I'm Down: A Memoir (32 page)

“Yeah. But if I got back in now, I would have gotten a rest
in the boat that none of you got. . . . It’s over,” I said. “You guys win.”

“Come on,” Dan said, trying to draw the gathering attention away from me in the boat. “Enough horsing around. If Mishna wants to be a little baby, she can.”

“Come on,” Dad said. I was worried he was wasting energy talking. “Just get out of the boat.” I looked over and saw my teammates already swimming away. Dad sat there, treading water and looking up at me.

“You can do anything,” he said. “You’re my daughter.”

I looked him in the eye and said unflinchingly, “I just can’t make it.” I watched him ponder that statement, and a cool came over him that I recognized as him before Yvonne. “You do it for me. Okay, Dad?” I said.

“Okay, baby,” he said, serious but smiling. “I’ll see you after.” And he splashed off with a renewed energy. He looked tired, but he didn’t look like he was going to die. He looked like he was gonna make it to the other side. He actually looked like he was always gonna make it to the other side whether I got in the boat or not.

Up ahead, Ari, Janie, and Anora were already quickening their pace for the sand. And from the boat I watched as they sprinted in, pushing each other out of the way to be the first to set foot on shore—doing what I loved to do. The three hit the shallows at the same moment, but Janie didn’t have the reserves that Anora and Ari did. And in the final moments, I watched Anora elbow Ari, causing him to fall back into the water as she emerged from the lake a winner. Then she flung herself down on the sandy bank to carefully take her cornrows out of her cap one by one. And I was warm and dry under my blanket in the boat as I watched my dad far behind, plodding along until he finally reached the shore and flopped onto the sand triumphantly.

______

That evening we went to McDonald’s. Anora was so stoked about how well she did with the race and kept doing her little victory dance, occasionally interrupted by singing the phrase, “Can’t touch this.” But Dad and I had left it all in the lake. I plopped into our booth and watched Dad try to set down his tray with shaky arms. And when he went to sit down in the plastic chair, he moved like his back was made of bruised bruises. But that didn’t stop him from smiling.

“Well,” he said, “hurry up and get some calories in you all. You lose a lot of calories from the swim, but you lose even more from the water.”

“You really owned it out there, Dad,” I said.

“Ahh, you know . . .” Dad shrugged.

“I couldn’t make it.”

“You could. You just didn’t!” he said.

“Can’t touch this!” Anora said her mouth half-filled with fries already. “Do-do-do dun-duh dun-duh . . . Can’t touch this!”

“Anyway, we’re all out there to have a good time, and I think we did that.” He stuffed a Filet-O-Fish in his mouth. But I could see he was still smiling even while he chewed. He was feeling good about himself.

The eating took over and we were all quiet, which was helpful for me, because it quelled the jealousy I was feeling. I wanted to be big about everything, but I wasn’t quite big enough. I couldn’t fully accept not having finished the swim. I’d done it for my dad, but it was completely unnecessary. And even worse, since I’d gotten in the boat, I was actually starting to believe my own story—that I was a loser that couldn’t even make it across the lake.

I was deep in thought when I realized my sister for some reason needed to dip her fries into my ketchup and kept leaning
over me and making a big show of it. After watching her do this four times, I grabbed her wrist and she looked me in the eye and whispered a high-pitched, “Mama.” It caught me by surprise and I laughed. It was the kind of laugh that catapults you out of your head and back to your family and the ambience of Rainier Valley McDonald’s.

I pointed to my ketchup. “Can’t touch this.”

She laughed and tried to wrestle her wrist loose.

Dad looked over at us and went back to looking at a man dressed as the mascot Hamburglar heading out to the playground. He asked the air, “Is that Darnell?” Darnell was the son of a woman who lived around the corner from us. Dad had coached him at football for a season at the community center.

“I don’t know how you could tell,” I said. “He has that big head on.”

“He moves like Darnell. He had that bad right shoulder,” Dad said, still trying to make out the guy in the furry head. “But I don’t know why he’d be dressed as a cartoon character.”

“Least he has a job,” Anora said, and although she was absolutely busting on Dad, he somehow found a way to make what she said a joke about jobs and not about him. Dad went back to studying Hamburglar, and Anora looked at me giddily to see if I picked up on her joke, but my face was not amused.

“Well, that’s what Yvonne says,” she said to me under her breath.

Dad stopped looking at the mascot and looked over at us again. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Anora was just telling me about finishing the race.”

Dad nodded and smiled.

“Dad,” I said.

Something about the tone of my voice made him avoid eye contact he picked at a spot on the table, “Yeah.”

“I just . . .”

“You’re not coming back from your mom’s house. That’s okay.”

“What?” I said, realizing I wasn’t ready to have this conversation yet. Things were still too raw between us. “That’s not even what I was gonna talk about. I love you and Yvonne and the family.”

“I know . . . I gotta let you go.” Dad started to tear up but he wouldn’t let himself. He got up out of his seat still looking at the mascot, and said to the air, “You win.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, but Dad was headed toward the playground and had detached from the conversation.

“I’m gonna go see if that’s Darnell!” he shouted back, and he was out the door. I couldn’t believe he was just walking away on that note. He strode out the glass doors and across to the playground as though nothing had happened. Anora just shrugged, as confused as me. She laid her head on the table and closed her eyes like a wind-up toy that had run out of wind-up. I looked around McDonald’s, and maybe it was because I was so physically exhausted or maybe it was everything that had happened in the last few months, but I felt warm and totally alone—like I was in a sleeping bag. It was very quiet and I saw Anora on the table and Dad talking to the mascot outside, and I was truly free. And I had no idea what to do with all this freedom. I could try out for the football team, I could join the ski club, I could practice violin every day—none of it mattered.

Dad walked back in and threw himself down at the table. “That wasn’t Darnell,” he said.

“What?” Anora said, waking up from her fake sleep. “You woke me up.”

“Stop with your playing,” he said. “I was gone like a
minute. . . . Anyway, that wasn’t Darnell, it was another guy that I don’t know . . . Joe something or other.” And as quickly as it had come, the silence vanished.

“Sorry, Dad,” I said.

“For what?” he asked defensively.

“That it wasn’t Darnell.”

“Come on,” he said. “Get your stuff, let’s go.”

Dad started hustling Anora and me out of the restaurant, but I was glued to my seat. I didn’t want to leave McDonald’s and I didn’t want the day to end, because I didn’t know what came next. Dad was gonna be fine. Just like Dad was gonna make it across the lake. I was worried about me.

On the cold van ride back to Mom’s, I looked out the window as I left the Rainier Valley feeling insecure and free floating. It was like heading into the first day of school after Dad had shoved me off with the vague direction, “You be you.” Dad must have felt my fear over on the driver’s side because he looked over at me and smiled. It was a reassuring look that set me at ease. Even though he was dropping me off at my mother’s, and when we’d see each other again was vague, his eyes read, “My girl.”