“I had to work for Sabine. I had no choice, did I?”
Joseph looked up at the ceiling tiles above their kitchen. He exhaled, stunned by the child’s meanness.
Casey felt bad for him suddenly, because for as long as she could remember, they never had any money, and her father was ashamed of this. Her paternal grandfather was supposed to have been very rich but had died before her father had any real opportunity to know him. Joseph believed that if his father had explained to him how a man made money, things would have turned out differently. In truth, Casey had never blamed her parents for not being better off, because they worked so hard. Money was something people had or didn’t. In the end, things had worked out for her at school: Princeton had paid for nearly everything; her parents paid whatever portion they’d been asked to contribute, so she didn’t have any college loans. The school had provided her with health insurance for the first time in her life and, with it, cheap birth control. For books, clothes, and walking around money, she’d taken a train to the city every weekend and worked at Sabine’s.
“I. . . I. . .” Casey tried to think of some way to take it back but couldn’t.
Joseph looked her squarely in the face, studying her defiance. “Take off your glasses,” he said.
Casey pulled off the tortoiseshell horn-rims from her face. She squinted at her father. From where she stood, not quite three feet away from him, she could still see his face clearly: the wavy lines carved into his jaundiced brow, the large, handsome ears mottled with liver spots, and his firm mouth—the only feature she took after. Casey rested her glasses on the table. Her face was now the color of bleached parchment; the only color in it came from her lipstick. Casey didn’t look afraid, more resigned than anything else.
Joseph raised his hand and struck her across the mouth with an open palm.
She had expected this, and the arrival of the blow was almost a relief. Now it was over, she thought. Casey held her cheek with her left hand and looked away, not knowing what to do then. It was always awkward after he hit her. She felt little pain, even though he had used great force; Casey was in fact watching herself, and she wished the person who was watching her and the body she inhabited could merge and come to a decision. What to do, she wondered.
“You think good grades and selling hats is work? Do you think you could survive an hour out there? I send you to college. Your mother and I bring lunch from home or share one sandwich from the deli so you and Tina can have extra money for school, and all you learn is bad manners. How dare you? How dare you speak to your father this way?”
Leah wanted to stop this, and she rose again from her chair, but Joseph shoved her back down.
Joseph then struck Casey again. This time, Casey’s torso weaved a bit. A sound rang in her ears. She regained her balance by firming her jaw and balling her fists tighter. Why was he doing this? Yes, he didn’t want her to talk back to him. As her father, he deserved respect and obedience—this Confucian crap was bred in her bones. But this ritual where he cut her down to size had happened so many times before, and always it was the same: He hit her, and she let him. She couldn’t shut up, although it made sense to do so; certainly, Tina never talked back, and she was never hit. Then, as if a switch clicked on, Casey decided that she’d no longer consider his side of the argument. His intentions were no longer relevant. She couldn’t stand there anymore getting smacked. She was twenty-two, a university graduate. This was bullshit.
“Say you’re sorry,” Leah said, holding her breath, and she nodded encouragingly, as if she were asking a baby to take another bite of cereal.
Casey drew her lips closer still, hating her mother more.
Joseph grew calmer, and Leah prayed for this to be over.
“This girl has no respect for me,” he said to Leah, his eyes still locked on Casey’s reddened face. “She’s not. . . good.”
“She is sorry,” Leah apologized for her daughter. “I know she is. Casey is a good girl, and she doesn’t mean any of those things. She’s just so exhausted from school.” Leah turned to her. “Hurry. Go. Go to your room, now. Hurry.”
“You spoil the children. You let this happen. No wonder these girls talk to their father this way,” he said.
Tina got up from her seat. She rested her hands lightly on her sister’s thin shoulders, trying to steer her away, but Casey refused to follow. Their mother wept; she had cooked all afternoon. Nothing was eaten. Tina wished to rewind time, to come back to the table and start again.