I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that my parents were unhappily married. It wasn’t that they always fought. They did, but it was more than that. The three of us—my mom, Ahmed, and I—seemed to live an entirely different life than my father. He was either gone at work or reading the paper in silence. He was impenetrable. I remember calling his name for minutes, a foot away from him, and him just ignoring me. We weren’t on his radar unless we were being yelled at or made fun of. I was “Fatso” and Ahmed was “Freeda,” a girl’s name that Ibnou called him when he thought my brother was acting like a sissy. When I argued with Ibnou, he hit me, and I cried, and he felt guilty and called me his princess. Sometimes he gave me money. I figured out very early on that he was always nice when I made him feel bad, so I started to cry on cue (this skill came in handy when I became an actor). He often hit us to make the point that we belonged to him, that we were his property, and that he could do with us what he wanted. This was never okay with Alice, and she fussed at him and fought with him to protect us. So he started to hit us only when she wasn’t around.
I took to speaking in a baby voice in a misguided attempt to appear cuter so I’d be in less trouble. (I was a creep then; I’m a creep now.) My father would say stuff to my mom like “We need to have another baby. She would grow up if we had another baby, and she’d stop talking like that.” My mom would always respond, “I will NEVER have another child with you ever again! You mistreat the kids you have. I’m not having more so you can mistreat them, too.” See? I knew they were unhappily married. I hoped that my mom would leave Ibnou eventually. I couldn’t wait!
To be clear, I don’t think my dad was intentionally abusive. He was trying to make us better children and therefore better people. More to the point, he was trying to make us into the kind of children he could recognize: quiet children who listened to him without question. He wanted children who were like him, so he raised us the way his father raised him. Ahmed and I were too foreign; we had too much personality.
My father went back home to Senegal frequently. He’d usually take Ahmed and me with him, but once, when I was around four and Ahmed was five, he and Ahmed went alone. They were gone for more than a month. When they came back, Ahmed told my mom and me about a party our dad had taken him to. It was at a big house, and there were a lot of people there, and they kept giving Dad money. I was pissed I’d missed such a great party with free money, but now I know better: we were listening to my brother describe my dad’s wedding. Yes. Ibnou had gone to Senegal to marry Tola as he’d always promised her he would (and as he always promised my mom he wouldn’t). I’m certain that if Ibnou had taken me instead of Ahmed I would’ve come home and yelled, “Mommy! Daddy married this other lady!” Ahmed was far more innocent; he believed in goodness and hope or whatever. I was born a cynical, suspicious, forty-five-year-old divorcée. I would’ve reported every single thing that I saw at that wedding, and the jig would’ve been up as soon as I was back in America.
Baby Gabou My parents would send Ahmed and me to Mom’s parents’ house in Georgia during the summer. I wish I could remember those times, but I was too little. I mean, look at that little nose of mine! Can you even, cuz I can’t. I CAN’T EVEN!
Courtesy of Gabourey Sidibe
But the fact is, Ahmed was there—not me—so for the time being, nothing much changed. Until two years later, when my mom was out of town on a trip, and my dad came home to our apartment with a baby.
“This is your brother Malick,” he said to us.
The baby was about a year old. Dad handed him to me.
“You’re not a baby anymore,” he very clearly said to me. “You can’t talk like a baby anymore. This is a baby. You’re a big girl now. No more, okay!?”
“Yes, Daddy,” I said, sounding more like a baby than I ever had. (I would decide when the game was over, not him.)
I loved the shit out of that baby, but I didn’t believe he was my brother. Africans are always calling strangers their sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles. It doesn’t mean that you’re actually related.
“Where’d this baby come from?” I asked.
“The airport,” Ibnou answered.
“Where was he before the airport? Who made this baby?”
“I did,” he answered.
“For real? You made this baby? With who? Are we keeping this baby forever? Where’s this baby gonna sleep? Who’s gonna teach this baby English? Does Mommy know this baby? Can we afford this baby?”
Ibnou recanted. “This is just your cousin. This is my brother’s baby. He’s just visiting! He’s going back tonight! This is not my baby. You are just like your mammy!” He was always telling me that I was like my mom. He pronounced it mammy. Adorable.
I stopped asking questions and went back to trying to force that baby to love me. Later that night, Ibnou took the baby back to the airport to go home with Tola. I didn’t meet her. Yet.
When Alice came home from her trip, I yelled, “Mommy! Daddy brought a baby here! He said it’s my brother! Daddy has a baby!” She assumed the same thing I assumed: Africans are always claiming everyone’s family when they really aren’t.
Two years later, Tola came to live with us. All I knew was that she was Dad’s cousin and the mother of baby Malick who’d come to America for a day. But this time she came alone and Malick stayed in Africa. How did it happen that Tola came to live with us? Well, Ibnou had convinced Alice to write a letter to Tola inviting her. By this point, Ibnou had been granted U.S. citizenship, but because Tola wasn’t an American citizen, a natural-born American (Alice) had to issue the invitation. Ibnou had convinced Alice to help a sister of his come to America the same way, so this was nothing new and didn’t seem suspicious. It may seem suspicious to you because you’re hearing the story all at once. In real time, though, Ibnou’s con took years to pull off.
So Tola was finally in America, and like when Ibnou’s sister came to America and stayed with us (another story for another time), I had to share my room and my bed. This was awful for me because I was, and still am, a solitary creature. I hate strangers, as I’ve said, and I hate houseguests. Ibnou once told me that every time anyone came over to our house, I’d incessantly ask when that person was leaving. I believe it. Even now, whenever a friend comes over to my apartment, I count down the minutes until they’re gone so I can finally take my pants off. (Adulthood is all about waiting to take your pants off.)
Anyway, Tola stayed with us for three or four months. Alice was super welcoming and even took Tola to buy her first winter coat. Tola cooked and cleaned, but in my opinion she wasn’t particularly interesting. She was just another boring African in our house I couldn’t wait to get rid of. She was another Ibnou.
Ibnou eventually found his cousin/secret wife an apartment about a ten-minute walk away from ours. That’s when he stopped coming home at night. One morning, on the way to school, Alice went over to Tola’s new apartment unannounced. Ibnou was there, and Alice saw his clothes on the side of Tola’s bed. He swore that he was just talking to her and then got too tired to come home so he slept there—that they were just sleeping, that’s all. Alice said okay and left.
At this point you’re probably thinking, Girl! Just leave him!! That’s what I’m thinking while writing this. That’s what I was thinking—and most likely saying—back then, too.
But that’s because there are things that I didn’t consider. Like the fact that two years before, when Ahmed was seven and I was six, Ibnou and Alice got into an argument, and in order to punish her, he called the Bureau of Child Welfare and accused her of abusing Ahmed and me.