Dad’s back stiffens. “This has nothing to do with me or Debby,” he says, practically spitting the words out one by one. “It has to do with my sister, and the fact that you’ve been bullying her.”
“Oh, bullying,” Uncle Randall says. His face is red now. “If I were going to bully my own wife, would I have brought flowers?” He waves a wilted bouquet in the air. “Would I be standing here right now arguing with someone who has no right to interfere?”
“Listen carefully,” my dad says, enunciating every syllable. “I’m asking you very politely now to please leave our property. Mina will talk to you whenever and however she’s comfortable doing so. Just not now.” His voice is quiet and dangerous. But Uncle Randall doesn’t leave.
I glance behind me. Auntie Mina looks pale and tight-lipped. Where’s my mom? She should be home by now.
“I just want to talk to her for a minute,” Uncle Randall says, his voice changing to a wheedle. “Can’t you just give me a minute?”
“Whatever it is, you can say it over the phone,” my dad says, standing his ground. I reach out to grasp Auntie Mina’s hand.
“I need to see her. We can’t accomplish anything over the phone.”
“You mean, you can’t dole out bruises over the phone,” my dad says flatly. I close my eyes for a moment and sigh quietly. Auntie Mina starts to tremble, just a little. I don’t know what to do, so I hold her hand tighter.
Uncle Randall says something very softly, so softly I can’t make it out, and then, to my horror, my dad brings his balled fists up from his sides.
“I’m giving you one more chance to leave,” Dad says, “before I call the police.”
Uncle Randall stands taller, trying to see past him. “I’m giving you one more chance to let me see my wife.”
My mouth drops open in disbelief as he shoves Dad in the chest. Dad takes a step backward but he doesn’t give up any more ground.
And then Auntie Mina somehow slips away from me, and she’s standing in front of us, in full view of Uncle Randall, the golf umbrella clutched to her chest like she’s hanging on for dear life.
“Here I am,” she says—in a different tone of voice, one I haven’t heard. She sounds stronger. She sounds angry. “You’ve seen me. Now you can go.”
“This is ridiculous,” Uncle Randall says, his face almost purple. “I’m not leaving.”
I take a deep breath. I can’t leave Dad alone out there for one more moment, but even more, it’s Auntie Mina who still needs me. Who needs us. But I’m terrified, my mind and heart are both racing, and I don’t even have a golf umbrella.
All I have in my hands is my phone. All I have is me.
I step up to join Auntie Mina, standing just behind her and Dad.
“Yes, you are leaving.”
The voice that comes out is strong, and hardly even sounds like me, somehow. Somehow it doesn’t betray that my insides could shatter like glass.
I sound confident; I sound like my mother.
Uncle Randall looks at me like he’s never seen me before, but he’s still standing there.
“Get off my property,” Dad hisses. He grabs the collar of Uncle Randall’s shirt before he can even react; he gives it one hard shake before letting go.
I suck in a startled breath. Uncle Randall stumbles backward a step, his eyes first widening with shock and possibly a little fear, then narrowing again as he regains composure. Moving forward again, he opens his mouth to say something, visibly enraged.
The automatic garage door opens. It’s Mom. Her car pulls into the driveway.
Uncle Randall stops short. He says coldly, “We’ll settle this later, then,” and stalks back to his fancy car and drives off. I know he’ll hire the best lawyer money can buy, and he might win that battle, but we’re not going to let him win the war. I’m sure of that now.
I let out my breath, shakily. The house, the neighborhood, feel quiet again. Safe.
Mom, Auntie Mina, and I rush to meet Dad as he comes up the front steps. He looks bent, tired; he looks ten years older. Inside, he walks into the living room and sinks down on the couch with an explosive sigh. His eyes are sad, not angry like I expected.
“So, you heard,” he says lightly.
I sit down next to my dad and hug him, leaning my head on his shoulder like when I was a little kid. I feel drained. At the same time I can’t help feeling foolishly proud of my dad. I know it’s all old-fashioned, and my mom would probably call it pre-feminist idealism and say she and Auntie Mina should have been the ones to go out there in the first place, but I like it that Dad’s willing to fight to defend his family. And we were right there, ready to back him up.
“Dad, you were like our guard dog,” I say, knowing it’s inadequate to what I’m really feeling. But I have to say something. “You were great.”
“Grrrr,” he says, a little weakly.
“If it’s all the same to you,” my mom puts in with a small smile, “I’d rather be married to a lover, not a fighter.” All of us, including Auntie Mina, laugh a little louder than is strictly necessary.
“Now I think we need some chamomile tea,” my mom continues, steering Auntie Mina ahead of her toward the kitchen and yanking my dad up from the couch. “We all need to unwind after that. And then, I think I’d like to talk about restraining orders.”
My mom is kind of a fighter herself. She doesn’t usually show it—her days of protesting ended, she claims, when she graduated from college—but if she thinks injustice is involved, she can’t help herself. It’s just the way she is. She starts bringing up advocacy and civil rights, equality and respect, and we all roll our eyes and say she must have lived in Santa Cruz too long, but she’s right.
My parents might be bizarre, but at times like these, I really do love them.
After all, I’m a little bizarre too.
From Shiri Langford’s journal, September 25th
It’s all arranged. By next weekend, I won’t have to worry about any of this. Or about THAT.
Sunny, if you’re reading this, I wish I could explain everything, but I can’t. Just know that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was me. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Any of it.
I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m a coward.
I am. I’m sorry.
twenty-seven
Later that evening, I pull out Shiri’s journal. I haven’t looked at it in a couple of weeks but I’ve been thinking about what she said, about Auntie Mina being more sensitive to other people’s emotions. I’ve been wondering, again, where it fits in with my underhearing. With our underhearing—mine and Shiri’s. I know I won’t be able to figure out anything I haven’t already, but I still feel like looking at it.
As I’m taking the journal out of the desk drawer where it’s been lying incognito, it slips out of my hands and falls to the floor, splayed open face-down. I pick it up and smooth out a few creased pages, and that’s when I notice a folded page, almost at the back of the book. The top half is torn off—it’s just the bottom half of the page—and it’s been folded so the outside edge doesn’t show, which was why I didn’t see it before. I might never have seen it if I hadn’t dropped the book, unless I’d gone through every single page one by one. And I guess I didn’t.
My fingers tremble a little as I unfold it, though I tell myself there probably isn’t anything there. But there is. The small half-page is full, cramped with writing.