Chapter 8
ZOYA
Recommendation: Listen to Dance With My Father by Luther Vandross.
There was a pain.
I could never figure out how to make it go away. It always lingered, and at times when I thought it had gone away, it was back in the middle of my chest. Almost making it hard to breathe and making my eyes water.
I asked Kora if she felt the same way, and she told me it was called grief. She said it was something that I would forever carry around with me. It had seasons, and some were rougher than others.
Grief was something I learned to hate. Anytime I felt that pain, it made me miss my parents. Caused my head to hurt, chest to burn and memories to flood my brain. I often wondered if Maverick felt the same way?
Did he feel the pain like me and Kora?
Was it hard for him to sleep sometimes, or did he feel like he was slowly losing his mind? At times, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me because I could hear my father’s laugh.
His chuckle that always made the entire house come to life. The other day, a Janet Jackson music video came on. It wasn’t just any song; it was my mother’s favorite song. Kora rushed across the kitchen and turned it off.
After turning the TV off, she held onto the edge of the TV stand and took a few breaths. Her back was turned to me and Landon, but soon as Landon asked her for something to eat, she shook it off quickly and turned around with a smile on her face.
As if she was hiding her emotions. Hiding how she was feeling after hearing our mother’s favorite song.
As I sat on the couch, I locked eyes with my sister, and she patted her chest. It was her way of telling me that she was feeling that pain that I told her about.
Grief.
“Zoya, it’s just a stupid dance… you don’t have to take everything seriously.” Braylen, my best friend, complained.
Kora had bought me a dress a week ago. Maverick had given her the money to make sure I had a dress for tonight’s dance. I stared at the pink sparkly dress that Kora said I would look adorable in.
Adorable was the problem.
I didn’t want to look adorable. I wanted to look cute so one of the boys could have asked me to the dance.
“Fine.” I sulked, and she smiled, turning back to apply makeup on at her vanity.
Braylen was black, but at times, you would have thought she was a little white girl from Tottenville.
Instead, she was a black girl that lived in West Brighton.
At times, I missed our home on the other side of Staten Island. I wondered if my room remained the same, or if some stinky boy had moved into it and made it ugly. The room I shared with Jeffie was cool.
She slept between different rooms. One day she was in my room, then the next she was in her mom’s room, or Kora’s room.
I enjoyed when she slept in her mother’s room. When Jeffie didn’t sleep in the room with me, I was able to cry. Anytime she heard me cry, she would ask what was wrong and try to fix it.
Jeffie was a fixer.
She wanted to fix everything and be there for everyone. If there was a problem, she was going to figure out a way to solve it.
This problem… she couldn’t fix.
She couldn’t bring back my parents.
The school was only three blocks from Braylen’s house, so her mother allowed us to walk. Not before she took a dozen pictures before sending us on our way. As always, we walked the three blocks to the school, running into other kids from our school.
“Why are there so many adu—”
“Daddy!” Braylen screamed, running full force in her kitten heels and ball gown.
Her father stood there in his work uniform, smiling from ear to ear. She leaped into his arms, and he kissed her. Braylen’s parents divorced two years ago, so she only saw her father every other weekend.
If her weekend fell on his workday, then she had to wait two more weeks to see him.
She complained about not being able to spend time with her father, and I felt for her.
Then again, the only way I could see my father was if I walked across a bunch of other dead people and put a stone on top of his headstone.
Braylen was lucky.
“Bray-Bray, I missed you.”
She nuzzled her face in her father’s neck as he struggled to hold her. “What are you doing here, daddy?”
“It’s the father and daughter dance. You didn’t think I would miss this, huh?”
She squealed, even more excited. He put her down, while that pain resurfaced. I felt it right in my chest, as I stood near Braylen and her father.
“This is my friend, Zoya,” she quickly introduced us.
“Hi Zoya, nice to meet you… is your dad coming?”
The pain became sharper. “Yes.”
I didn’t know what else to say and panicked. The words refused to come out of my mouth. “Zoya, your father is dead.” Braylen quickly reminded me.
Braylen’s father looked away and then looked down at his daughter. “I’m sorry, Zoya.”
“She gets confused sometimes.” Braylen rubbed my back.
It was true.
I did become confused at times. Braylen asked me to spend the night at her house once, and I told her I needed to ask my mom.
She softly reminded me that my mother was gone. Braylen was never rude about it. As confusing and painful as grief was for me, I knew it was harder for her. She had never experienced loss and had never felt the ‘the pain.’
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” I muttered, and Braylen tried to come along. “Alone.”
I sat on the girl’s bathroom floor for an hour. The tears burned my eyes, and each time I had them under control, they would start to flow again. This bathroom was all the way on the other end of the hall, so no one was in and out like the bathroom closer to the gym.
Anytime I needed to feel better and stop crying, I had to become angry with my parents. I had to almost hate and blame them for leaving me.
Us.
It was the only way to stop crying and stop feeling that stupid pain.
Pulling myself together, I washed my hands and left the bathroom. I walked the dark and lonely halls for a while before I made my way towards the gym. Nobody was looking for me or missing me.
“Zoya Bean,” I heard that low voice.
Slowly spinning around, I saw Maverick standing in the blue hall. It was darker down that hall, but I saw him clearly.
“Hi, Maverick. I didn’t call anyone to pick me up.” I questioned.
Our house was only three blocks over, so I was going to walk home after filling up on the junk food at the dance.
He nodded towards the gym. “What’s happening in there?”
“Some Valentine’s Day dance.” I lied, not wanting to make him feel sad, or feel that pain. “It’s nothing big. We can go home.”
“Lie to me again.”
I looked down at my shoes. Kora picked me out the most perfect pair of shoes. I worried that they were expensive, and she said Maverick wanted me to have what I wanted.
I didn’t know how my brother made money for us. I knew the deliveries of food from our uncle stopped, and we never went hungry. He told me that we could have pizza every day if I wanted, and it was a promise that he never broke.
“Father and daughter’s dance,” my voice cracked.
He rubbed his hands together in a circular motion slowly. Although he never told me, I could tell that he was very familiar with the pain Kora and I felt.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Didn’t know… we can go home. I don’t want to stay.”
Maverick looked down the hall, and then back at me. Hesitantly, he reached his hand out for mine.
I stared at his hand briefly before I placed mine into his.
He pulled me behind him into the school’s gym.
The lights were low with the glimmer of the stars on the ceiling from the projector.
On stage, there was a screen with a digital slide show with pictures of the fathers attending and their daughters.
Looking away, I fought to swallow that lump that always appeared.
No matter how much I tried to swallow, it never went anywhere.
The lump and the sudden need for tears coexisted with one another. Maverick stopped walking and he pointed toward the screen.
There was a picture of me and my father at my kindergarten graduation. I blinked back the tears, as another picture of me and Maverick in front of our old house came across the screen.
Our father was in the background with his phone to his ear, and Maverick had me on his back.
God.
Maverick resembled our father so much. The older he became, the more he carried himself like him.
I remembered the day so vividly. We were going on a business trip with my father. He never took us, but me and Maverick begged him to go. Kora wanted to stay home with my mother, and we wanted to travel with dad.
“How?” I choked out the words.
He had this crooked smile, as he squeezed my hand gently. We danced slowly, as he looked down into my eyes. “I’m not dad, Zoya. I can’t be that man… I want to be, but I can’t. He taught me to always be my own man. The one thing I can do is something that he always told me he would do for us.”
“What?” I held onto his every word, wanting to know what my father said.
He looked away.
Maverick always avoided eye contact. To know my brother was to love him and all his weird quirks.
“Protect you, Kora, and Landon. I’ll give my life so you can have breath in your body.
Zoya Bean, it seems so fucking sad now, I know.
There will come a time when our name means something… the Caselli name will mean everything.”
“Our last name is Eaton, Mav.”
He smiled. “I will always protect you. You may not always like me… but you and Landon will grow up to be powerful.”
“Yeah?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, Zoya Bean… always going to make it where you, Kora, and Landon don’t need me.”
I hugged him tightly with tears falling down my face, and he tensed up. I felt his hands rub my back, as I wet his shirt with tears, missing my parents desperately.
“I’ll always make sure they know … always make sure they know how proud you’re going to make us all.”