“At ten in the morning?” She takes my hand, enclosing it in hers. It is warm and though my hand is larger than hers now, I hold on firmly, welcoming the security. “Let’s sit.”
She leads us to the living room, where framed pictures of the three daughters and Gia line the shelf above the fireplace. All the pictures of Papa are gone. I remove my hand from hers, glancing around the room, suddenly seeing it as if for the first time. Every trace of him has vanished. The basket he kept his newspapers in. The case for his reading glasses. His slippers that were always tucked beneath the sofa he favored. All of it gone. I turn toward her, fury filling me. “Everything, Mama? You didn’t leave one trace for us to remember him by?”
Before she can answer, I start opening the writing-desk drawers. Unable to sleep, I would come downstairs at night for water and he would be sitting here, reminiscing over pictures from India. I would climb onto his lap and he would tell me stories of his childhood, of his home when he was happy. Each opened drawer reveals what I already suspected—all of his childhood pictures are gone. “Where are they?” I demand, turning on her. “All of his photos?”
“Why?” she asks, gently. “What need do you have for them?”
“He’s my father!” I scream at her, the first time in my life. “You may believe he’s never coming back, but I don’t.” I want to hit her, to hurt her like I saw Papa do so many times. I want to see her afraid so she can understand the fear gripping me. “He’s not dead.”
“No.” She is calm in a way I have never seen her. “But I hope he does die.”
My knees buckle; my legs weaken. I sink into the sofa, my head in my hands. “What? Why?” The question is ridiculous, I know. But I ask nonetheless. I am sure the physical abuse stopped after we all left the house. With no children left to rile his anger, I assumed he had no reason to lash out. “He stopped hitting you, right?”
“Yes.” She answers me matter-of-factly, as if we are in a courtroom and her answers are rehearsed. “The last time was the day Sonya left.”
Shocked, I raise my eyes to her. The day still haunts, reminds each of us how easy it was to walk away. None of us had ever considered it before, so when Sonya did it, it was a revelation. “Why?” It made no sense. Sonya was never his favorite, not the one he needed. Why would her leaving affect him?
“Because that was the day I told him I wanted a divorce.”
Looking at my mother now, feeling dread and shock, and trying to process what she just said, I respond, “You asked him for a divorce?” I stare at her. “What happened?”
“He beat me, worse than all the other times,” she admits conversationally, as if we are talking about the weather. “Then he cried and told me that he had spent his entire life supporting me, providing for me, for you girls. He said he had made mistakes, lots of them, but he was sorry.” She pauses, a faraway look. “It was the first time he said those words to me. He told me he didn’t know how to love, that he was learning.”
“Then why?” I plead, moving past her admission as I used to move past the physical violence. I am an expert at it, storing the occurrence in a small box in my brain where it can’t hurt me. “There’s no reason to rid the house of him.” I am begging for myself. With my own home in shambles, this one is the only stability I have left, the house and the memories of my time here.