Visitation
My mind is racing, trying to think straight.
It’s 3:30 p.m., and the school closes at 4. This is my last chance to redeem myself. Ridhi might be waiting near the school gate. Priya is probably at home, expecting me to drop Ridhi off after our time together.
The car reeks—smoke, spilled liquor, puke. The seats are stained. Food wrappers crumpled in corners. Needles on the floor. Clothes tossed in the back seat.
“Why do you always smell like fire, Papa?” Ridhi would ask. Because everything I touch burns. “It’s OK! I can help clean it. You don’t worry,” she would say.
But I just need to get there. The court said if I miss this pickup, I might lose my visitation rights. Priya would welcome that. I have to take the service roads—my license got canceled after too many DUIs.
He wasn’t always like this. The divorce fucked him up bad. Now he’s barreling in the wrong direction, pedal down, no plan, no brakes.
I am my own curse. I am alone.
“Don’t say that, Papa. As long as I am alive, you are not alone.” That hurts more than the silence in my life.
Every time she says that, shivers tear through me. They burn. They remind him of every fuck-up that brought him here. I lost everything slowly, then all at once.
The ambulance came. The cops screeched to a halt near the wreck. A few ran to the door to check if he was still breathing.
He lost his visitation rights— to his life, and to his one love.