Missed call

     In the end, the bad news wasn't anywhere as bad as expected. When my mom called me and declared those words I held my breath and braced for the worst. I could feel my head slowly dissociating in anticipation. Because bad things always seem to happen in succession. Never one without two, two without three, three without four. And how many bad pieces of news were we at now, anyhow? Between the two oceans, I had lost count.
     But in the end it was just property damage - a tempo collapsed under the weight of snow and neglect.  It was only dented steel. A broken windshield. Competing insurance claims in the making.
     The biggest tragedy was that we made such a big deal of it in the first place. That we had to go there again. We can be such small people sometimes. Small people with our small problems. The only thing that should have mattered was that you were lucky enough not to have been sitting in that car. Life was kind enough to spare us that scenario. Kind enough to spare me that phone call.
     And so I spend the rest of the day trying to remember just that. Through all the conversations and the semi-awkward chance meetings, that's what I whispered to the back of my own head.
     Thank you, life, for sparing me that phone call.
       

Shoot the messenger

     Uncle Dom spoke about the old days. The early days. The days when there was still some back-and forth in that happy little apartment on Vianney. Some banter. Some respect. And what felt like love.
     My brother was eager to hear all about it. Of course he was. I guess I was too. We weren't really around for what sounded like the golden years. We didn't get to see those happy times and we almost never heard about them either. Those exciting times when simply ironing the clothes was a conversation starter. When friends would come over. When they would all sit around and pose for pictures. Those days felt too far away. Too buried in the past.
     There's no time for the past now. Not when you're dealing with the present and fretting about the future. These days there aren't too many happy things to report on the family front. These days even congratulations and thank you's ring hollow. They're short-lived and they don't mean much. And they'll never mean much. My parents were born alone and now they'll die alone. And they'll both have to deal with that fact someday. In the not-too-distant future. Alone, of course. I guess I'll have to deal with it as well. I got dragged into a lose-lose situation and I somehow managed to come out numb. I'm not happy and I'm not sad. Yesterday I was neither. We were all neither. Just having a coffee and over-analyzing. Trying to put ourselves in shoes we'll never understand. Trying my best to ignore that phone call. The one I've been answering ever since I got back home.
     I spent the better part of last night waking up to the same thoughts in my head. The dreams of the waves from the night before replaced by one sickening thought. That there's no such thing as closure. That bruises never heal properly as you get older.
     I kept that phone call to myself. I keep a lot of shit to myself these days.
     No more. I have swallowed your frustrations and spit them right back at each of you for the last time. I am done cross-examining your emotions. I am done explaining. Pleading. Translating my thoughts into your separate languages. Smoothing things over. Taking punches. Doing your dirty work. Being accused of taking sides. I am not interested in becoming that thing you despise in the other.
     Mommy. Daddy. It's time you fight your own demons. 

the nod

     We reached a deal but there were no handshakes. No champagne and no congratulations. There would be no smiles to this settlement.
     At least it was a less stressful meeting. Last Saturday I had been so nervous I had barely eaten anything all day. I blamed whatever anxiety I had been feeling up until that moment to that particular meeting. The one that was apparently doomed to fail before it ever got started. The culmination of all the nasty phone calls. All the brutal honesty and all the bullshit. And all the things no son should ever have to hear. But that was last week. This time my mother and I sat down for some liver with fried onions. We even managed to slip in some leftover cold Espresso before she looked at me and wondered aloud if we should get this show on the road. I nodded and went to go get my father downstairs. I walked back upstairs on my own. Just to show how impartial I was. We all sat there in awkward silence. I felt bad. But only because I hadn't offered to make him a coffee as well. There were some last-ditch questions about the house evaluation. Some last-minute explanations that would be repeated and only partially understood. Some last-minute bad blood. But it didn't change much in the end.
     Column A, B and C awaited patiently.
     When there was nothing left to say my father asked his soon-to-be ex-wife if she was okay with everything. And then she looked at me and said that she was okay with it if I was okay with it. She trusted me like that. On any other day it would have made me uncomfortable. But I wanted out. We all wanted out. So I agreed and she agreed. My father rose from the table and sank silently down the stairs and into the basement, his days suddenly numbered. I kept the reality of it at bay.
     I looked at my mother then, nodded and fought back some tears. The nod said that she had done the right thing. The nod understood that she had done this for us, her two sons.
     But the nod also acknowledged my role in this entire thing. I had just rubber-stamped my parent's divorce. Had given it my cold and indifferent blessing. But that wasn't all. Because I had stirred the pot. Maybe I had even inspired my mother to action. Most probably. And now we were all entering unchartered territory. Together. Alone.
      

a little more lightweight

     Today on the drive back from Subaru I didn't take that side street off the service road. The one I had taken just the other night. The one with the tiny magical church at the end of it. With the front-lit Jesus statue (or is it Mary? Jesus) just standing there, inviting and creepy. The most unassuming Heaven's Door you could ever imagine. Just sitting there. Before that final right back onto Saint-Laurent.
     Turns out it wouldn't have been the right way anyway. A large tree had cracked in half just above the trunk and crashed right into the cab of a parked truck. The truck was not spared and the street was completely blocked by a damn of thick branches. My brain registered the shape of the disaster out the corner of my eye but it took me a solid twenty five seconds and one reluctant u-turn to realize this was not the kind of thing you see everyday. So I photographed and reported back. Even though I had vaguely heard about the power outages on the way back. Even if I vaguely heard the wind howling all day. The nondescript knocking around of plastic garbage bin on asphalt as I played phone in for a bargain! with at  least three different dealers, just to see who would throw in something (anything) more than just the winter carpets that would compliment the shiny hunk of metal awaiting me at the end of the exercise. And this was a good day to be investing in metal. An auspicious day to buy a car - the start of Diwali and all.
     But today was something else. Today was so many things for so many different reasons.
     A missed birthday with no phone call. Some last-minute goodbye wishes. A day to reach out. To rebuild. To nurture. Not from the ground up. Never again from the ground up.
     Everything I set out to do today I did. The car. The hot water tanks. The re-connect and the background check. Whatever had been lingering around since I got back, really. Whatever I couldn't get away with blaming on jet lag any longer. The afterglow had dimmed a little. I had been beaten back down into reality. As if. As if I had expected anything less from life. Everything except the evil eye. And maybe the old tightening of the chest, first thing in the morning. So I had to let a little more of that weight go today. For myself and my well being. More promises followed. Tomorrow I would even start to run. And when the wind finally started to die down a little we watched the Muppets. Because it was still in the DVR. And we were all so much older than we might have been our first time watching. But there was still so much magic in those puppets. And everything seemed to come alive when I saw all those smiling faces go up on my wall. Those rows and rows of beautiful and colourful smiles. You would find no inner struggle in any of those rows of smiles. There would only always be life.
   

the prison between two bedposts

i had fallen into some kind of mild depression and my mother had decided the best way to take care of me was to have me sleep it off. (apparently, getting up and going about my day without talking about what was bothering me wasn't healthy. she insisted I could never be happy this way) i could tell my father had his own opinion on the topic but said nothing. and so my mom forced me to bed to sleep it off. and every time i woke up she would make me a sandwich. she would watch me as i ate in silence and then she would urge me back to bed - even though i wasn't hungry, tired or all that down. she seemed convinced and i didn't want to cross her. and so every meal became this ritual. the medication was always the same - only the dose would change slightly. one day it was turkey and the next day it was mortadella and maybe a week later it was prosciutto. as time passed i grew accustomed to the treatment. weeks had passed and now all i did was wake, eat and go back to bed without saying so much as a word. i'm not sure if she appreciated the silence at all. sometimes, i would just lie there with my eyes closed, pretending, so i wouldn't have to eat or speak. i began to notice the passing of time; could actually see it hovering over me head like a bad tv rerun. and as the sandwich contents changed from cold cuts to meat and from meat to fish i began to notice a quiet panic set into my mom. she must have realized that she was forcing me into a kind of self-induced coma. she started to cry as she fed me one day. the treatment was not working; she had miscalculated and there was no way to bring me back. she cried by my side and prayed i would snap out of it. and then one day after what felt like months, i did. i woke up and told her i was tired of sandwiches and tired of lying in bed. i told her i just wanted to get up and eat at the table and read the newspaper. and my mom just cried tears of joy as she prepared my plate and got me a newspaper.

all the pretty little blue lights

My mom had called me almost two weeks ago to tell me she had already started putting up the Christmas decorations. It was not like her to start so early.

Even tonight, as she hovered around the table cleaning up and preparing coffee and listening to my father and I talking the usual talk, I could tell she was eager to get to the tree. This morning we had all awoken to our first snowfall; a gentle blanket of white covering everything and sticking to nothing. It's not like her demand was out of season. Still. "I don't know why I'm so determined this year," she repeated. "Maybe it's a bad omen. Maybe something bad is going to happen."

The words just kind of hung in the air for a second. My father gave her the "I knew you were going to say that" glance (and then the line) and I just stared at my milky espresso and said nothing. I had heard her speaking with my Aunt over the phone. We were all quite capable of filling in the blanks.

So we went into the living room and got to work. My father disappeared downstairs. My grandmother sat on the couch and watched, perfectly content to stay out of the decision making process. Not that there is every any creative fireworks between the two of us. I credit my mom for my sense of aesthetic - her words, not mine. Time is no object when working on any thing of beauty. We worked on the tree for a solid two hours, tucking every last blue and white light bulb into those fake pine branches while Elvis sang "Love me tender" in the background. Every now and then I caught us both humming the same words and realized I can't remember ever singing a song with her - not wholeheartedly, anyhow. And every ten minutes or so my grandmother would look at us and smile and ask me when I was going to put up my tree. And I would tell her I usually waited until around mid December because Amy and I preferred a real tree and I wanted it to last until at least mid January.

And every now and then I would kill the lights to see how the tree was looking. And it was more and more beautiful every time. The way those white and blue lights reflected in every pane of the bay window - well, it made the street where I grew up seem even more magical. My mom kept saying how peaceful it all looked; and how happy it would make my grandmother to just sit there and stare at it, the way she often did with the window. If there would be no one passing by on a cold suburban night, at least she wouldn't be able to complain there was no life and no view.

And so there was no more talk of bad omens. At least not for one night.  

all in the family

two dreams in two nights where i'm fighting with my father. the first was kind of strange in that our entire disagreement had to do with my cousin Michael losing his wristwatch at the dinner table - and me apparently disrespecting him and the rest of the family by not having helped looked for it. but then even that argument seemed to have a more serious undercurrent to it, like we weren't discussing wristwatches but something else (my grandmother) completely. last night's dream was more intense and far more realistic. it actually started with my brother. in it, i was kind of calling him out on the fact that he's too quick to dismiss me or anyone and rarely thinks ahead when he's working. then i took it too far - as usual - and got too personal and he storms out, which is when my father walks in. "what did you say to your brother, he was working so well?" and even though i probably overreacted, i hate the fact that my father's only concerns seem to be those of efficiency. so i let him have it. except the second i open my mouth i have the distinct realization that i sound like my Mom - not just in the argument but my actual voice. frustrated, i can't help myself. i want to blame him for forcing me to have to work with my brother. i want to tell him he doesn't understand the cross i have to bear. but i don't go there. it's a heavy argument without anything actually being said.

I did. So what's the point?

I walked into the courtroom three minutes late and saw him sitting there on the right. I had to catch my breath. I was already nervous on the way. Woke up nervous. It was the first time I'd seen him since he tried to kill me, two hands to the neck style. And the first thing I noticed (again) was just how big he was. Ogrish, actually. Like Michael Meyers without the mask. Like just his skin itself was enough. I thought it looked even more cratered, pasty than before. The blue collar protruding from a dark polo. The matted greasy hair and those heavy black shoes. A big man. Still makes me wonder how I managed to break free of him that day, not once but twice. Or three times, maybe. I could hardly look at him now. I left the courtroom and pressed my back against the cool window. And waited for my prosecutor. For direction. He walked out into the marble corridor and sat there like he was waiting for the subway, hunched over his Blackberry and sometimes smiling under his breath. Talking to his wife, nodding at his lawyer. I was having a hard time focusing on what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. I saw the cop who had filled out the report that day and referred to him as a wounded puppy after the fact. I saw the prosecutor and his lawyer walk into one of those small rooms with the frosted windows.

And when the deal was presented to me, I was relieved. And why not, when the option of prolonged trial and sentencing would likely only lead to the the same outcome conclusion. Especially when the judge would hear what an otherwise upstanding citizen he was. Church goer, business owner with Air Canada contracts to boot and sufferer of depression. At least this way I would be issued an apology in court, in front of the judge. And get the choice of the charity. I chose a victim's charity. I explained to my lawyer that I just wanted the court (the world) to know his real intention that crazy day was to shut me up for good - nothing less. But how could I get that recognition? He didn't seem to have an answer. So I decided to take his advice and settled.

I'm settling. There's no other way to say it.

I've been staring at him, sitting much farther down the hallway now. Far enough that we can't even make out the direction or intention of each others' eyes. I swear I made out a little smirk on his ugly face, maybe caught his wife shaking her head in some form of disapproval I hope I will never understand. But I keep on staring. This is my closure. That and the $350 donation, of course - above and beyond even the wildest of my prosecutor's wildest ambitions. I thought it was a touch cheap but who am I to say?

I'm sitting in the courtroom taking in mindless conversation about the Gaspé. I feel more calm and at peace now. I watch a couple of drunk drivers, one shoplifter and a couple of women gladly plead guilty in accordance with their own out-of-court settlements. (My prosecutor seems to be an expert at avoiding the courtroom altogether) Finally he's back and we're up. Frank makes his way before the judge with his back toward me. I can see him wringing those large hands again, closer now. His lawyer explains the history. The details have all been smudged: Parties had a disagreement related to said business, there was an event that followed and now my client would like to issue an apology. It all rang so hollow. He turned to me and said: "Robert, I've had a lot of time to think about what happened that day and I'm truly sorry. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. And we move on."

There was no emotion in that statement. It came out awkward and left me feeling slightly uncomfortable, then cheated. It was that kind of canned apology a kid will make when forced by his mother. I didn't respond and found it difficult to look him straight in the face.

I just sat there, not really feeling like a winner or a loser.

ahh. works every time

Tonight I was hanging out with my mother and my grandmother, searching the internet for people who have basically fallen off the face of the earth. People who used to call.

We searched the white pages. We ran maiden names past Google. I even checked the obituaries. (Talk about falling off the face of the Earth) At the end of the day, all the trails ran cold. Finally, my Mom just opened up that trusty little phone book of hers and scrolled down her own, neat handwriting. She found one of my Nonna's old Florida friends and put her on the phone. She answered. My grandmother lit up. No luck on the initial search, except for word Gloria may have moved to Mascouche. Still, it was enough to get her smiling. And out of the clouds.

my kind of Mother's day

It's been a long time since I've been to my Nonna's house with both her and my Mom in it at the same time.

There was a time when we used to spend almost all our Sundays and major holidays on Vianney. And sometimes you would even walk in on a random week night and she would already have served pasta and meatballs to my Uncle Sal, who would be absently flipping through the newspaper or some bills with a toothpick in his mouth. And you knew your plate was on its way; regardless of whether you came in looking for food.

Now, I wonder if she would even be able to turn on the stove and make that same perfect oily plate of pasta like she used to. A part of me will always want to believe she could. The rest of me has its doubts.

Still, you can tell she is still proud of that house and not at all lost once in it. And there's no way she was going to let us do all the work. I think my Mom was on her case before she even had a chance to bend down and pull out a handful of weeds on her way to the front door. "Ma, don't start!'" she would simultaneously shout to my grandmother and the rest of the street, warning that she would not tolerate any eventual complaints of pain later that night. My grandmother did her best to assure my Mom she was doing nothing, really - which did little to reassure my Mom, let me tell you. Meanwhile, I was trying to discourage my Mom from picking up the heavy Hibiscus plants due to her bad knee. She did it anyway and I didn't protest. Figured all three of us suffer from that same, somewhat perfectionist do-it-yourself affliction.

So while we re-potted all the Oleander plants my grandmother insists should be put out and cared for every summer, she went about tidying the garage, checking on the leftover preserved peppers and  mopping our muddy footprints nearly every time we passed by. It was driving my mother crazy, but it just made me smile.

I am my parents' son

It was good to see my parents last night.

I should clarify. It was good to see my parents more relaxed last night. More than they've been in a long while, anyway. The Cuban air definitely did some good. But I think being away from Nonna had even more to do with it - as difficult as it would be for my mom to admit.

It's a terrible thing to call anyone a burden - let alone your own mother. And I still can't bring myself to even consider my grandmother being that to anyone in our family. My uncles might act like it and may even agree with their wives in the privacy of their own homes. But I know they all care in their own ways. They all sympathize with my Mom but no one is willing to do anything more about it. Everyone's got their own problems, it seems.

And so my Mom (and my father, by proxy) has shouldered the heavy brunt. My Nonna was always difficult when it came to her health, but the Alzheimer's - although still in its relative infancy - has made living with her and caring for her even more frustrating and stressful.

So last night at the supper table, with Nonna still sitting in a hospital bed in Room 658B, the three of us had a very frank and honest conversation about how to help my Mom avoid having another nervous breakdown over this. And being a reasonably fair split between the two of them, I really feel like for the first time in a long time I was able to find a way to reconcile their very different approaches without stoking any of the old fires.

I felt like a judge and psychologist. I heard both sides. I translated viewpoints and gave my own when it was relevant. And I couldn't help but think of Don Corleone in the Godfather, doing his best to manage a generally unsolvable situation that is only likely to deteriorate.

It made me appreciate both of them so much more. And understand myself a little better.

well, aren't you just full of stories

When I hear that my Uncle Mario is coming over with the kids, I get slightly annoyed. I probably shouldn't, but I can't help it.

I guess I have become somewhat possessive of Sunday dinner at my parent's. Or maybe it's just the dread that comes with having to endure someone talking about their kids all night long. I believe he's been over three or four times since he got out. I know it makes my mother and her mother super happym so I would never dream of saying anything. Just me being selfish.

But yesterday just ended up being a really fun night. A pleasant suprise.

Say what you will about the black sheep of the clan, the truth is that Uncle Mario can be extremely likeable when he puts his mind to it. He knows it. And we know it.

I think it's got a lot to do with his storyteller's charm, which he gets directly from my Nonna. They both have stunning long-term memory and an eye for detail. I have seen both stop in the middle of a story, lift up their sleeves and expose the goosebumps on their forearms - if only to prove just how powerful what they're recounting is. "See what I'm talking about?" I ask my father after my Uncle finishes the story about the old 'witch' (actually one of his Aunts from back in Cairano) and how she cooked her pasta from a giant cauldron with flies all around it. "You don't have to have a photographic memory to remember those details - just a good visual one." Shit, I visited that very same aunt in that very same dingy cave and probably ate that very same meal and I couldn't pick her out of a witch lineup if my life depended on it. My brother probably could. My father nods and I assume he understands the difference now. Our memories stink by comparison. "Yeah, but we got the logic," he assures me matter-of-factly. Perfect.

So while my father entertained the kids with number tricks based on simple algebra, my Uncle Mario
recounted the now infamous story about how he almost drowned my teenage mother after dragging her rubber raft out into the Nassau ocean. A practical joke almost gone terribly wrong.


It was fun to hear about my Uncle Sal and the crazy fishing/hunting trips trips he dragged his younger brother on back in the day. How they rode trains that dropped them deep in the bush and waited to board Cessnas piloted by drunk Natives. How he left my thirteen-year old Uncle Mario in the middle of the woods holding a loaded shotgun with clear instructions to shoot and then actually pretended he was the Moose - cracking branches with his hands - just to fuck with him.

But that one image of my Uncle Sal leaning back on his side of the canoe with nothing but a pair of shorts, his fishing rod and a cigarette hanging from his mouth while an all-but mummified Mario crumpled under the swarm of black flies and the pounding sun on the other was the killer.

In a different time and place, that would have been my brother and I. And I suddenly understood a little more about both my uncles and the power that comes with being the older brother.

green. and yellow

I really had to think twice before picking up that phone to dial the recovery room.

I had, after all, only been waiting about an hour or so. Which, when judged against all possible scenarios playing out behind swinging doors, seems a small price to pay. I guess I was simply following orders: "If your father doesn't come out in an hour, then just take a right after the waiting room and find out what's going on." Yes, it's always best to inquire when waiting in a hospital.

The woman on the other end of the line tells me she has no record of my father and suggests the possibility he has already been disharged. Impossible, I reply. I am his ride home. "Well then just come in and see if you can find him." 

I spent a large part of my childhood convinced I was going to become a doctor. I remember visiting Mommy in the physio department and really wanting that life-sized skeleton for my bedroom. I'm not even sure why I never did get it. She would always tell me about studying and dissecting Charlie at McGill and I simply assumed I would do the same. I knew I had the brains and, well, blood and guts were just not issues for me.

Not anymore. Now, I'm 'squeemish guy' at the hospital. (original, I know) I can't even watch people throw up - although I believe I learned that one back in high school.
So I'm walking down this narrow hallway looking for my father, steering clear of  'Intensive Care' doors and used clothing bins. I walk into an open room with beds in all directions and find myself fixated on a middle-aged woman who is pale green. Something about that colour makes me not notice my father waiving from the bad almost directly in front of me. The two-minute day surgery was a success, he tells me, but he's been frozen from the waist down for the last five hours. We make small talk, but I'm distracted by the tiny drops of blood on his gown and the patient moaning "Madame?" to his left. Her toes are curling from the pain. Meanwhile, the green woman is tearing up. I can't make out why. The nurse says her fears are all very normal. It will take some getting used to. Outside, they're removing the fresh fluffy snow so effortlessly.

My father is finally cleared for discharge. He gets changed while the janitor mops the floor around us. I make it a point to smile at the green woman before I leave.

luck be a BIRTHDAY tonight

I was just about ready to go home. I really was.

The fairly recent tradition of going to the Casino to celebrate our belated birthdays (mine, my brother's and my grandmother's) was already starting to feel redundant. Not to mention it was hot like all hell in there - something about renovations affecting the ventilation system. So much for the expected oxygen boost. By the time we found my parents and located the only 25-cent slots my Nonna plays, my brother was down to a t-shirt and Amy looked ready to call it a night.

I sat down and watched one particular machine digest my ten dollar bill in under two minutes without so much as a burp. I despise slots. So i decided to move two seats down to remind my Nonna which sequence of buttons got her one credit per bet. Her luck was no better. I believe she was fumbling through her wallet for her second twenty (my Mom constantly has to remind her she's not broke) when my brother - who had since inherited my ungrateful machine - managed to line up two special doubles and a white seven. There were no flashing lights, no alarms of any kind. Still the credits began to accumulate and did not stop for what seemed like two solid minutes. We all watched as they crept past 100, 200, 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 and finally 2400 without any of us having imagined such a payout..

My brother Mark, who had cursed his own luck again in the underground parking lot, had hit a jackpot of sorts. He was up $600.

The collective enthusiasm, however, did little to curb the heat. Amy looked more miserable than ever, complaining there wasn't enough air. I could sense that lethal combination of anger and fear in her voice so we took a little walk to the Roulette tables, where it wasn't so stuffy. I considered dropping $25 on Black as was our own little tradition (started one magical night in Vegas) but she was in no mood. I was getting a little annoyed myself. I always find a way to enjoy myself - even if i never win. Must be the gambler in me. Or the one in my Nonna, i should say.

I asked her for $20 anyway and just put it in my back pocket. After getting a bottle of water, she insisted she'd tough it out at the slots, alone. I was going to go it alone when my brother found me. We decided to budget $100. Why ruin a winning streak, right?

The first couple of rounds did not go well. I was sandwiched between two older Asian men at the far corner of the table, the closest to the dealer. My brother didn't even bother to get in on the action, calling out his numbers from five feet out without ever lifting his eyes from his iPhone. And then this happened.

1 chip on 33 Black. Boom.

2 chips on 2 Black (my brother's birthday). Boom

2 chips on 25 Red. (my Nonna's birthday). Boom.

Three rounds, three straight numbers. I had since found myself a decent spot at the table and my brother was now standing behind me, phone in his pocket. Even Amy found her way back to the table. She called out 5 Red to my brother and he passed on the message. Boom. We were suddenly up $300 some odd dollars and had my father grinning. That's right, the rational accountant who does his gambling on the stock market exclusively was now intrigued by our stubborn luck. 

I, meanwhile, had been slowly increasing the bets with each turn and now had three chips on 2-3, the numerical compromise of both our birthdays. I put 50 on black as well. 2 Black came out again. This time i got the stiff-arm to the shoulder plate and a grinning "what the fuck?" from my brother. This was the fifth straight number we had hit. It was controlled insanity. The dealer was now throwing in some of those charcoal $100 chips with the payouts, possibly aware that the $2.50 turquoise variety were building up in six uneven piles in front of me. The Asians had also taken notice. When my brother called for 17 Black - not even realizing it was mommy's birthday - others followed.

It came out. With the four chips and the extra 50 on Black, we were now up close to a grand.

My mom was begging us to call it quits. "Wait until they lose first, Lina" was my father's reply. I recognized the need to get out ahead, but something told me we were just getting started. But 20 Black was to be the first number that caught us off guard. And even though i had picked Black, we got up and walked away.

On the way to the cash, I replayed the sequence of numbers to my father and discovered that by guessing 2 Black twice (my father was born on the 22nd) we had managed to hit every one's birthday except for Amy's. No amount of logic could explain the significance and my father knew it.

It's as if we had decoded the universe that particular family night. And nothing less.