Korê in New York

What happens when a kid refuses to leave the past behind? What happens when the past won't go away? Read on and don't worry about the emotional damage.

1. Empathy Part II

   Dad left at 4am on Saturday morning. I awoke around 7am and found RoAnn working in the study. She asked if I wanted to come on a bodega run.

   “You still getting pastries for Ivanna?” I asked.

   “Sure,” she answered. “No reason not to.” Like looking for my brother, Kyril, some weeks ago, locking her daughter in the apartment came naturally to RoAnn. Therefore, there was no reason not to get Ivanna her pastries. It was still Saturday  morning. The air was raw with coming snow.

   “It’s warmer here than it’s been all week but you know what that means,” my stepmother chirped glibly about the weather. I had nothing glib left to say. “We’re going to Fairway around 1pm. I hope the snow hasn’t started, but you have work to do and so do I.”

   I did not answer. RoAnn asked me if I wanted to stop and get drinks for Nervy and me. RoAnn did not miss a beat. I stood in the bodega buying drinks. Through the steamy glass windows Saturday morning people ran their errands, or maybe they were paid employees off to work.

   I drank half my Dr. Pepper and went to work on my Connecticut Yankee paper. I figured that sooner or later Ivanna would awaken and the fighting would begin, but Ivanna only padded to the kitchen after sticking her face in the study/office and greeting everhyone in a perfunctory sort of way.

   I finished my rough draft just before lunch. I was sure it sucked on principal so I felt a sense of sick disappointment that sapped my appetite and put me in no mood for the weekly trip to Fairway. Ivanna and Nervy of course came with RoAnn and me to Fairway.

   Ivanna went through the motions, buying power bars and ice cream. Nervy Worm asked me what kinds of canned soups I liked and I pointed out green pea, split pea with ham, and bean with bacon. She ended up wanting to try bean with bacon and lentil soup since lentil was a new word for her. First she reads it and then she eats it. That made RoAnn nervous. “How do you know you’ll like that kind of soup?” she asked my little sister.

   “That’s the wrong question,” I spoke up.

   “What’s the right question?” Questions after all are rarely wrong.

   “The right question is: Is there any reason you might dislike this soup?”

   RoAnn sucked her bottom lip, and then she shook her head, but we did get the new soups for Nervy.

   We had an hour or two before dinner. I did math problems. Nervy read to us while we got dinner ready. Ivanna had a chicken salad sandwich on a roll, that RoAnn made for her. She stood in the kitchen watching the food preparations and listening to Nervy as she sat in a chair and read about a bunch of kids who were all different colors and ethnic groups and who lived in a lovely, little brownstone in a fine and safe neighborhood. The story made me think of Alvarez, Frank, Ho, Piper, and Javonovitch. “My boys,” I thought. It was a very good thought.

   It nearly blocked out the silent figure in the kitchen doorway. I did not want to look at Ivanna. That should have told me to look deeper, but I’d never been good at talking to my stepsister. I filled the relish tray and put out some bread slices cut in half because Nervy often did not want a whole slice, and bread is fine with lentil soup.

   On the fridge door, RoAnn had taped a table made in MS Word. It said: “Food Trials” and listed the different kinds of soups and other products that Nervy was trying. It had my name and Nervy’s name in the top row. The idea was that we would formally rate each new food. It was a clever idea and a bit odd.

   I wasn’t sure how we would get through dinner. Ivanna clearly had nothing to say. It was not that she wasn’t speaking to RoAnn, Nervy, or me. She had somehow run out of words earlier in the day. No words meant no fight, but sooner or later RoAnn and Ivanna wold explode. I was sure of that.

   I helped clean up from dinner. “Kore,” RoAnn said to me. “Can I see your rough draft of your English paper.”

   I said “sure.” I did not mind RoAnn criticizing me. It was better than her fightng with Ivanna. The fight would be loud and pointless and just lead to more fights. Nervy colored while RoAnn read. Ivanna also read. I went in the bedroom to practice my French conjugations aloud and then I came into the study to work on math. By now Nervy wanted to go to sleep.

   “Want to talk about the paper,” asked RoAnn.

   We headed to the kitchen. RoAnn clearly needed a break. She looked tired. She said I had done a good job with a few rough spots. “You are surprisingly charitable to those nineteenth century characters.”

   “You forget my Dad is an engineer and I go to Brooklyn Tech,” I smiled. “I also think you are being way too charitable with me.”

   “No, you’ll clean up the rough spots in the paper. And yes, I’ve got a full plate. There I said it.”

   “Did you fight a lot earlier this week?” I asked.

   “Yes. That’s why it’s so quiet. This is uncharted territory. I never thought I’d stop trusting my daughter.”

   I said nothing back. Instead, I imagined what would have happened had my attempt to run away to Dad’s had failed back in June. I wasn’t sure my mother would have resorted to an actual lock, but she would have made my life an unredeemable and retched misery. That was for sure.

   RoAnn’s quiet was a blessing that Ivanna could never appreciate. I was sure of that. I revised my paper on Sunday, worked on French, and mathematics. I also sat and drew with Nervy. Ivanna read, stretched, and then went to do her aerobic dancing.

   “Nervy want to come dancing too,” she invited my little sister.

   Nervy trooped into the livnig room and Ivanna plugged her i-pod into the stereo and Beyonce and Shante poured out along with some fairly sophisticated steps. Then Ivanna slowed down. I came into the living room and asked: “Will you teach me too?” I’d had aerobic dancing in gym and I sucked at it, but I somehow knew I did not want to be left out.

   “Sure,” was Ivanna’s reply as if she taught aerobic dancing to her sister every day. This of course strained my credulity.

   “Did you take a nice pill today?” I asked.

   “No, it’s called survival,” my stepsister hissed and then she taught me a simple step and that’s what Nervy and I did to the music. We were soon covered in sweat. “You get the shower last,” Ivanna decreed. I realized she hadn’t changed that much. Somehow that gratified me.

   After I came out of the shower, Ivanna sat eating a power bar in the kitchen. This was her supper since RoAnn wasn’t making everyone eat dinner together tonight. I got out the bread to make Nervy’s and my lunch.

   Ivanna wrinkled up her nose at our food. Then her features relaxed. “You don’t think I can be strong do  you?” she asked me.

   I did not answer. “You must be getting shitloads of support,” I finally said back. I’d learned something at Rialitee.

   “I don’t get much support. I mostly give it.”

   “You’re grounded!”

   “I can still give support. Haven’t you been watching me?”

   “Yeah, you eat, sleep, read, and dance.”

   “Right and what don’t I do?”

   “Get on the computer, but you’re grounded.”

   “Not grounded on the computer. I can get on any time I want that it’s not being used…but I don’t. Candi and Meghan at my school had their internet taken away from them so we all gave it up in support…. Also the dancng is to keep me from getting fat and crazy. I teach it to all the kids who get grounded. If we do aerobics every day we stay strong and there’s nothing Mom can do about it. She can lock me in but she can’t break me, understand?”

   I understood or I thought I understood. I remembered Ivanna in a squat with her cell phone, hiding in the Study/Office calling friends from school, Ivanna frightened and unhappy throwing snow balls at tree trunsk in Central Park, Ivanna at the end of a bad bargain about her education come completely undone, Ivanna a victim of circumstance. Now Ivanna was in control, not completely, but over that small space in her head and heart that was hers and maybe over her future.

   She knew what the fall would have brought or would bring. Running away to live with her father was an utterly rational decision for her. I wondered if she would believe me if I told her I was sorry she hadn’t made it to Ashville, but I didn’t tell her. I said nothing but, “I understand.”

   “The fuck you do,” my stepsister snapped.

   “One day we’re gonig to rule,” Ivanna continued. “We’re going to rule because we’ve had no adults to protect us. We had to get strong on our own by supporting others, but you can’t support others unless you support yourself.”

   I did not tell Ivanna about the adults who chartered the buses and who ran the resorts or built the malls. Cross the leadership and you get bad marks on your record and no chance for advancement no matter how much support you give. None of that, however, was realy relevant to my stepsister. She was stranded inside the apartment. She could harm none of the powers that be. And who knows, they might even try to “kidnap” her again. Was that the hope that sustained Ivanna or was her new pride its own dynamic?

   I had no answers, and yes I admired my stepsister. Courage even when it is on the wrong side is precious and beautiful. Part of me even wished I had an opportunity to be as brave as Ivanna.

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