We Rip the World Apart

Kareela

Two weeks pass, during which I make excuses to avoid entering the BLM headquarters, too wary of what Carson has offered me, what he’s asked me to do with it. But, at last, missing the camaraderie, I go. Within minutes, Carson draws me into his office. A file folder sits on his desk—which I find odd in this digital age. The information, I’m sure, was sent through email, or some cloud-based service, split apart, then pieced back together again.

He motions for me to sit, then does the same. His hand taps the folder.

I stare at it. “That’s the info?”

“I thought it might be easier,” he said, “if you could look at it in private. Take it wherever you want. A park. Your home. I can be with you, or someone else, just…however you want.”

“If I want.”

He nods. “Well, it’s yours, whenever, if ever, you want it.” He lays both hands on the folder. “There’s a jump drive, too, interviews of people who knew Antony. Who were there. But my contact, he transcribed everything on it.”

“You listened to it? Read it?”

Another nod.

“And you think I should.”

He sighs, long and heavy and filled with things I can’t quite decipher. “I think you should do whatever you feel is best for you.”

My heart pounds.

“My father would have wanted to know.”

Carson is silent, and so am I—my father’s want pressing upon me, the way he would have grabbed for this folder, read its pages hungrily. I breathe out, my gaze on the folder, tempted to say more, to tell Carson that if my father had had these pages, had the answers I hope lie within, maybe that would have been enough. Maybe we could have read these words together—worked through the pain of them—and then continued working. But Carson may not even know my father is dead. I mentioned it to Jasmine once, but not how or when or why. Not that the best part of him died over eighteen years ago, a part I saw only glimpses of, like seeing the shadow of the person you yearn for, rather than their actual being.

The folder seems to throb. It’s thick, though the jump drive may be giving it false girth. I imagine photos—from the morgue, the crime scene. I imagine an explanation.

Would it have been enough? Or simply too little, too late.

“The meeting tonight. I don’t think I’ll make it.”

“Okay.”

I raise my gaze to meet Carson’s, the throb making its way through me, mixing with the ache of knowing that none of the knowledge my father held was enough. That I wasn’t enough. “Got to catch up on work. And my boyfriend, he said he’s making a special dinner for us. He got a great midcourse review on his practicum. So he’s excited. Trying a new recipe or something. He likes to cook.”

A pause sits between us, and then, “You should bring him by sometime.”

My brows knit. Does he not know? Not care? Thomas wouldn’t be the only white person to enter these doors, but my guess is he’d be the only white person without Black family. My hand gravitates to my abdomen before I think to stop myself. Carson’s gaze darts to the movement, then raises back to my eyes. I’ve told no one. I didn’t even tell Thomas, technically, but Carson has seen me rush to the bathroom more than once, maybe even heard the retching I imagine the fully open faucet couldn’t mask.

I stand and reach for the folder. “Thanks. For this.”

“Of course.” He rises, places his hand on mine before I can lift the pages. “You might need someone,” he says, “to be with you. Or after…I mean, I know you have your boyfriend. Or your parents. But if you need anyone else, call Jasmine…or Rania. She had me put her number in there. On a Post-it note.” He keeps his hand on mine. It’s the closest we’ve been, our faces no more than a foot apart, and the look in his eyes makes me wonder how I ever thought he could have been interested in me sexually. He sees me as someone to guide and protect, to groom, possibly. And right now, he’s frightened for me.

“And , what’s in here, whether or not you look at it, it’s about you, not about speaking at the rally.” He stands upright, releasing my hand, and a moment passes before I lift the folder, hold it to my chest, then offer a smile in thanks before leaving the office.

Back at the apartment, the folder sits in my bag, out of sight and yet filling the room. It blocks out most of Thomas’s words as he talks excitedly about his supervisor’s praise, that he has a natural knack for the work, an intuition she hasn’t seen in years.

I smile and try not to avert my gaze to the bag across the room, try to be the attentive girlfriend I led him to believe I was. He cooks as he talks and pulls me into the effort. I peel garlic and cut off the ends before squishing them through the press, watching the masticated pulp plop into a clear glass bowl he’s set out. But my mind is on the folder.

I move on to the peppers, slicing them in long even strips, until all I can hear is the sound of the knife on the board, the sizzle of onions in the pan. I turn to see Thomas staring at me, a mix of concern and frustration in his expression.

“Did you hear me?”

“No. Sorry.” The knife is still in my hand, held out between us. I twist to place it on the cutting board. “What did you say?”

“Where were you?”

“Just thinking.”

“About what?” His voice is tense. “You’re not here half the time anymore—even when you are actually here. You don’t want to talk about the baby. Fine. But does that mean we can’t talk about anything? That you can’t give me five minutes of your attention?”

A shudder reverberates through the room. Another crack in the bedrock of what we built between us.

“Work’s busy.” I turn back to the cutting board, but he crosses the kitchen, places his hand on my hand in such a similar way to Carson’s that it takes me back to the office, the folder—though in all the ways that matter, I’ve been standing in that room all night.

“Is it the volunteering?” His voice softens. “I know it’s important. But other things are important. We are.” He pauses. “I said that my supervisor wants to offer me a position after graduation. Right here in Halifax.”

“That’s great. I’m so proud of you.” A rush of guilt enters me for missing this news, and I reach on my tiptoes to kiss him. When I pull away, he doesn’t. His arms grip me tighter. His hands smooth their way down my back and his lips find mine again, latch on—urgent, almost desperate, as my own desperation rises up to meet his so violently that it shocks and thrills me. It’s been weeks, my nausea and uncertainty always giving me reasons to shift away. But now this distraction is all I want. He releases one arm to switch off the stove, then spins me, pressing my back against the fridge door. We fumble to peel off each other’s clothes, not fully succeeding but getting far enough, and only make it to the living room before it’s too late to continue the journey. Our bodies lock, and as we move, I’m reminded of the things that drew me to him. His smile, his kindness, his generosity—in so many ways, but especially in this, ensuring pleasure like no man I’ve ever met.

When we’re done, breathless and sweaty, I kiss his brow, his nose, his lips, and lie there, half on the couch, my legs dangling off it, my arms clinging to him, to what we once had, what part of me wishes I could have forever. He kisses me back, sighs, and nuzzles his head against my neck.

“You know,” he whispers, his voice lazy and content. “This job offer is perfect timing. It would give me a few months to get settled in the job before the baby comes…” He hesitates. “If the baby comes. It takes one less worry off the table—that I’ll find a full-time job, whether or not I would have to move to find it. We wouldn’t have to worry about bills, even if you decided to take a full maternity leave.”

The hormones that allowed this momentary coupling, this forgetting, fade, and everything I’d been feeling, fearing—about the baby, Thomas, Antony—rushes back. I shift, and his arms grip me tighter. The urge to peel myself away rushes through me, but I don’t, fearing that if I do, I’ll never be in this position again and, despite everything, it feels good to be here in his arms. It feels…not safe, exactly, but comfortable. Tinged with a nostalgia I want to let myself sink into.

So I lie here, not replying to his comment, his point, which is a good one, but not good enough. Wishing I could tell him about the folder, that in this moment it is weighing on me far more than this wisp of a child. But I can’t bring myself to say the words—and that, out of everything there is to be afraid of, is maybe what scares me most of all.

Later that night, after we’ve eaten and Thomas is sleeping for his early morning shift, I sit cross-legged on the couch, the folder in front of me. For eighteen years, I’ve wanted to know. For eighteen years, I’ve wished someone would tell me the truth about what happened that night. Why.

And here it is.

My palms sweaty, my mouth dry, I open the folder. There are photos, but not the ones I feared. Antony smiling. Antony’s mug shot, something I didn’t even know he’d had taken, just a few weeks before the shooting, when he’d been brought in for unlawful assembly and causing a disturbance on municipal property.

I turn a page to see each of the officers, looking serious. Stoic, for their official work photos. I stare at their faces, my breath shallow and thick, then draw my gaze to the written text.

The words blur with the sound of intermittent traffic outside the window, the gentle whir of the fridge in the kitchen behind me, the whoosh whoosh of blood thumping through my ears.

The day it happened is the clearest memory from my childhood. Not after—that’s a blur—but before. At least I think it was the day…memories shift and merge. Antony—tall, thin, with shoulders that seemed to broaden with each day, taking the shape of my father’s—was a ball of energy. He came into the kitchen, where Mom was making something on the stove. Broken-up sea creature puzzle pieces lay out before me on the floor. Music was on the radio, and then it changed, got louder, and Antony stepped away, grinning. He pulled Mom from the stove. She batted him away at first, but then they danced. I was dancing. And laughing. Shaking my hips the way he did, she did, all of us smiling.

He lifted me up and we twirled.

The words in the file blur hopelessly. I blink, rub the back of my hand across my face, and pile the pages together. Phone in hand, I punch in the numbers and a plea pours out. “I can’t do this. Not on my own. Can we meet?”