Aban's Accension

Chapter 2: The Letter

Chapter 2: THE LETTER

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

She hesitates on the last step of the staircase, her right hand on the square newel post, its wood worn comfortingly smooth by many years of hands resting on it. It’s the mail on the scuffed wooden floor that’s stopped her. This morning’s letters are lying there, higgledy piggledy, in front of the rad with its slab of wood on top -- their hall table. And she wonders: why does Dad always drop half the letters on the floor when he brings in the mail? Why does he toss them, the ads too, toward their hall table? It’s like he doesn’t care that half fall on the floor. He goes around them as if they’re not there, just goes back to the kitchen like it doesn’t matter. Aban will pick them up.

“Yeah,” she mutters to herself, “I’ll pick em up.”

In all the years she’s come down the stairs and has automatically picked the mail up off the floor, this thought has not occurred to her. Now it’s followed by others: Is he, like, clumsy? Does he drop them deliberately 'cause she’ll pick them up anyway? It’s not like anyone else does it. It’s like it’s her job to pick them up and take them to Mom at the kitchen table. They’re never for her; she never looks through them first. Mom would be mad if she did. She shakes her head clean and moves again.

She bends down and, one by one, pokes her fingers underneath the letters’ edges until they’re all in her hand. She throws the ad mail into the scuffed recycling box at the side of the rad. She flips through the letters surreptitiously, quickly, and suddenly pauses. A bright white envelope with blue lettering stares up at her. It’s addressed to her, in her full name. It looks, it looks ... legal. She looks at the return address. “Myerstein and Associates at Law” it reads. From a Toronto address too, some place called “First Canadian Place.” Sounds posh and arrogant. What can it mean?

“Aban,” her mother cries down the hallway from her perch at the kitchen table. “Are you going to stare at those all day or bring me my mail?”

“Coming Mom.” She shakes her head and sorts the letters into an alphabetical pile for her mother, taps them even, picks them up in her right hand and carries her one letter in her left hand, slightly behind her back. She walks down the hall and places the pile squarely in front of her mother, who sets aside the section of the paper she was reading and takes them as is her due. Aban sits down in her chair and stares at the letter, forgetting to hide it underneath the table. She doesn't understand how she can have a letter addressed to her.

“Why are you staring at my mail?”

“It’s not for you.”

“Your father’s then.”

“It’s not for him neither.”

“It’s for you?”

“Yes.”

“Must I ask you twenty questions. Who from?”

“Some lawyer, some big law firm in Toronto.”

“Let me see.”

“No. It’s for me.”

“Aban, it’s best I look at it first. You never know what lawyers will send you, and I don’t want you being upset. Law firms in Toronto only mean trouble.”

Aban obeys Mom always but not today. She rips the letter open with her fingers, uncaring of the ragged edges. Astonishment doesn’t impair Mom’s reflexes. She lunges across the table for it but fails, as Dad flaps the paper he’s reading into a higher position. He reaches round the paper for his milk-drowned muesli with his spoon, scoops up a full spoonful, and brings it back round the paper without spilling a drop. A loud slurp emits from behind the Sports section. Aban glances over at him, and Mom almost gets the letter this time. Aban leans back fast, dangerously so, in her chair. She unfolds the letter and begins to read it silently, her lips moving.