Chapter 15: Give Me That And I Gave Him Everything
I remembered how his voice sounded when he said it. Not loud. Not mean. Just tired and low and trying to hold steady.
Give me that.
I had been holding the tablet against my chest with both hands. The blue light was still on. My fingers had gone sweaty around the black edge. I didn't want to let it go because that was the only thing that had told the truth for me, but Dad had knelt down so his eyes were level with mine and he held out both hands, palms up.
I gave it to him. I remembered the weight leaving my hands and the cold spot it left on my shirt. I remembered Caleb standing behind the cream chair not saying anything, and the plate with the bread roll still on the dark wood table where no one had touched it.
That was the moment everything turned. Not when he watched it. When he asked and I gave it to him and he actually took it.
Months later I sat at that same table. It was a Thursday night in early March and the warm lamp on the sideboard was on, spilling that soft yellow glow over the wood. Dad wasn't in his navy suit anymore. He wore a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, and his hair was still faded short but he hadn't shaved that day so his goatee was a little scratchy when he leaned over to kiss the top of my head.
"Move your water glass over a little, baby, so you don't knock it," he said.
I did.
Caleb sat across from me in his light blue shirt, but this one had a little basketball on the front. He was eight now. His plate had mashed potatoes and greens and two slices of tomato, just like that night, except now there was also baked chicken and a bread roll for each of us. My plate was full. His plate was full. Dad's plate was full in the middle.
The pantry door, the one with the white panels and the dark handle that used to be locked, stood open. I could see the boxes of pasta and the cereal and the apples in a bowl right at my eye level. I stared at it sometimes while I ate just to check that it was still open. Dad had taken the little lock off weeks ago and put it in a kitchen drawer and said we didn't need it. He never locked it again.
"Amara, you good? You want more potatoes?" Dad asked.
I nodded. He scooped another spoonful onto my plate without making it a big deal. No counting. No telling me I'd had enough.
I ate slow. I was learning how to tell when my stomach felt okay, not empty and not hurting. At the diner with Dr. Patel she had taught me to put my hand right here, she showed me, and notice. I did that now under the table and then kept eating.
Caleb reached over and stole one of my tomato slices and I made a face at him.
"What?" he said, trying not to laugh. "You said you didn't like the squishy ones."
"I like them now," I said.
He gave it back.
After dinner Dad cleared the plates and Caleb and I did homework at that same dark wood table. The tablet was on the shelf in the living room, dark. Dad had kept it. It wasn't on the table anymore and the screen wasn't glowing blue all the time. He'd saved what I recorded and gave a copy to the lady from the county and to the school, and then he put the tablet up where it could just be a tablet again. Sometimes I asked to watch cartoons on it and he said yes. Sometimes I just looked at it sitting there, black and quiet, and felt safer knowing it was there but that I didn't need it to prove anything anymore.
Later, when Dad tucked me in, he sat on the edge of my bed just like he used to when I was little-little.
"You remember that night you handed me that tablet?" he asked.
I nodded. My two puffs were loose and my earrings were on the dresser.
"You were so brave," he said. His voice got that small pause in it before he kept talking. "I should have believed you sooner. I hear you now, okay? Every time."
"I know," I said.
May you like
And I did. I knew it because the pantry stayed open and because Caleb didn't have to keep secrets for Vanessa anymore and because Dad was home for dinner every night in his sweatshirt, not rushing in late in his suit with worried eyes.
I wasn't hungry going to sleep anymore. I wasn't scared to ask for food. The tablet was dark on the shelf, safe, and I was fed and I was heard, and that was the whole story.
