Scarlet Redemption

by Lani Wendt Young

  Deep inside there is a whisper of warning. Stop. Don’t go any further. You are unleashing that which can never be taken back. You’re not ready. Don’t do this.

  But I hear Great-Aunty’s voice once again. You are too much living afraid. And I know, that yes, I am ready. No more silence. No more secrets.

  And so I do it. I launch my va’a into the ocean of no return. Nafanua help us all.

  My mother snarls and in the early morning light, she’s almost feral. “You’re not a mother. You don’t understand how it feels.”

  I call B.S. “You’re wrong. The other night, I held Tamarina’s baby in my arms and knew if anyone tried to hurt her, I’d do anything necessary to stop them,” I say, fighting now, not to shout. Not to raise my voice to the heavens in righteous rage. “I’d give my life to keep her safe. I’m her aunty, not her mom and yet that’s how I feel about her. That’s how a mother should feel about her child.”

  She’s shaking her head. There’s a rigid line of obstinacy from wood floor panels to the furrowed broad forehead. Muttering. “A mother does what she must for her child. You’ll never understand.”

  “How can you say that? After Solomon? Everything he did to me. You let him get away with it. Over and over again. I’m your daughter and you let him hurt me. Look at me mother, please.” My voice breaks as I lay my soul on the ground at her feet. The woman I am now. The child that I was – and still am, deep within somewhere, still tightly holding on, still hoping, still fearing. I unwrap that final package of bitter bundled hurts and speak them out loud. Turmeric on my tongue.

  “I’m your child. You didn’t keep me safe.” Why? Mother please?

  She says nothing. I entrust her with my most fragile of fragments.

  And she says nothing. Only stares at me, angry and defiant. Scornful.

  In that silence, in that emptiness, all is revealed. The words I long for her to say. I’m sorry. I didn’t protect you. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. She will never speak them. Say them. She will never be the mother I ache for her to be. She can’t.

  I confront my worst fear. And yet - I’m still breathing. The world is still turning. Outside, the chittering squeaks of the flying fox in the mango tree. Dogs bark at cars on the road. Chickens squawk as the neighbor’s cat chases them around the yard. Life goes on. I have confirmed my worst fear about my mother and about myself, but I am okay. There is a surprising lightness of being that catches me by surprise. My mother didn’t care for me the way she should have. She can’t see why she was wrong, where she failed. She will never see it. And that’s okay. Because one person’s shittiness as a mother is not a reflection of the worth of her child.

  She mutters again. More to herself than to me. “A mother does what she must for her child. You’ll never understand.”

  Then it hits me. The worm snake of truth she does not speak. Even as it tries to squirm out of sight, underground, burrowing back into the comforting darkness of earth.

  “Wait. Your child…you don’t mean me, do you?”

  There’s a flicker of something elusive in her eyes. Slippery glint of silver. A fish in the dark waters of the foul ocean that laps at the cement bracing of the fish market.

  I can’t breathe. It’s too heavy. Too hot. Pressing down on me. The truth is too big for me to absorb. It’s too much for me to bear. I’m trying but it’s crushing me. Bones fragmenting to dust. “A mother does what she must for her child,” I recite it tonelessly. A mantra that leads to enlightenment. “You’re not talking about me.”

  “He was mine,” she says. “I held him. Like this.” In that moment she is not here. She is transported back in time, to a long ago past when she mothered a firstborn child that was not me. She cradles the specter of a long-dead baby in the crook of her arm and croons. “He was beautiful. Blue eyes and just a dusting of light brown hair. I wanted to call him Nigel. Like his father. But they took him. Gave him a good name from the Bible. Sent me away.”

  “It doesn’t matter that I never raised him. Or I only got him back when he was grown. Or he believed Papa and Mama were his parents and I was his big sister. None of that mattered. Because I knew. Inside here.” She beats at her chest. Fierce possession. I feel each fist batter against my own bruised heart. “He was always mine. My son. I always loved him. No matter what.” She turns on me now and the air reeks of her resentment. “You’re not a mother. You don’t know anything about what it feels like. I do. I know. I protected my son.”

  “But what about me, your daughter? Solomon raped me.”

  “That wasn’t rape.” She shakes her head and the curl of her lip is laced with a kind of pity. “I know. You’re my daughter and much like me. I know. I was fifteen when I had Solomon. His father was older. Married. Palagi here on a contract from Australia. I was weak. A bad girl. I brought shame to my family. But I was lucky. My parents didn’t disown me. They had no sons so they decided to keep him as their own. I came to town to live with my aunty. I got a second chance. Everyone knew my sin but I got a second chance. Your father married me even knowing about my wrongs. He gave me a better life. He gave me penance and salvation.”

  I feel sick inside. “Father’s not God.” Hurt makes me cruel. “Is that why you’ve waited on him hand and foot all these years? Put up with his affairs?”

  A step forward and she slaps me across the face. Hard. The sting of a hundred biting red ants.

  “Shut your mouth. Whoever curseth his father, God curses.” She chants scripture like it can save us all. Like it can make everything better. “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long on the land that the Lord thy God giveth you.”

  “Everything you have, everything you are, is because of your father. He’s a good man. Even after I never gave him a son. All the miscarriages. The failures. God’s punishment on me for my childhood sin.”

  I protest. “You were a child. Fifteen. That man should have known better. It was against the law for him to have sex with you.”

  She flinches at the mention of words that no decent Samoan parent should be hearing or saying in any decent conversations with their child. No matter how old they are. Obstinate distaste. “I sinned. And even after I tried my best to teach you God’s ways, you were a sinner too. I failed you.” For a brief moment she looks sad and there is apology in her. But too fleeting for me to grasp it. “But I knew my sin. Not you. You dared to blame Solomon for what happened. After you tempted him. He told me. We could all see it. You followed him everywhere. Bothered him all the time. Always laughed too loud. Talked too much. Wanting attention all the time. From your father. From me. From everyone. Always jealous of your sisters. Always. Tamarina the clever one. Envying her gift. Naomi the pretty pa’e pa’e one.”

  She’s pacing the room now. Waving her hands about. She looks like father. Invoking lightning and wrath and brimstone. I don’t know this woman at all. Did I ever? Do we ever truly know our parents?

  “No,” she snaps. “Your father is a good man. When Grandmother died, he didn’t have to allow Solomon to come stay with us. He was against it at first. But I begged him. I wanted my son to live with us. I wanted to have him near me. For once. So what if he was grown. So what if he never knew the truth. I knew. He was always mine. I got to have him at last. In my house. In my family. He was such a good boy. Always helpful. Always kind to his sisters. Even when they were naughty. Even when they told lies. For a while I was happy. I had my son.” She turns on me and I step back. Instinctive. Bracing for another slap. “But then you had to ruin it.”

  “I’m your child too,” I argue. “The least you could have done is make sure me and my sisters were protected from him. Okay, he was your son, so don’t report him. But at least believe me and keep me safe from him. If you’d listened to me the first time I came to you…if you’d only helped me then, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant.”

  “Why can’t you let go of what happened? You’re fine,” she says. “Michelle was right. You’re obsessed. You want everyone to
feel sorry for you. Everyone to always be thinking about you, talking about you. No matter how much attention we give you, it’s never enough.”

  Another time, another version of me would have retreated now. Would have believed Mother’s every word. But not now. “I’m not fine Mother. Solomon broke me in ways you can’t see. He hurt me in ways that don’t show on the outside. I’ve been in therapy for years. I’m thirty years old and I’ve never had a real boyfriend. Food is my best friend, the only thing that I trust never to let me down, never to betray me. He was a rapist. I told you but you did nothing.”

  She’s covering her ears and shaking her head, and raising her voice to yell, “No. Stop it. I don’t want to hear your lies.”

  “Mother, I can’t ever have children.” And that’s not just Solomon’s fault. It’s yours. You condemned me to the rot of an abortion gone wrong and refused to take me to the hospital until it was too late. I’m lucky to be alive.

  She waves that away. It’s a triviality. “You’re the lucky one,” she says. “You have a good life in America. You do what you want. Everything you do is for you. Always selfish. Always thinking of yourself. And you can do that because your father sent you away. We paid a lot of money so you could have a new life. And how do you repay us? By wasting your degree, working at that bakery and living a sinful life.” She rushes to add, “Don’t try to deny it. I know you do bad things there.”

  She shakes her fist at me. “I did help you! God forgive me, I did help you. I took you to that woman. You don’t understand. You will never know how much my love for you, how much it cost. I should never have taken you to that woman. I broke God’s law for you.”

  “Was it really for me?” I ask. Even though I already know the answer.

  “Your father gave me a second chance. I couldn’t allow his daughter to be pregnant. His position at the college. All his congregation. How would it look? You were a bad girl and I had to fix it. Thou shalt not kill. But for you, I killed an innocent baby and because of that, God punished me. Solomon got cancer because of me.” She sinks into a chair and covers her face with her hands, rocking back and forth with a soft keening cry. “He died. He was mine. I held him in my arms like this and he died. He was my baby. My son. He’s gone. And it’s all my fault. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  There they are. The words I wanted to hear. Except they aren’t for me.

  I watch my mother cry for the son I never knew she’d had. All the somber, tortured pictures of Jesus watch too.

  There’s a sound from the open doorway. Father. How long has he been there? How much has he heard?

  He shuffles into the room with his awkward gait, looking incredibly small. Old. And weary.

  Stops in front of me. The hoarse whisper. “Forgiveness.” For me? For him? For mother?

  Then he goes to my mother and sits beside her. One arm on the small of her back as she shakes with grief. A rare show of physical intimacy from this most restrained Samoan of couples.

  I walk out with that image and I know with rock sure certainty. I will never come back to this house.

  I stumble out of the house, on autopilot. One foot in front of the other. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t give in to the galu afi wave of rage that will surely kill us all if it’s released.

  This is the problem with secrets. They’re overrated. I have been an unwilling bearer of secrets all my life and resentful of their crushing weight. But now, I wish others had kept their secrets a little better.

  It’s not simply finding out that Solomon was my brother and not my uncle. It’s all of it. That Mother got pregnant when she was underage. To a much older man. And didn’t see it as rape. That she sees Solomon’s cancer as God’s punishment upon her because she took me to have an abortion.

  Above all, it’s the truth I saw revealed in her eyes. She believed I should have died instead of Solomon. She wishes I had died instead. His cancer was an unfair punishment. And every time she looks at me, she is reminded of the son who was taken from her.

  I go to Tamarina’s house where I sleep all day and all night. Sleep is better than thinking. Than processing all that my mother has revealed. I would sleep through the new day too but the children force me awake.

  “Aunty, get up. Your boyfriend is here.” A giggle.

  Jason Momoa is here?

  I struggle awake bleary eyed and musu at being woken. “Go away.”

  But the children are determined. Rotten brats. Finally it sinks through my miserable haze. Jackson is here. He’s brought presents for the babies. For Tamarina.

  “He bringed presents for us too!” crows Stella.

  I look at the cheerful faces of my nieces and nephews clustered around my bed, their sweaty happiness and simultaneous irritation with each other. Tim as he argues with Tina about his word of the day – again. Demetrius as he tugs at Dana’s braids and then when she turns to punch him, he counters with, “Wait! There’s a cockroach on your hair.” His eruption of cackling laughter as she shrieks and jumps, flailing at her hair and the non-existent insect.

  Growing up, I’d always wanted a brother. I’d always been envious of the girls in the village who had brothers. Brothers to look after them, boss them around, pester them, laugh with them. Brothers to get lectured at by every aunty and uncle about honouring their sisters. Brothers who would treat me as the pupil of their eye. A brother who would sing songs to me and my beloved sister-ness, just like Vaniah Toloa.

  Now I know I had a brother. And he had raped me many times over.

  Vomit is sudden and surprising. I lurch from the bed and make it to the bathroom just in time, retching into the toilet bowl while the children make loud noises of disgust behind me.

  “Ewwww yuck Aunty!”

  Except for Stella who is forever caring and concerned. But from a distance. From the doorway she asks timidly, “Aunty Scar, are you gonna die? Please don’t die!” There’s tears in her voice and I throw her what I hope is a reassuring smile.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  I’m not sick. But I’m definitely not fine either. I thought I had dealt with this stuff over the years. I thought I was fine with it. The sour taste in my mouth tells me I’m not. I retch and heave again. Another exclamation of combined fascination and repugnance from my audience.

  Then, a speculative LOUD voice, “Ooh Aunty Scar, are you pregnant?!”

  What the fuck Tina?!

  Her twin chimes in. “Yeah, maybe you got a baby growing in you. Our mum always throws up when she’s got babies growing.”

  This is the problem with having parents who raise you to be woke children. You become pesky nuisances who know too much about everything, except about when is the right and wrong time to keep your knowledge to your damn self.

  I wipe my hand across my mouth and take a deep breath as I reach up to hit the flush button. “No. I’m not pregnant.”

  “How can you be sure though?” insists Dana, warming up to this idea of a pregnant Aunty Scar. “Did you have a scanner look inside your tummy? We saw Mum’s babies inside her tummy. They had bones like a dinosaur! It was so cool.”

  “Aunty can we come to your scanner and see your babies and their dinosaur bones?” asks Demetrius eagerly.

  “No you can’t!” I stumble to my feet and rinse my mouth out in the sink with toothpaste, then turn. That’s when I see him. Jackson. Standing in the hall, an inscrutable look on his face. How much did he hear? Wait, does he think what my nosey fiapoto nieces and nephews think?

  “Here he is!” exclaims Stella. “Here’s your boyfriend Aunty Scar!” The other children giggle and nudge at each other as they stare first at Jackson, then at me, and back again.

  I want to die. Then I see Jackson’s face. He has a huge grin, a kind of wolf-ish leer as he leans against the doorjamb, not taking his eyes off me once. “Why yes, it’s me. Your boyfriend.” The way he lingers on the word, sends shivers of delight through me. And the way he looks at me has tendrils of icy fire dancing up my spine. I c
ould stand there all day and let him look at me that way, but then the sniggers and teasing ooooh’s of our audience remind me where we are. In the bathroom of my sister’s house. With a pack of cute but bratty children in here with me.

  “Do y’all mind? A little privacy please?” I announce as I herd the children out.

  “We were worried about you, Aunty Scar,” argues Demetrius with righteous indignation.

  “Yes, we don’t want you to die Aunty,” says Stella in a still-tremulous voice that pierces me with regret.

  I drop to my knees to give her a quick hug. “I’m fine baby. I promise. It was just a tummy bug.”

  “Not any babies?” asks Tim hopefully one more time as he traipses out after the others.

  “No! There’s no babies in my stomach dammit, okay? Now shoo. Buzz away,” I give Jackson what I hope is a blasé eye roll. Like, can you believe how silly crazy these children are? Ha, kids!

  I follow the children out into the corridor and shut the bathroom firmly behind me. The last thing Jackson needs right now, is a full frontal of the toilet where I just threw up. It means though that I’m a little too close to him in the narrow hall. Which makes me feel crowded and claustrophobic – as well as excited – at the same time.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, with my face averted because hello, vomit breath.

  “Looking for my girlfriend,” teases Jackson. He tugs me to him and I go, because when Jackson Emory wants to hold you, that’s what you do. You go. You melt. You press against him, every inch of you alive with happiness to be touching him, breathing him, tasting him in the air. His voice is a low growl against my hair as he says my name. Like it’s a caress. Like my name is something delicious and divine. That’s how Jackson holding me, feels. In his arms, I am delicious and divine. (My prayer for all of you is that you find yourself a man who makes you feel that way.)