Memorial(78)

For the second time in two days, Mike looks genuinely baffled.

Omar says that about everyone, says Ahmad, tapping at his brother’s phone.

Honestly, it was exhilarating to hear, says Mike.

He’s just trying to get on your good side, I say.

No, says Omar, sternly, looking at me. It’s true.

He leans back into the bench, crossing his arms.

I mean look at us, says Omar, spreading his arms. Isn’t this amazing? How we ended up here?

And, a little delirious from the words, the three of us look up at the wooden awning above us.

I mean it, says Ahmad, he tells everyone.



* * *





Not one of us finishes our food. We’re stranded with stray ounces of burger. Ahmad packs his to go, along with Omar’s leftover fries. Everyone stands, not really knowing where to put our hands, until Omar finally opens his arms, and Mike finally embraces him.

Then I hug Omar.

Then Mike hugs me.

In between, each of us squeezes Ahmad’s hand, and he shakes his head at all of us.

To Omar, he says, Can we please go?



* * *





I tell Omar I’ll see him soon, and he nods, grinning. Despite myself, a smile rips across my face. And I realize I’m still wearing it in the car when Mike points it out.

It’s nothing, I say.

Nothing’s nothing, says Mike. You look happy. I’m happy for you.

And he likes you, says Mike.

Shut up.

No. That matters. And you like him, yes?

I look at the road in front of us. We’re only just entering March, but the concrete’s starting to shimmer. One day, we’ll look up, and it’ll be summer again. None of us will see it coming.

I don’t know yet, I say.

That’s fair, says Mike.

But you could like him, he says.

Well, I say.

Yes, I say. Yes. I think I could.

Then that’s the most you can ask for, says Mike, turning left, and I don’t look at his face, and I don’t want to think about what’s probably there.



* * *





On our way inside the apartment, we’re ambushed: a skateboard, from across the street, makes its way over to Mike, nearly colliding with his ankle. He isn’t paying attention, isn’t even on this planet, it seems like. But he catches it with his heel nonetheless, smirking at the kids who kicked it.

There’s a slight delay, and then they appear all at once. They’re our neighbors. They are sorry. They ask Mike if he’s all right, and in the same breath implore us not to say anything to their dad.

He’ll break the skateboard, says the oldest one, matter-of-factly.

Please please please please por favor por favor please please, says the youngest.

Mike purses his lips like he’s considering it. Then he hops onto the board, gently, tenderly. He leans on one end, and then the other, before he pops a little wheelie. As the kids realize what’s happening, they start smiling, and then laughing, and then they’re clapping and whooping alongside him, and I am crying, and clapping, too.





8.



My father says, Isn’t that what they say? You lose them the way you get them?

I ask him who they are, and he asks me to pass the syrup. We’re eating at a diner just outside the loop. There are cops at every other table, and all of them ignore us. I’ve left Mike and his mother to each other for the rest of the afternoon. She flies out tomorrow, and her son will follow a few weeks later, and we still haven’t figured out what that looks like yet, but Mike’s told me, more than once, that his dad left some money for that, too.

My father’s therapist told him to try new places, to put himself back in the world, and my dad grumbles about that in between bites of pancake, but I know it’s the news he’s been waiting to hear. He’s started tutoring again, in a limited capacity. He’ll do a little more in the fall, once school starts up again.

Now he sits in our booth, with his legs crossed and a mug of orange juice in his hand. A stack of student papers stands stilted beside him. They’re riddled with green ink and a scattering of blue.

I ask my father about Lydia, and he grunts.

Your sister thinks I’m a drag.

She just likes to do her own thing.

Everyone likes to do their own thing, says my father. Doesn’t mean you can’t share your time.

She moved in with you, Dad, I say, and from the way he sips his juice I know he appreciates it, and he wants me to know that he appreciates it.

He and my mother have pledged to meet for coffee every once in a while. When I tell him that Once in a While is pretty vague, my father says my mother told him that was the point.

She’s convinced it puts the pressure on me to plan something, he says.

It does.

You’re your mother’s child.

I am, I say. But I’m yours, too.

The pancakes aren’t bad. We ask our waitress, an older Black lady, for another jug of syrup. My father’s convinced that he’ll take his therapist up on trying every last diner surrounding 610.

He’s a nice guy, says my father. Young. Mexican, I think. The flag’s on his desk. I was worried he’d be full of shit at first, because, you know, they don’t teach you about old niggas in any school I’ve ever heard of.