momentary look he gets whenever I mention I’m doing something with Jasmine. Fear, maybe, that she’ll draw me away from him, to a world he can’t enter.

Not willing to wait another second, I bite into the coco bread and patty sandwich, the flavors settling my shoulders, relaxing my forehead, making me feel, as Gran always does, that there’s at least one place, with one person, where I’ll always belong.