"Why can't I just stay here?" I moaned.
"For the simple reason that the court won't permit it. I thought you were a smart kid. If you don't come with me, they'll put you in a foster home," he added.
For a long moment, I considered the option. I'd be better off with complete strangers than with him.
"And for another reason, I promised your mother." He studied my face a moment and smiled coldly. "I know what you're thinking. I was surprised she gave a damn, too," he said.
My breath caught, and I couldn't swallow. I had to turn away so he wouldn't see the tears escaping and streaming down my cheeks. I hurried into the bedroom and opened the dresser drawers to take out my clothes. The only suitcase I had was small and had to be tied together with belts to close. I found it in the back of my closet and started to pack it.
Uncle Reuben stepped in and looked at the bedroom. "It stinks in here," he said.
I kept packing. I didn't know how long I would really live with him and Aunt Clara, but I didn't want to run out of socks and panties. "You don't need all that," he said when I reached into the closet for more clothes. "I don't want roaches in my house. Just take the basics."
"All I have is basics, some shirts and jeans and two dresses. And I don't have roaches in my clothes."
He grunted. I never liked Uncle Reuben. He was full of prejudice, often telling Mama that her problems began when she got herself involved with a Cuban. He liked to hold himself higher than us because he had been promoted and wore a suit to work.
I had two cousins, William, who was nine, and Jennifer, who was fourteen. William was a meek, quiet boy who, like me, enjoyed being by himself. He said very little, and once I heard Aunt Clara say the school thought he was nearly autistic. Jennifer was stuck-up. She had a way of holding her head back and talking down her nose that made everyone feel she thought she was superior. Once, when I was five, I got so frustrated with her I stomped on her foot and nearly broke one of her toes.
I finished packing and scooped up a pair of jeans and a sweater. Uncle Reuben stood there watching me as I walked past him to the bathroom to change. When I came out, he ha d my suitcase in his hand and was waiting in the doorway.
"Let's go," he urged. "I feel like I could catch some disease in here."
He, Aunt Clara, and my cousins lived in a nice A-frame two-story house. Mama and I didn't visit that often, but I was always envious of their yard, their nice furniture and clean bathrooms. William had his own room, and Jennifer had hers. The house was in a smaller village far enough away from the city so that I would have to go to a different school.
"Where am I going to stay?" I asked Uncle Reuben as I slipped on my sneakers.
"Clara's fixing up her sewing room for you. She has a pullout in it. Then we'll see," he said. "Come on."
"Should I just leave everything?" I asked, gazing about the apartment.
"What's there to leave? Old dishes, hand-medown furniture, and rats? I wouldn't even bother locking the door," he muttered, and started down the stairs.
I paused in the doorway. He was right. It was a hole in the wall, drab and worn, even rotten in places and full of apologies, but it had been home for me. For so long, these walls were my little world. I always dreamed of leaving it, but now that I actually was, I couldn't help feeling afraid and sad.
"Raven!" Uncle Reuben shouted from the bottom of the stairway.
"Shut up out there!" someone cried. "People's trying to sleep."
I closed the door quickly and hurried down after him. We burst into the empty streets. It was still dark. The rest of the world was asleep. He threw my suitcase into the trunk of his car and got in quickly. I followed and gazed sleepily out the window at the apartment house. Only one of the three bulbs over the entryway worked. Shadows hid the chipped and faded paint and broken basement windows.
"It's lucky for you I live close enough to come and get you," he said, "or tonight you'd be on your way to some orphanage."
"I'm not an orphan," I shot back.
"No. You're worse," he said. "Orphans don't have mothers like yours."
"How can you talk about your sister like that?" I demanded. No matter how bad Mama was, I couldn't just sit there and listen to him tear her down.
"Easy," he said. "This isn't the first time I've had to come rescue her or bail her out, is it? This time, she's really gone and done it, though, and I say that's good. Let it come to an end. She's a lost cause." He turned to me. "And I'm warning you from the start," he fired, pointing his long, thick right forefinger into my face as he drove, "I don't want you corrupting my children, hear? The first time you bring disgrace into my home, that will be the last. I can assure you of that."
I curled up as far away from him as I could squeeze my body and closed my eyes. This is a nightmare, I thought, just a bad dream. In a moment, wake up and be on the pullout in our living room. Maybe I'll hear Mama stumbling into the apartment. Suddenly, that didn't seem so bad.
We drove 'Mostly in silence the rest of the way. Occasionally, Uncle Reuben muttered some obscenity or complained about being woken out of a deep sleep by his drunken, worthless sister.
"There oughta be a way to disown your relatives, to walk into a courtroom and declare yourself an independent soul so they can't come after you or ruin your life," he grumbled. I tried to ignore him, to go back to sleep.
I opened my eyes when we pulled into the driveway. The lights were on downstairs. He got out and opened the trunk, nearly ripping my suitcase apart when he took it out. I trailed behind him to the front door. Aunt Clara opened the door before we got there.
Aunt Clara was a mystery to me. No two people seemed more unalike than she and Uncle Reuben. She was small, fragile, dainty, and soft-spoken. Her face was usually full of sympathy and concern, and as far as I could ever tell, she never looked down on us or said bad things about us, no matter what Mama did. Mama liked her and, ironically, often told me she felt sorrier for her than she did for herself.
"It's a bigger burden living with my brother," she declared.
Aunt Clara had light brown hair that was always neatly styled about her ears. She wore little makeup, but her face was usually bright and cheery, especially because of the deep blue in her warm eyes and the soft smile on her small lips. She was only a few inches taller than I was, and when she stood next to Uncle Reuben, she looked as if she could be another one of his children.
She waited for us with her hands clasped and pressed between her small breasts.
"You poor dear," she said. "Come right in."
"Poor dear is right," Uncle Reuben said. "You should see that place. How could a grown woman want to live there and let her child live there?"
"Well, she's out of there now, Reuben."
"Yeah, right," he said. "I'm going back to bed. Some people have to work for a living," he muttered, and charged through the house and up the small stairway. The banister shook under his grip as he pulled himself up the stairs. He had dropped my suitcase in the middle of the floor.
"Would you like a cup of warm milk, Raven?" Aunt Clara asked.
"No, thank you," I said.
"You're tired, too, I imagine. This is all a bad business for everyone. Come with me. I have the sewing room all ready for you."
The sewing room was downstairs, just off the living room. It wasn't a big room, but it was sweet with flowery wallpaper, a light gray rug, a table with a sewing machine, a soft-backed wooden chair, and the pullout. There was one big window with white cotton curtains that faced the east side of the house, so the sunlight would light it up in the morning. On the walls were some needlework pictures in frames that Aunt Clara had done. They were scenes with farmhouses and animals and one with a woman and a young girl sitting by a brook.
"You know where the bathroom is, right down the hall' she said. "I wish we had another bedroom, but .
"This is fine, Aunt Clara. I hate to take away your sewing room."
"Oh, it's nothing. I could do the same work someplace
else. Don't you give it another thought, child. Tomorrow, you'll just rest, and maybe, before the day is out, we'll go over to the school and get you enrolled. We don't want you falling behind."
I hated to tell her how behind I already had fallen.
"Here's a new toothbrush," she said, indicating it on the desk. "I had one from the last time I went to the dentist."
"Thank you, Aunt Clara."
She gazed at me a moment and then shook her head and stroked my hair.
"The things we do to our children," she muttered, kissed me on the forehead, and left to go upstairs.
I stood there for a moment. To Aunt Clara, this room wasn't much, but to me, it was better than a luxury hotel. Her house smelled fresh and clean, and it was so quiet, no creaks, no voices coming through the walls, no footsteps pounding on the ceiling.
I got undressed and slipped under the fresh comforter. The pullout was firmer than ours, and the pillows were fluffy. I was so comfortable and so tired that I forgot for the moment that Mama was in jail. I was too tired, too frightened, and too confused to think anymore. I closed my eyes.
I opened them again when I felt someone was looking at me. It was morning. Sunlight poured through the window. I had forgotten where I was and sat up quickly. William was standing there gaping at me.
"Mama says you're going to live with us now," he said slowly.
I scrubbed my face with my palms and took a deep breath as it all came rushing back over me.
"William, get your rear end back in here right now and finish your breakfast," I heard Uncle Reuben shout.
William hesitated and then hurried out. I lay back on my pillow and stared up at the ceiling.
"Your mother's in jail," I heard Jennifer say from the doorway.
I just turned and gazed at her. She had her light brown hair tied back with a ribbon. She was a tall girl with a large bone structure that made her look heavier than she was. Aunt Clara's features were overpowered by Uncle Reuben's, so that Jennifer's nose was wider and longer, as was her mouth. She had Aunt Clara's eyes, but they seemed out of place in so large a face. She was wide in the waist, too. Whenever I saw Uncle Reuben with her, however, he always treated her as if she were some raving beauty. There was never any question in my mind that he favored her over William. William was too small and fragile, too much like Aunt Clara.
"That's what your father says," I replied.
"Well, he wouldn't lie about it, would he? Jesus, what an embarrassment. And now you're going to be in my school, too," she complained.
"Well, I don't want to be," I said.
"Just don't tell anyone about your mother. We'll make up some story," she decided.
"Like what?" I asked dubiously.
She stood there, staring in at me and thinking. "I know," she said with a smile. "We'll say she's dead."
2 Cinderella's Nightmare
W ho do you think you are, some princess?" Uncle Reuben bellowed from the doorway.
"Everybody's up and havin' breakfast. Clara ain't gonna be waitin' on you,"
"I was getting up," I said. "I didn't realize how late it was. There's no clock in this room, and I don't have a watch."
"No clock?I'll make sure I get you a clock. Those kind of excuses won't work here."
"It's not an excuse. It's the truth," I said. He stood in the doorway with his hands on his
hips. Then he glanced down the hall and stepped into the sewing room. "We're going to set some rules down in concrete right now," he declared. "First, from now on, you're up before everybody. You set the table for breakfast, and you put on the coffee. Before you head off for school, make sure the table's cleared and the dishes and silverware are put away. When you come home from school, I expect you to help Clara around here. I want to see you cleaning the house, washing windows and floors. You'll help her with the laundry, too. This ain't a free ride just because your mother is a major screw-up, understand?"
I glared at him.
"When I ask you a question, I expect an answer. You need discipline. You're like some sort of wild animal livin' over there in that hole with that drunk of a sister of mine. That's all ended today, hear? Well?"
"I wasn't living like a wild animal," I shot back.
He smirked. "It looks like I'm going to end up bein' your legal guardian. That means you report to me, and I'm warning you right now, Raven, I don't spare the rod and spoil the child. Understand? Well?" He brought his large hand up. The palm looked as wide as a paddle.
"Yes," I said. "Yes."
He was practically standing over me, his face dark red with fury. I had no doubt he would strike me if he saw fit to do so, and I was afraid.
"Raven," he muttered with a twist in his lips. "What kind of a name is that to give a girl, anyway? She must have been drunk the day you was born."
"I like my name," I insisted. He was terrifying, but I had some pride.
He stood there a few minutes longer, gazing down at me. I pulled the comforter up to my shoulders, but I felt as if he could see right through it.
"I know you're growing older and growing fast, and I remember what happened to your mother, how she was when the boys started looking her way. You better not be taking the same road. I don't want you corrupting my Jennifer, hear?"
I turned away, the tears in my eyes making it impossible to look up at him anymore. I wasn't some disease. I wouldn't infect his precious Jennifer.
He grunted and left the room. I could hear him telling Aunt Clara what he had told me, what he wanted to be my chores. She didn't argue. A little while later, I heard him leave with Jennifer and William. I waited and rose.
"You hungry, dear?" Aunt Clara asked as I went to the bathroom.
"Just a little," I said.
"Coffee is still warm, and I have eggs if you want, even oatmeal."
"I'll take care of myself, Aunt Clara. Please don't think you have to wait on me," I said.
"Don't you worry about that," she said.
I got dressed and found myself some cold cereal. Aunt Clara poured me some orange juice and sat with me as I ate.
"Reuben's bark is worse than his bite," she said, trying to reassure me. "He's just upset with the surprise and all. Don't pay no mind to all those orders he gave."
"I don't mind helping out," I told her. "I did most of it at home, anyway."
"I bet you did." She nodded and sipped some coffee.
"Aunt Clara, what's going to happen to my mother? Is she really going to jail for a long time?" I asked.
"I don't know. Reuben mumbled something about them maybe putting her in a drug rehabilitation program, but we'll have to wait and see. You know, it's not her first time getting herself into big trouble," she added.
I nodded. There was no sense pretending it wasn't true or living in a dream world. Mama was in very big trouble, and that meant I was in trouble, too. Who wanted to live here with a cousin like Jennifer and an uncle like Uncle Reuben? I'd rather be in the streets.
"You just rest up a bit, honey," Aunt Clara said. "You've been through a terrible shock. After I tend to some chores, we'll have lunch, and right after that, I'll run you over to the school to get you enrolled, okay?"
"I'll help you with your chores, Aunt Clara. It's what Uncle Reuben wants, anyway," I said, "and it will help keep the peace."
"Ain't you the smart one?" she said, smiling. She tapped my hand. "Just sit here and finish your breakfast first."
She left and went upstairs. When I was done, I washed all the dishes and cleaned the table. I joined her just as she was starting on Jennifer's room. I paused in the doorway, shocked at the mess. Clothes were strewn about, and there was a dish with leftover apple pie on the floor by the bed, where the phone had been left as well. I imagined she had been sitting there talking to some friends and eating the pie, but why did she just leave it? Wasn't she worried about mice and bugs?
The bed was unmade, and the bathroom she shared with William looked as if someone had had to leave in a hurry. Makeup was uncov
ered, the sink was still full of cloudy water, an open lipstick tube was on its side, the toothpaste was uncovered with some of it dripped onto the counter, a washcloth dangled over the doorknob, and there were magazines on the floor by the toilet. The shower door was open, a wet towel on the floor beside it.
Aunt Clara began to clean up without making a comment about the mess.
"Why does she leave her room and bathroom like this, Aunt Clara? Talk about living in a pig sty," I muttered. "I guess Uncle Reuben doesn't look in here often."
"Oh, he does," Aunt Clara said with a deep sigh. "And I've been after her, but Jennifer . . . Jennifer's a little spoiled," she admitted.
"A little? This looks like spoiled rotten," I said, but I pitched in and helped. I cleaned the bathroom until it looked spotless, even washing down the mirrors that were smudged with lipstick and makeup.
William's room was actually more organized and cleaner. The messiest thing was his unmade bed. After I straightened up his room, I went down and cleaned up the sewing room. I put the pullout back together so it didn't look like a bedroom. With my few things neatly put away, no one would even know I had slept there.
"You don't have to do that every day," Aunt Clara commented. "You can just close the door."
"I'm sure Uncle Reuben wouldn't like that," I told her.
She didn't argue. Even though he wasn't here, his shadow seemed to linger. The way Aunt Clara looked over her shoulder, it was almost as if she believed the shadow would tell him things we had said.
After we cleaned up the bedrooms, she began to vacuum the living room. I polished some furniture and swept the kitchen floor. I had to keep busy so I wouldn't think too much about Mama sitting in jail.
"You are a good worker, Raven. I hope some of your good habits will spill off onto my Jennifer," she said, but not with much optimism.
She prepared chicken salad for our lunch, and we sat and talked. I really didn't know much about her. She described where she had been brought up and how she had met Uncle Reuben. She said he had just started working with the public works department, and she had just graduated from high school.
Raven Page 2
