TORONTO
creative non fiction
It always seemed to be smiling, a benevolent giant whose limestone mouth curved up and out to greet me. I climbed its 22 perfectly filed teeth to reach its glottis made of stone columns, glass and black steel panels tattooed with gold hieroglyphics depicting the deities. I slipped through the portal to warm cherry wood paneling and human scaled entrances where rooms overflowed with what I felt when I was a little girl was all of the knowledge in the universe. I loved libraries equally for the books they contained and the hushed reverence they necessitated. For the cozy yet statuesque spaces where marble walls gave way to high ceilings adorned by trompe-l'œil frescos. The feeling being in these spaces gave me, was all at once meditative and shimmering, energy bursting underneath the dermis waiting to be expelled. It was the feeling of being a part of a secret everyone within those walls knew but deigned to speak of. A place where a cough could echo loudly and leave no one disturbed. Minds were bursting with ideas and pens were running out of ink, but you would be none the wiser as our concentrated composure never flinched. I can’t recall how much reading I ever got done at the library, I was often too excited to just be there, with my people, digesting every note of every hall in this impeccably still, spacious and architecturally stimulating environment.
I walked over to the reservations desk to check on a hold when from the corner of my eye I saw him. A dark caesar, salt and pepper beard, more pepper than salt, confident gait, green flight jacket and timberland boots.
What was he doing here in Brooklyn in the middle of a work day? In my sacred space? At my library?
I did this often when I was young and we lived 500 miles apart, see him everywhere. Any man whose height, complexion and knowing stride was remotely similar to his, served as his proxy. But he lived here now, moved back to New York, to Harlem, from Toronto over a year ago, so it could be him.
The book still hadn’t been returned. Gracious to the librarian at the reservations desk I feigned a smile, turned and rolled my eyes, exhaling, audibly frustrated that I would have to keep waiting, annoyed that I was about to stalk a phantom. Hoping it was indeed an apparition, or at the very least that I had missed him. I reluctantly walked ten paces to the left. The grandeur of the library faded, the two story atrium transitioned to a dimly lit, drop ceiling cavern where shadows were undetectable. There was a hurried pace as people went in and out of the restrooms, sipped water or filled their water bottles at the fountains. It was a transitional space, you were not meant to stand there, you were meant to fulfill primal needs and get out. And there I was, standing at the edge, confronting a primal need of my own.
None of the rules of the library that I loved applied once I crossed onto the red, green, blue and yellow low pile rug whose colors had faded under the onslaught of bodily fluids regularly expelled from infantile bodies; sanitized but intrinsically dirty. I saw him. Seated at a round wooden table, two women sitting across from him, a baby not more than 2 years old crawling around at their feet. My heart raced, sweat began to bead under my arms, and I worried it would stain my white shirt. I hadn’t been forced to patron this area of the library since I was in elementary school, confined to wearing stiffly pressed peter pan collared white shirts and plaid jumpers with school patches and embroidery on my densely knit wool sweaters. Here I was again in a button down white shirt flooded by feelings of longing and abandonment, on the precipice of the YA section which began where the multi-colored carpet ended. I adjusted my focus and slipped behind a stack, still close to the door providing both prospect and refuge. Why didn’t I just go up to them to be sure? I don’t know, but I was filled with anxiety. The invasion in my place of refuge, even this space, if it was him, was too large. So I stayed back and studied them. He leaned back slightly in his chair. The younger woman, dressed in a cropped pink hoodie and shiny lip gloss made me realize she was about my age, plus or minus 16, was leaning across the table, her face red. I tried to make her out, but realized I had forgotten my glasses. I did that regularly. The ophthalmologist had prescribed them to me to my disbelief. I had had 20/15 vision or better for most of my life and right before my sixteenth birthday, I was told that I had difficulty seeing distance and required glasses. Trying them on, I knew they were right, but I protested and often left my glasses at home begrudging the intrusion on my face. I had to get closer to confirm if it was indeed him and decipher who he could possibly be meeting here. I walked across the open area to the other side of the stacks, reached the wall and turned only to meet his gaze. He didn’t seem shocked to see me at all and beckoned me over with his eyes and a nod to a vacant seat next to him. I hesitated, and then the pink hoodie and the older woman next to her turned to see me standing there. I had no choice now but to walk over. As I approached, my Dad stood up, hugged me and greeted me with a kiss, and as I turned to shake hands with the strangers at the table I recognized her.
Stephanie, his ex-wife’s daughter. What was she doing here?
I sat down, wishing to scrub this stain from my holy place. Wishing to not be there. Her face was red like I could see from afar, but closer up there were tears streaming steadily down her usually buttercream cheeks. God I wanted everything to NOT be there. “Stephanie’s in town visiting her aunt and cousins over the summer and asked to see me” my Dad said. “Since she doesn’t know the city well yet, and the library is close to her aunt's house, we decided to meet here. Stephanie was just… well Stephanie…”
Stephanie’s tears became audible, she reached across the table to grab my hand. I recoiled. She blurted out “I asked him to come back.”
“I asked him to come back to Canada with me, to be with my mom.”
Apparently, the last year without him had been intolerable, she prattled on and on about how much she missed him and needed him around. I was in shock, here was this 16 year old young woman who had grown up in a house 500 miles away from me, with my father asking me to help her send my dad back to Canada to live with her. The shimmering turned to hot pokers, the heat prickled off my body and sweat dripped from under my arms and pooled under my breasts. How could she ask me to send my dad back with her? To her?
I had packed my bags and was waiting expectantly in the living room for my father to arrive. It was a warm summer's day in August, the windows were open and the white sheer curtains my mom and I had put up were billowing as the warm breeze and the noise of children playing in the backyard floated in. When I went downstairs to meet my dad, a chocolate barbie stepped out of the car. Long legs like stilts shot out of a white romper with flowers all over it. She was so tall her voice barely made it down to earth where I stood. I don’t remember what she said to me, but we got in the car and drove eight hours to Toronto to see my Dad’s new house. About twenty minutes before we reached our destination we stopped at a KFC. I was excited, I never got to eat fast food with my mom. She would never eat Kentucky, as she called it, or feed it to her only child. If this was a precursor to my life for the next month with my Dad in Toronto, it was a welcome omen of good times to be had. I ate the fried chicken breast, coleslaw, biscuit, and wedges with glee.
Her name was Alaina, and she lived in Toronto too, it made sense that she rode up with us. She had two kids, a boy and a girl “who would be delighted to meet you and keep you company this summer” Alaina smiled through slurps of her fountain drink. I smiled back and feigned interest, but I was going to be with my Dad, my brother, Aham, 8 years my senior who I loved and idolized and hadn’t seen since my parents divorced and my Dad took his son with him. He and my cousin Alicia who was visiting from Trinidad would be more than enough for me. I didn’t need her kids to keep me company. Bellies full and expectant we arrived at my Dad’s house. All of us. I had been wondering when we would drop Alaina off so she could go be with her two kids. We all took our bags out of the trunk and headed in, maybe she needed to use the restroom and then someone would pick her up, or her car was nearby and she needed to use the restroom before she drove off.
We got into the house and she went upstairs or downstairs, I don’t know, she just disappeared. My dad sat me at the kitchen table, he said he wanted to show me something. He pulled out an envelope and slid out a sleeve of photos. He opened the flap and pulled out a few, it was him and Alaina in a park with two strangers. He told me they had gotten married. That Alaina was my stepmother and her kids my step siblings. He said he loved her. They had known each other since childhood growing up in Trinidad and rekindled a relationship when he moved to Canada. I was stunned. He let me ride in the car with this woman, admire her beauty, her neatly coiffed yet carefree hair, her long legs, and said nothing. For 8 hours I was trapped unknowingly in a car with liars. I no longer anticipated the great summer I imagined with my Dad, brother, and cousin. I felt a pit in my stomach, anxiety, and did Aham know? Where the hell was my brother?!?!?
I was seven in a strangers bedroom, my step sisters, looking out the window waiting for everyone else to arrive. They were with Alaina’s brother over the weekend while she and my Dad traveled down to New York to get me and would be arriving soon. I could make myself comfortable in her daughter's bedroom while I waited for salvation, for my family to arrive. When they did no one else was surprised, my dad was prone to impulsivity, even ones cloaked in familiarity. Yet, we, Aham, Alicia and I were all leery of Alaina, there was something fake about her, insincere, toxic even.
That summer I got to know Alaina, she was a petty jealous woman who tried to pit her daughters and my intelligence against each others. I was asked to skip a grade, so was Stephanie. I tested into advanced placement schools so did Stephanie. Only it was not true, Stephanie did not get asked to skip a grade or test into any special classes or program’s, Stephanie’s brother Marc Andrew let us know. She tried to tell me what to do with my hair. Tried to prevent me from unloosening the box braids, my mother plaited my hair into to prevent any strangers from combing it. Despite spending copious amounts of time at the pool and water park, she forbade me to wash it. When I defied her, loosened my hair, washed it and had my cousin comb it, she complained to my Dad with me and the full court of siblings in earshot. She told my dad I was rude and disrespectful, and should not be allowed the bodily autonomy my mother afforded me back in Brooklyn.
That summer I announced in the family room, in front of her, her kids, Aham, and Alicia that I did not like her, and would not return to visit once my Dad was still married to her. I was seven when I made that pronouncement and kept my word.
Stephanie would have 9 years with my dad, being her dad every day. I only saw him when he made trips to New York, once in the winter and twice in the summer, every year for 9 years, and here she was asking me to give him back to her.
I looked her dead in her puffy little red eyes and laughed. I laughed so loud and so hard, people gawked at my impropriety over the screams and cries of babies and toddlers in the children's section. I got up from the table and walked outside laughing harder and harder until I felt my Dad’s hand on my shoulder. He looked at me offering a plea for forgiveness, for encroaching on what he knew was my sacred place and then began to laugh too at the absurdity of the request. We kept laughing as we walked from the library to Rice Thai, our favorite Thai restaurant on 9th Avenue in Park Slope. We met Marlene there, the woman I wished would be my step mother, and ate until our bellies were full. He was my Dad and I had him back, there was no way I would negotiate giving him away, or settle for phantom versions of him instead of the real thing.