Divorce

I spent the first twelve years of my life in Brooklyn, New York, in the area below Park Slope. It was a nice neighborhood, with the brownstone houses lining the streets, dotting the sloping hills. Trees grew abundantly along the sidewalks, in tiny patches of grass in front of each house. It was a happy suburban neighborhood where children laughed and sang, playing basketball in the school playgrounds. Momma (fondly) called it the Valley of the Stoops, because everywhere you went on the wide, slanting streets you would find people lounging on the stoops (our name for the steps in front of a building), people of every age and color; laughing, joking, selling old knick-knacks. Dad (not so fondly) called it the Cage because to him that’s exactly what Brooklyn was. He hated the neighborhood, the houses, he may even have hated us, his family. Dad hated anything that tied him down. Everyone knew everybody else; my family was part of a laughing, caring community in the large Brooklyn neighborhood. *          *          * “Kaila!” Melissa called. “Kaila, they just put the list up.” I screeched to a halt in front of the door to my Spanish class. I had been running; the bell was about to ring. “Really?” I said excitedly. “Did you see it yet?” Melissa, my best friend since kindergarten, shook her head, eyes sparkling in excitement. “No, but Denise saw it.” “Did she make it?” I asked. The three of us had been waiting for the list to be put up ever since we’d tried out for the girls’ basketball team. Melissa shrugged. “I dunno, but she looked angry. I bet she didn’t.” The bell rang. Melissa started to run to the school bulletin board. “I can’t wait all through Spanish to find out,” she told me as we ran. The list was there, with ten names typed on it, showing the names of the new girls’ basketball team. I scanned it and found my name, the sixth on the list. “Yesss!” I cried, pumping my fist in the air. Melissa smiled politely. “Good for you!” she said. Her name wasn’t there. *          *          * The first game was held only a week afterward, but we were a good enough team. We were playing against Bay Ridge Middle School, who had won the last three championships according to Coach. The game started out fine. Sarah, an eighth-grader, scored three points and got a couple of steals. We were ahead by seven points by the end of the first half. In the second half we started to slip. I scored once and put us ahead by nine points in the beginning, but Bay Ridge tightened their defense and managed to cut our lead to two points. Coach called time-out with a minute and sixteen seconds to go. She gave us a pep-talk and switched a few players. I was still in the game. We scored twice more, but Bay Ridge cut the lead to a single point and scored with 8.3 seconds to the end of the game. I took the ball and passed it to Sarah, who shot a long three-pointer. The buzzer sounded as the ball hit the rim and bounced off. Bay Ridge had won. *          *          * Momma sat at the kitchen table, eyes snapping, head bent over the potatoes she was skinning. I stood uncertainly in the doorway, the rain from my umbrella dripping onto the floor. The house was warm and unusually quiet; my younger brother, Louis, was seven and ordinarily made a lot of noise. And Momma had been fighting with Dad an awful lot lately, so the noise level in our house had increased. “Didya win your basketball game?” Momma raised her head and looked at me. I shook my head. “No, they beat us.” “By how much?” “A point.” I put away my umbrella and raincoat, coming to sit next to Momma. I picked up a potato and a knife and started to scrape away the skin. “Momma, where is everyone? It’s so quiet.” Momma looked up sharply. “Louis is up in his room,” she said. The cold November rain pattered in rhythm on the roof and windows. It was late, maybe seven or so in the evening. Dad should have been home an hour ago. I wondered where he was, but I didn’t dare ask Momma. She cleared her throat to fill the silence. “Rain hasn’t let up,” she observed. I nodded, finishing the last potato. I stood uncertainly in the doorway, the rain from my umbrella dripping onto the floor “Need any more help?” I asked Momma. “No, go on upstairs. Do your homework or something.” I went upstairs, but I didn’t go to my room. “Louis?” I said, poking my head into his room. He was sitting on the floor, quietly filling in a worksheet. He looked up at me. “Did Momma stop crying?” I was surprised. “She was crying?” I asked. “Yeah, when Daddy came home. He made her cry. He yelled at her and told me to go to my room and get out of his way.” “Dad came home?” Louis nodded, returning to his worksheet. I went downstairs. “Momma? Louis says Dad came home before. Where is he?” Her head whipped around, eyes flashing. “Kaila, if I knew I would have told you when you came home. I don’t know where your father’s got himself to, but when he comes home . . . !” She sucked in her breath and made a violent gesture with her fist. I gave a small smile, knowing Momma had never and would never hurt a soul in her life, and went to my room. *          *          * My life at home did not improve over the next month or so. In fact, the only high point in my life at all became basketball. Even when Momma and Dad yelled until three in the morning, it made me feel better when I did well in practice

The beach was still, the sand untouched. The only sounds were the wind and the breaking of the waves on the shore. Ally doubted that she, Olivia, and Jake were allowed there, as it was a private beach, but chose to ignore that piece of information. They continued along the path, finally reaching the sand. Ally reached down and took off her sandals, burrowing her toes deep into the cool sand. Olivia copied her, and lastly Jake, hesitantly. “I’m not sure we’re allowed here, Ally. The sign says this is private property,” Jake said, looking at a nearby sign. “Besides, there’s no lifeguard. Maybe we should just go back. We could walk by the stores.” He stopped walking and looked back at the path they had taken. “Come on.” The beach was still, the sand untouched Olivia glared at Jake. “No, it’s fine. There’s nobody here to mind if we just walk along the water. It’s really not that big of a deal.” She linked her arm through Ally’s and began to walk. Ally pulled on her brother’s arm. “Come on. It’ll be fine. If someone comes, we’ll just leave. OK?” She pulled on Jake’s sleeve and gave a pleading smile, silently apologizing for Olivia. Jake and Olivia never had gotten along, but ever since Ally and Jake’s parents had split up, they seemed to be in an everlasting argument. Their father was moving to New York for a new job, and Jake was going with him. But their mother was staying in California, and Ally had been given a choice whether to stay or not. Olivia and Jake both constantly told her their opinions on what to do, often ending with them screaming at each other. Ally was tired of it all, and wished they would stop. “Fine. Let’s just go. I mean, why would it matter if we got in trouble,” Jake said, turning to Olivia. “You don’t care about messing up people’s lives, as long as you get to have fun, first. Let’s just go, and if we get punished, hey, so what? Why would I care? It doesn’t matter.” Olivia opened her mouth to reply, but Ally answered first. “Jake, leave it. We’ve been over this so many times, it’s getting old. Let’s just walk and talk about something, it doesn’t matter what.” She kicked some sand up, and felt the wind throw it back at her. “Let’s walk to the rocks up there, and then we can come back.” Olivia and Jake both nodded, but Ally could tell that her friend was at the beginnings of anger. They had been friends forever, and Ally could detect when Olivia was mad. For the last three months, she had been in a constant state of the beginnings of mad, especially when near Jake. Ally felt more sand hit her leg, this time from Olivia. A wave crashed on the sand, sending foam rushing to their feet. Ally sighed. “I love how quiet it is here. It would be so nice to own a house here, and be able to sit on the sand whenever you wanted. You could hear the ocean all the time, instead of all the busy cars and things. And you could just stare out at the ocean, all day long.” “Mm,” said Olivia, looking happily at the ocean. “It is nice.” She smiled, then looked sideways at Ally, her eyebrows raised. In a tone of mock condescension, she added, “It would be so horrible not to be near the water at all, and be surrounded by tall, ugly buildings. I’m not sure I could handle it, it would be so depressing. But,” she shrugged, “I guess some people like it. I feel so sorry for them.” She sighed, shaking her head, an expression supposed to look like sad confusion on her face. “But,” said Jake pointedly, as he reached down to brush sand off his pants, “they get to be near technology, resources, and lots of interesting people. I bet they feel bad for people who have nothing but sand and water nearby. But, hey, who knows,” he sighed. Olivia stiffened, and Ally struggled to find a way to stop, or at least delay, the fight. “Let’s just sit down for a little. We can go on later, and we don’t have to be back for a while. Let’s just sit, and look at the water. Just for a bit.” She sat, and the others followed reluctantly, one on each side. The water barely touched their toes as they leaned back on the sand, feet extended. The fog was so thick that Ally could only see a short distance out until everything became a swirly gray. She loved this weather, and even though Olivia was in a bad mood, Ally knew she loved it, too. When they had been younger, maybe seven or eight years old, they had come to a beach like this with Ally’s parents, and Olivia had been incredibly upset when they weren’t allowed in the water. “No,” Ally’s mother had said, smiling slightly. “It’s too cold. Maybe in a month we’ll come back and then it will be warmer. No one swims now, see? Look how few people there are!” But Olivia had stamped her foot, saying, “But I want to swim now! I can handle it! I’m like a polar bear. Or a fat sea lion. Right, Ally? We’re tough. We’re sea lions.” And with that, she had marched around, starting to howl, trying to sound like a sea lion. “Ow ow! Owwwwwwww!” “No!” Ally had replied, happily. “They arf! Like this: Arf arf arf! Aruf! Aruuuf!” “They do both!” Olivia had said, laughing. “Ow! Arf! Owrufl!” And for the next hour, they had galloped around the beach pretending to be sea lions, dancing sea lions, sleepy sea lions lying on each other, and angry sea lions, charging the sand. They danced around doing different ballroom steps, always owrufing. Everything disappeared for them as they raced gracefully