Thatha hadn’t agreed to let me play softball on a team, but he’d bought a bat and balls so I could just play around and see if I liked it. He rarely shifted his stance on something, so I’d been surprised when he gave me the bat and said, “Let’s go see if we can turn this ‘soft’ ball into something a little harder!” and then laughed at his own dad joke.

But if it was anyone’s fault I’d been swinging low, it was his. He’d only ever bowled a cricket ball. And in cricket, the bowler aims lower than in softball. The batter also aims lower. So my very valid theory had been that his softball pitches were generally lower than the average pitch, and hence, so were my swings.

When I’d shared my theory with him, he’d rejected the idea with his typical, “Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter, will you?”

We worked well into the evening, me trying to show him I could hit anything he threw my way.

Eventually, once he was relatively satisfied with my swing (for the time being, anyway), we’d come inside, late for dinner, as usual.

Mum hadn’t complained, also as usual. She didn’t argue with us anymore about boxing time cutting into mealtime or chore time or even homework time. She’d been outnumbered too many of those times, I guess. Even if she didn’t approve, she kept her feelings to herself.

It wasn’t my mum’s approval I was seeking by then anyway. Thatha was the one showing me what I needed to succeed, and I spent my energy trying to show him I had what it took.

That night, though, she’d asked, “How was this softball?”

“We worked on turning Daya’s golf swing into a softball swing,” Dad replied before I had a chance to.

“Ha-ha,” I said, shaking my head.

My mum paused in the middle of ripping off a piece of pol roti. “Golf swing?” She looked from me to Dad, confused.

Dad started to chuckle.

“Ignore him, Amma—he thinks he’s very funny.”

“I am hee-LAR-ious!” Dad added, pointing a finger at me.

The expression on my mum’s face should have told me everything I needed to know—about how she felt when my dad and I shared these inside jokes, about how much she wished she were included, how she’d do anything to be part of the joke. But I guess I didn’t look hard enough. I was too busy trying to prove myself to my father.

Chapter Nineteen