This is the kind of end I want for this book. My father expresses remorse; my sister forgives him; I can forgive him. But Bah Ba’s testimony is one of denial, the opposite of Mbelo’s testimony, but it’s also a different form of denial from Bellingan’s. Bellingan disputes the facts. My father claims not to remember them: Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.
Full disclosure was not made. Amnesty will not be granted to my father. No contrition, no redemption.
uncover
Javon’s killer remains at large, though footage exists of him, taken from the surveillance camera on the bus from that fateful afternoon. In the video, a teenage boy fires shots through the window. The boy was later identified with the help of this footage, charged with felony gun possession but not with Javon’s murder. Because this shooter’s gun was never recovered by authorities, there was no forensic evidence tying him to the bullets that hit Javon. It’s possible Waga was killed by another kid on that bus. Three other boys, filmed but not identified, ran off the bus to get a better shot. A decade has passed, and the case hasn’t been solved, but there’s more to the story than who did the crime.
Every April, to commemorate Waga’s death, Javon’s folks organize a peace march of hundreds, a family-friendly event with inflatable jumpers, face painting, and a marching band. They turned Waga into W.A.G.A., War Against Gun Activity, a family tragedy morphing into a community movement.
Once at a subway station, I ran into Javon’s younger sister. I was exiting the turnstile, she was entering. “You’re Mr. Lam, right?” She was soft-spoken and wore glasses. I didn’t recognize her at first. Several years had passed since I’d last seen her at the memorial for Javon.
I asked her about her family, how her mom was doing. The conversation was brief. I didn’t know what else to say. I still felt responsible in some way for her brother’s death. I hadn’t admitted this to anyone. I wasn’t looking to be comforted or pitied or even forgiven. I wanted to forget.
I sought the same defense used by my father.
But to be a writer, a memoirist, I must uncover what I wish to hide.
mother and daughter
My sister was at our mom’s house, surfing the net in Willie’s office. Willie was in his bedroom across the hallway singing karaoke, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” Clarence Henry’s “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” Willie sang these songs over and over, as though he was in a recording studio and the producer was telling him, “Again, this time, more feeling, more emotion.”
My mom was at the doorway of the office, talking to my sister about Bah Ba, but Ga Jeh didn’t turn around, her eyes stuck to the computer screen. “Why do you have to move just because he’s coming back?” my mom asked in Cantonese.
“I can’t stand him.” My sister had secured a transfer to another resort down in San Diego. No way in hell she was sticking around with my father set to return.
“You went to Toronto to see him, and now you want to get away from him. I don’t understand you.” My mom didn’t want my sister to leave, but she wouldn’t say it explicitly. She never wanted to appear as if she needed anyone.
As Ga Jeh clicked the keyboard to jump to another website, my mother came up beside her, put her hand on the backrest of my sister’s chair. Before my mom had a chance to continue, my sister told her, “Just leave it alone, woman.”
“I thought you guys love your Bah Ba,” my mom said. “Ever since we divorced, you guys keep seeing him.”
“For funerals.”
“Jackson talks to him on the phone all the time. Dickson thinks he lonely, goes to see him. Maybe you should let him move in with you.”
“I’d rather be dead!”
“Don’t say that, it’s bad luck.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“That’s crazy. A daughter doesn’t need to run from her father.”
“You’re crazy. You’re the reason why.” Once she started, she couldn’t stop. “Every time you used to go away with Willie, Bah Ba would come in my room—he’d touch me.”
My mom pulled back. She wasn’t sure what she heard, so Ga Jeh said it again. Slower this time. “He’d. Touch. Me. And only when you were gone.”
“Leih goh sei leuih baau a! ” My mom said, a Chinese version of “good for nothing daughter,” but our version is worse, the central part of the expression, two characters, “die” then “daughter.” My mom started to lunge at my sister, as if she thought she could beat back what my sister said, what my father did, but she stopped herself. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. Her tone accusatory.
Ga Jeh pushed past her to leave.
“OK, OK,” my mom said. “Mouh haam, mouh haam.” Don’t cry, don’t cry.
My sister put on her shoes. She ignored what my mom was saying. She grabbed her purse and stormed down the stairs into the garage. She squeezed past Willie’s Camry, careful not to bump against his tools hanging from the wall: wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers, saws. She hit the button to open the garage. She heard the sound of the motor and ducked under the rising door.
Ga Jeh didn’t call my mom that night, or the next, though they usually spoke every day. But in a week, they were on speaking terms again. That’s how it was in our family. We concealed our pain and mistook it for Being Strong.
The next time my sister stopped over at my mom’s house, my mother told her that she had written a letter to Bah Ba calling him every name
