Chapter 68
Elise went to study architecture at the University of the West Indies when she was eighteen, a decision that surprised no one who had watched her grow up in the apartment with a mother who kept drawings on every flat surface and a grandmother who talked about building things.
She applied with a portfolio of work that was, Marcus thought, extraordinary precise, imaginative, already showing the signature intelligence that had been visible since the age of three with her red shoes and her look.
He drove her to the campus on the first day. They sat in the car outside the hall of residence in the warm morning.
'Are you nervous?' he asked.
She gave him the look. 'No.'
'I was nervous,' he said. 'When I went to Birmingham.'
'That was different. You were far from home.' She looked at the campus. 'I'm not far from home.'
'No,' he said. 'You're not.'
She was quiet for a moment. Then: 'Was it worth it? Being far?'
He thought about how to answer this honestly.
'Yes,' he said. 'It gave me things I couldn't have gotten here. But you're here and you have those things already. The distance gave me them. You received them at home. That's better.'
She looked at him with the full precision of her attention.
'I know why you teach,' she said.
He blinked.
'You do?'
'You wanted to give people what you got from Mr. Okafor,' she said. 'But without the distance. You wanted to be there before they needed the distance. So they'd have the permission before they were nine years old and already leaving.'
He looked at his eighteen-year-old daughter.
'Yes,' he said. 'Exactly that.'
She nodded as though this were self-evident information, gathered her bag, and opened the door.
'Come on,' she said. 'Help me with the boxes.