Summary
Michael comments that, in the ten years since Francis went away, he has given away Francis’s things to give himself and his mother time and space to reckon with the loss. For a while, Michael’s mother couldn’t move or work, but is more independent now, and has a part-time job cleaning at the community center. Michael recounts a time when recently, on Francis’s birthday, she made a meal more elaborate than they usually have and then going to bed. Michael wakes up to find her on the phone, spelling out Francis’s name to the operator, as if there’s a way she could reach him.
People in the neighborhood sometimes avoid them, whispering to each other about the “troubled” boy, the other boy who carries “history,” and the mother slipping into “madness.” Others drop off food, treating Michael and his mother to the cuisines of diverse homelands. Mrs. Henry, a stern elder at the Pentecostal church, stops by to bring food and inquire about Michael’s mother’s state.
The night Aisha starts her visit, Michael sleeps poorly on the couch and when he wakes, Aisha has slipped out of the house with her backpack already. Mother asks about the girl in his bed, judgment in her tone. Michael explains that Aisha used to live in the neighborhood and has returned to grieve. It is a word Michael rarely uses around his mother.
Michael goes to work at Easy Buy, the grocery store he’s worked at for five years. Manny, the assistant manager, teases Michael for reading a James Baldwin novel, calling him an Oreo and a coconut. He works with a new employee, an older man who only nods, leading Michael to try phrases in other languages. It turns out the man is from Mississauga and just doesn’t want to talk. On his cold walk home, Michael spots Aisha swinging on the swing set they used to play on as kids.
Michael digresses to comment on how, the night of the shootings many years earlier, he spots Aisha among the neighbors watching as the police stand with Michael and Francis on their mother’s doorstep. The cop explains that a stray bullet hit a seven-year-old girl during the drug-related shooting. The cops tell Michael's mother that her sons aren’t suspects, but they may be called upon as protected witnesses as the case develops.
Inside the house and with the cops gone, their mother demands that Francis tell her everything he knows about the people involved in the shooting. Instead of speaking, he packs essentials in his bag and asks to be allowed to go. He leaves after a brief struggle.
The next morning, Michael knocks on Aisha’s door, disappointed when her stern Trinidadian father answers it. He is relieved when Aisha gets up from the living room and goes outside. They go to the air-conditioned library. While browsing books, she tells Michael that the girl shot was Goose. She is stable in the hospital now though. Michael is relieved when Aisha confirms that she doesn’t suspect Michael and Francis of being involved in gang activity.
Michael comments on how Aisha is set to move to Montreal because of a university scholarship. She is one of the local children believed to have a “future.” A month after the shooting, Michael spots her again at the library. She smiles when she sees him. Michael comments that Francis never had much to tell him about sex, and Michael has little experience, so her smile makes Michael feel suddenly vulnerable. He goes in and picks up a book of classic plays and reads next to her, surprised to see that she is only reading trashy magazines herself. Their relationship begins this way: the heat drives them toward the air-conditioned library, where they sit together, Aisha getting her chair and limbs close to his.
One day they are about to kiss on the street when a police siren disrupts the peace of the neighborhood. Another cop car sits empty before them. Aisha picks up a loose piece of asphalt and hurls it at one of the car’s windows, cracking it. She looks at Michael, as if she is daring him to say something. This unexpected act of rebellion by Aisha is “by far the craziest” thing that has happened after the shooting.
Analysis
Chapter Two begins with a return to the themes of grief and denial. When Michael comments that he has given away most of Francis’s possessions to give himself and his mother time and space to come to terms with their “loss,” Chariandy is showing the reader that Michael is an unreliable narrator. As much as Michael may believe that giving away Francis’s things will help them in their grief, in fact this action evinces Michael’s denial because it erases Francis’s existence. In the name of protecting Ruth from painful memories, Michael cleanses their home of Francis’s possessions, inadvertently prolonging the mourning process for both of them.
The section also sees Chariandy further establish the mental illness Francis’s death induces. Michael elaborates on Ruth’s break from reality, which involves incidents such as trying to phone Francis beyond the grave. In this way, Ruth’s mental illness is inseparable from her denial. By failing to confront their grief over Francis’s death, Ruth and Michael guarantee that grief will continue to haunt their existences and limit their ability to live in the present. Referring to Aisha’s reason for being back in the Park, Michael even acknowledges that “grieve” isn’t a word he would normally use around his mother, as though to acknowledge the state they are immersed in would be too much for her to make sense of.
Going back in his memories, Michael explains how he and Aisha became romantically involved. It was a hot summer in which a local boy involved in drug dealing became the target of a gang hit that Michael and Francis witnessed. With a young local gunned down in the neighborhood, suspects at large, and a stray bullet from the gunfight hitting a seven-year-old girl in her bedroom, members of the community are on high alert and suspicious of everyone who looks like Francis and Michael. In the charged atmosphere, Francis feuds with Ruth and leaves home, while Michael takes refuge at the library, which is air-conditioned and is a preferred hangout for Aisha.
In his narration, Michael comments on Aisha’s academic excellence, which involves her skipping grades and receiving a scholarship to a university in the neighboring province of Quebec. To impress her and prove himself intellectually worthy, Michael picks up classic novels and forces himself to read them, even though Aisha herself makes unpretentious selections, picking up teen magazines.
As Michael quickly learns, his impression of Aisha isn’t accurate: despite her reputation as a star student, she surprises Michael by throwing a piece of asphalt at a cop car. In this instance of situational irony, Aisha reveals an unexpected, anti-authoritarian dimension to her character. She also shows her frustration with the overwhelming presence in their neighborhood of the police, who disturb an otherwise peaceful atmosphere with the implicit threat of violence.
