We Ask Why

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fiction

Amina Lolita Gautier

We Ask Why

 

 

Come summer we’re getting packed up and shipped out, sent off to Puerto Rico where our father has long been living. We haven’t seen our father in years—we have no desire to see him now. We ask our mother why we have to go and give up our fast-approaching summer. We ask why she can’t just leave well enough alone.
  We’ve already made our summer plans. We’ve aired out our swim trunks, bathing suits, and shower shoes. We’re ready for horseplay at the nearby public pool, for holding our breath under water, for playing Marco Polo, for trying to dunk every kid we see. We’re ready for the deep end of the pool.
  “This is better than going to the pool,” she says, setting out our after-school snack. “You’ll have beaches instead. There’s nothing but beaches there.”
  We ask if we can’t just go to Coney Island or Rockaway Beach instead.
  She says, “We’re never going back there.” Last summer, those beaches were overrun by medical waste, polluted by the hypodermic needles and syringes that washed ashore. We were used to the occasional baby diaper floating by as we played in the water, but needles filled with AIDS were where our mother drew the line. “The beaches where you’re going will be clean.”
  We ask her how she knows if she’s never been there.
  All she says is trust me.
  But how can we trust her after she’s pulled this dirty trick of waiting until our summer vacation was close enough to taste and then dropping this surprise on us? We were hoping this would be the summer we’d be tall enough to ride the Cyclone in Astroland Park, but instead of speeding down curves, loops, and turns of the wooden roller coaster, we’ll be going to LaGuardia to fly to a place we’ve never been, to see a man we convince ourselves we don’t even miss.
  We push away our . . .
. . . . . . .

 

Able Muse Write Prize for Fiction, 2020 ▪ Winner

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