Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel)

by Paulus, Rajdeep

  He shakes his head and smirks. He scans the aisle, making sure the roaming teachers don’t catch him ignoring the talk. No one near our row, he scrawls:

  There were only three letters. Do you really need me to write it? Again?

  I write:

  Funny you ask! Three letters is all I’m asking ;)!

  I look up to see if he’s reading over my shoulder. I know a guy who asked me to repeat three words not too long ago.

  Lagan chuckles quietly. Busted.

  His next note reads:

  Okay. I’ll be happy to rewrite my three letters. If you’ll tell me which way you read them?

  “Fair enough,” I say, nearly under my breath.

  Lagan rips off the last three sheets to expose a clean sheet, and in crinkly bubble letters, he draws three cucumber-wanna-be letters. The two letters I and U and a heart.

  I smile. Big. Then scrawl quickly:

  Does the order really matter?

  He shakes his head no as he shrugs his shoulders. My smile tells him I approved. And I approve. Now. Here.

  When can I see you again at the garden?

  Lagan moves from mush to business.

  I write honestly:

  I don’t know.

  He scribbles:

  How often are you there?

  He wants a date. Something to look forward to. I understand. All my life, I’ve wanted to know when, for sure, I would be safe and when I could begin to live.

  I scrawl:

  Let me look into Dad’s schedule and get back to you. Okay?

  Then I blacken out each word completely. Not taking any chances.

  ***

  When I arrive home, I check in on Jesse and complete the checklist at record speed. Since Jesse’s muscles have gained strength daily, he’s been less and less of a burden on me, making my list shorter. I tear up each time I come home and see him doing leg exercises on his own. His legs have also developed flexibility, and I see his quads have nearly doubled in the last month. How he hides from Dad daily by lying in bed or sitting in the wheelchair is dually disturbing and calming. Dad wants predictability. So that is what we give him.

  I find Jesse feeding himself fruit with a fork at the kitchen counter while sitting in his wheelchair. I must ask him something, carefully.

  “Jess? Do you know if Dad keeps his monthly work calendar anywhere specific? I’ve watched him type appointments into his Blackberry, but does he have his schedule anywhere else? Maybe in his den somewhere?”

  “Why?” Jesse has been saying simple, one-syllable words clearly, too.

  “I...” How do I explain without revealing too much? I don’t want to get Jesse in trouble for knowing too much. “I just want to know which nights he works late so I can plan my work hours. Request late days when he won’t be around to be mad that I work late. That way I can start to make money when my volunteer hours are done and save up faster for…for…I don’t know. For a rainy day.”

  “Check. His. Comp. U. Ter.” Jess’s broken words breathe criminal suggestions.

  Dad’s computer is strictly off limits. I nod to Jess. We simultaneously glance at the microwave clock. Dad could be home as early as ten minutes. Or late. Later. He has been inconsistent lately. Apparently the practice is growing, and the increased overseas client load falls on his shoulders. We overhear him on his business line in the evenings more and more. That’s what happens with the time change across the ocean. I make a quick decision and head to the den. Jess will cover me, when or if Dad comes home early.

  Dad has yet to lock his den. But the desk and shelves and even the chair remain in meticulous order like a floor model. Perfect. I memorize the angles of the chair. The laptop. Even the door’s openness. Everything must return as is. I hope I can pull this off.

  As I reach for his chair to sit down, I half expect to be shocked at the touch. I’m aware of every passing second by the clock tick-tocking faintly on his desk. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and pull out the keyboard on top. As the screen comes to life, I realize that I need a password. Duh. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

  I try Gita, Mom’s name. Doesn’t work. Then I try my name. Nothing. I have one last shot before I get locked out. Running my fingers through my hair, I ask myself, what one word sums up Dad. I can think of several, but one stands out: control. It seems too obvious. Too easy. But I imagine him sitting behind the desk, daily reminding himself that he is in CONTROL. I choose all capitals with the shift key locked in place. As I press the enter key, imagining the computer will spit the saliva of rejection in my face, my heart sinks as the screen goes blank. Suddenly, the open prompt sounds, and several icons line the right a screensaver of a renovated stone castle with a white stretch limo parked in front. A tall, curved wall of stone-embedded bricks surrounds the expansive green grounds edges, like a scene taken out of somewhere in Europe. Probably a daily reminder that Dad is king of his castle, but I don’t have time to worry about that.

  I quickly scan the icons to see if one might suggest a schedule. There’s an iCal app in the bottom left corner. That would be too easy. I click on it, having to start somewhere. Shocked when the month of May pops up, my eyes fill with notes entered in almost every box. Meetings, appointments, client names, time durations. A lot of hotel names in major cities. New York comes up a lot. And L.A. and Las Vegas, too. Interspersed with several female names. Immigration cases up the ying-yang, I’m guessing. Details galore paint my eyes like dollar signs. Jackpot! I quickly scan the weeks, looking for repetition. But do not find any. In fact, there are also blocks on the board with blank spaces. Which indicate that Dad either doesn’t write everything down or he could pop up out of nowhere at any moment.

  I shake my head in disbelief and disappointment. I almost shut everything down, when my right hand scrolls up to the arrow. Sure. I guess it makes sense to check the next month. But it looks the same. All over the place. Nothing consistent weekly. I skim quickly to see if I see any repeating names. A few do appear on May and June. I scan July and August as well, a sleuth without a clue. One overseas appointment with a client from Mumbai appears about mid-month on each of the spreadsheets. Dad works late when international business partners visit. Hmm. “8:00 p.m. Meeting with John Brown” appears on the...May 17. Then on...June 17.

  Wait. Is it possible? Yes! July 17 and August 17 too! Jackpot, for shizzle. It’s time to cash in and skedaddle before my snooping gets me in boiling water, literally. I close out of each month, and then out of iCal. Then I put the computer back to sleep before carefully placing Dad’s keyboard under the sliding middle drawer after wiping the keys down with my sleeve. As I move away to examine the angle of his chair, I twist it slightly to the left, making a perfect right angle between the seat and the front of the desk. I second guess my memory and pull it out a centimeter. Then push it back. My heart pounds against my chest so loudly, I might have a heart attack over this one centimeter until Dad sits down in his chair. I wipe the top of the chair with my shirt to erase my fingerprints. Almost done.

  “Hello?” Dad’s voice calls when he opens the door.

  I move quickly to the door. Too quickly. My swinging arm knocks a stack of letters off Dad’s desk. Before I can rearrange the stack, definitely out of order, I see Dad’s shiny black leather shoes tapping in the doorway. My streak of luck runs out. My hands shake as I think a mile a minute as to how I will explain my entering his sacred domain. Like it even matters. The scent of burnt flesh pushes out the aroma of moist earth like a bully not waiting in line to use the playground slide. Except that he not only pushes me out of line. He pushes me off the slide—to my death—once again.

  “Dad.” I choke on my first word. When the coughing ceases, I say, “I’m sorry.”

  He doesn’t flinch. “I’ll see you in the kitchen.”

  “Can I explain?” I beg, not sure why I feel the need to try.

  “In order to explain? Not following you, Talia.” He speaks while reading his newspaper as if nothing unusu
al is happening. “If you think you’ll get out of your due punishment, you’re simply wasting my time. And yours.”

  I take a deep breath and squeeze my holding hands to steady the shaking. I rise, place the pile of letters back where they started, and look Dad in the eyes and say in my best brave voice, “I needed to find Loyola’s acceptance letter from Professor Deans. Mr. Donatelli reminded me that it was imperative that I call her and thank her personally, as well as send her a formal thank you letter. I didn’t know if you would get home before she leaves her office at five, so I thought…”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Talia!” Dad screams out his words, and I start shaking like a flickering strip of paper in a spinning fan. “You did not think! Get out of my sight! Get to the kitchen. Put the teakettle on. Ten seconds for disobeying. Ten more for foolishly wasting my time with your pathetic excuse. I’ll give you a reason or two to never try that stupid idea again.”

  “Y-y-yes, D-d-d-dad.” I move past him, careful not to brush his side. Jesse pounds his thigh. He didn’t warn me in time. He heard the car. His voice wouldn’t project loud enough. I couldn’t hear him silently screaming. Fear seized his vocal chords, and now I reach for the kettle.

  I instinctively put two fingers on my lips. Almost healed. I rip off a tiny scab to punch back. To taste blood. I don’t care anymore. I accept that I will never have beautiful lips. The tears puddle along the edges of my eyes, and I swat them away before they stain trail marks on my face. The water overflows out of the kettle, jabbing me with a reminder that only one thing floods my life: loss. I gambled. And I lost. Again.

  I turn off the tap and bump into Jesse who has wheeled up behind me. After I turn on the burner and drop the kettle on top, I collapse into Jesse’s arms for fifteen seconds of surrender. His arms hold me tightly. And before I can own the strength, he pushes me away and moves back to his spot by the counter. I double over the sink, the tremor in my hands unstoppable, even by gripping the granite top. The kettle whistles so soon. Even the hot water seems to taunt me today. I hear Dad’s footsteps enter the kitchen, and his cell phone ring tone alarms all of us. Dad stops in mid-stride to take the call.

  “Who is this? Ah, yes, Professor Deans from Loyola. Yes, we received the acceptance letter and financial package. Yes, we are very pleased with it. Talia? Yes, she’s doing fine. Yes. Yes. She’s...”

  About to have her arm burned for her own good, I think to myself.

  “She’s right here. Yes. She started her volunteer hours at the Botanical Gardens. She’s working very hard over there. Yes. As a matter of fact, she was about to call you herself to thank you for everything. Here, let me pass her the phone.”

  Dad has the phone covered with his other hand when he approaches me. “Keep it short and sweet. Professor Deans from Loyola.”

  I take the phone and thank Professor Deans, hoping she can’t hear the fear in my stutter. I press end and return the phone to Dad’s palm.

  He has three teacups on the counter. He pulls three tea bags out of the canister and asks nonchalantly, “Tea anyone?”

  Seriously? I don’t know if he’s playing a different kind of mind game. Quench the prisoner’s thirst before kicking her in the guts to make her choke on her spit? I look at Dad blankly and put my arm across the kitchen sink. Proceed, please. The sooner you burn me, the sooner I can start healing. My whole body resumes shaking as I wait. And in the reflection of the tap metal, I see my eyes. And they’re not the same. It’s raining. But there’s a small glint of something I never saw before. Like a single ray of the sun breaking through. Just a sliver. Just enough to form a tiny rainbow.

  Dad stands next to me now with three cups of steaming water. Not the kettle. Blood pulses in my deafened ears, beating with the thudding of my heart, as he explains. “Since Professor Deans actually called and affirmed your reason for being in my office, your punishment has been reduced to three cups of boiling water. No counting necessary.”

  And the pouring begins. The cups pour over my arms and my teeth bite instinctively and rip fresh ridges into my lips. One cup. Two. Then three. It’s over. My skin bubbles. But it’s over. My flesh stinks. But it’s over. My arm stings down to my bone. Wound upon wound upon wound, my arm reads a timeline of a history of hurt.

  Dad refills the three cups and asks again, “Tea anyone?”

  “No, thank you.” I choke to get out the words. “May I be excused?”

  “Sure.” Dad carries on. Same old, same cold. “Just hurry back and start dinner. We have a lot to celebrate. Talia’s going to college. Your father got a raise. Jesse…well, Jesse is breathing.”

  I stumble out of the kitchen and run to the upstairs bathroom. As I quickly fish through the medicine cabinet for the burn cream and gauze, my right hand trembles, and I drop the tube. The remaining ointment only covers a quarter of my forearm. The aloe ran out after the last incident, and Dad never replenished it. I read somewhere that toothpaste works. Toothpaste it is. I fish out the Colgate from the first drawer and spread the entire tube over my burnt arm. The numbing covers the pulsing throbs like a thin blanket during a winter storm. If only I could stick my arm in a snow bank and leave it there. After wrapping my goop-covered arm lightly with gauze, what choice do I have except to return to the kitchen?

  Dad sits with his back to Jesse at the dining table. I see the ingredients for lasagna lined on the countertop nearest the stove. The last time we had lasagna, Mom baked a cake, too. We followed the steps on the bottom of the box. Remembering Mom’s hands atop my little girl hands, the noodles slipped from my tiny fingers, so Mom essentially held them for me. When you’re four-years-old, you think you’re still holding stuff when an adult holds your hands around the item. Now I know I didn’t hold the noodles at all. Mom held me and my whole world together back then. Whenever her world wasn’t being ripped to shreds.

  Jesse’s eyes spell murder as he pierces Dad’s back with invisible knives. Afraid to alert Dad, I silently pick up a cutting board and chop up onions and tomatoes with my right hand, standing between Jesse’s face and Dad’s view. As my hands move systematically, my burnt arm curses me alongside an unfamiliar word. Hope. The number seventeen. The seventeenth of each month.

  Four hours later, everyone fed, kitchen cleaned, and lights out, I lay in bed, recapping the day. My mind is a Sticky Note. Lagan scrawls I heart U. Over and over again.

  I cannot fall asleep for the life of me, my throbbing skin prevents my eyelids from touching. I can no longer lay here. Even the flipping of pages reignites the stinging. I listen for Dad’s snoring and make my way quietly back downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of water. Gulping it down, I open up the freezer to search for an ice pack. Two. We have two! Taking both and sliding them in between the gauze and my pajama sleeve, after a few minutes, relief seeps in. My arm is frozen, and I cannot feel. I know that I can’t fall asleep with the ice packs. They will defrost, and the burning sensation will return leaving me with wet sheets and awakened anger.

  I don’t know why, but I walk back to Dad’s office and stand at the door and reenact in my head how I clumsily tried to exit. How I failed to notice the stack of letters on the corner of his desk. How I didn’t watch my personal space and failed to escape. How I failed.

  I shake my head, and as I stare at the letters in mixed up order as I had left them, I realize that Dad never returned to his office to organize them. He would never know which order I left them in either. Before I can stop myself, like a magnet that has no power over the pull, my feet move swiftly, my hand takes the stack of letters, and I quickly place them one by one back on the desk, after reading the senders’ names. Utility bill. Mortgage bill. Another bill. Business mail. Credit card statement. More business mail. Then I read a name that stops my dealing fingers. “Amit Shah.” The return address is Kolkata, India, and the plethora of colorful stamps suggest that it cost a pretty penny to deliver.

  The name sounds so familiar. Like it’s been filed somewhere deep in my memory, and I just h
ave to remember who he is. I don’t have the luxury to think while standing here—guilty as charged if Dad catches me returning to the place of my destruction. I make a split second decision to peruse the already opened letter and return to my room in no more than three minutes. My fingers carefully remove the letter written on blue-lined stationery and read as fast as my eyes can move.

  [Amit Shah asked me, a teacher at the district school, to write this letter for him. His wife has been our faithful household help for years. This is the least I could do in return. Please accept this letter on their behalf.]

  Dear Gerard-Sir,

  We were recently told that Gita died several years ago by a neighbor who has some connections with a family friend living in Michigan. Why did you not tell about our daughter’s death? Doesn’t her death clear all her debts to you? We only hoped that she might see a better life in America. We’re still in shock that we’ll never see her again.

  In all the ten years since she left us, we only received two letters from her, which our teacher friend read to us. In the first, she told us that she gave birth to a daughter. The second told us she had a son. That is all we know. We are devastated to hear the news and still cannot believe our precious Gita is really gone. Never to step foot again in the country of her birth.

  We forgive you. We simply desire to contact our grandchildren and perhaps bring them to India one day for a visit. We hoped one day our Gita would return to see the room we built for her, run in the fields of rice paddies like she did as a child, and break bread with us. Since that dream is dead, we can at least hope to give our grandchildren a comfortable place to lay their heads when they visit India. Please do not discard this letter. Stamps are still very expensive for us, and we cannot afford to write often. Please tell our grandkids that we want to see them. They’re all we have left of Gita. Please, we beg you, tell the kids about us and give them our love.

  Thank you,

  Amit Shah

  P.S. Gita’s mother sends her best.