Dear Carolina

by Kristy W Harvey

  “Looks like that baby be coming any minute,” she said.

  I nodded. “I darn sure hope so. My feet and ankles get much bigger and they’re gonna bust all over the kitchen.”

  Khaki made a face. “That’s even grosser than this.”

  I felt my face getting right red, looked down at the white marble counter and then back up at Khaki. “I’m real sorry that I’m pregnant and you ain’t. It kind of makes me feel like bragging, struttin’ around here with my big belly.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Khaki said, waving her hand.

  To be downright honest, it didn’t feel all that bad. I ain’t never had much to brag about, growing up like I did. I never had a new car or the fancy shoes or even the best backpack. So, to have something that somebody else wanted. Well, it was kinda like gettin’ even in a way.

  But a baby ain’t the same kinda dream as a promotion at work or a string a’ pearls all your own. It ain’t the kinda thing you can just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, dust off your overalls, and earn. If you ask me, it seems like a lotta the time the people who should have the youngens cain’t get pregnant and the ones who don’t have no business raising nobody pop ’em out like candy corn at Halloween.

  “So what’s up with the princess?” Khaki asked.

  I smiled and said, “Well, I went to the doctor today, and he said that now that I’m thirty-seven weeks, I’m full term. She’ll be comin’ any time.” I weren’t scared when I said it. I knew childbirth was gonna hurt right fierce. But cain’t nobody tell you what it’s like to bring a baby home all alone, to be the only person responsible for another person’s raisin’. All I knew was that my back was achin’, my feet was swollen, I couldn’t get near a good night’s sleep, and I was as ready to pop as a chick pecking through an eggshell.

  But now I know: There’s being ready, and there’s being ready. When you’re nineteen, you don’t know the damn difference.

  Khaki

  HOLES

  One of the ways I knew that I would be a good designer is that when I walk into a room, I always feel like it’s telling me something. It needs another piece of furniture, the addition of color—sometimes all the room is missing is a little more uncluttered space.

  Like our rooms, we are so often missing something, walking around with some sort of gap that won’t close. I can’t see that there will ever be a day that a hole shaped like Alex’s daddy won’t live in my soul. And, in an even larger way, I’m sure that a miniature version of you will always be cut out of your mom. If you look around, most people have some kind of wound that never stitched itself up. An unrequited love. The one that got away. Losing a momma or a daddy. An irreplaceable family pet. I’d bet the last strawberry bushel of the season that every person you meet wakes up in the morning missing something.

  Jodi and I’ve never talked about this, but I know she’s braver than I am on the outside whether she is on the inside or not. She handled having you like nothing I’ve ever seen. I like to make myself feel better by justifying that she was so calm, composed and, most important, quiet because she had the sense to have an epidural and I had my friend Stacey in my ear talking me out of it. But the truth of the matter is, some people simply have more inner strength, more ability to internalize pain.

  She told me after you were born that once you’re in it you don’t have any choice but to get through so you may as well do it keeping as much of your dignity intact as possible. I guess after all the hard knocks that girl has lived through, having a baby just seemed like the hurdle God put out for her to jump over that day.

  We hadn’t planned for me to be in the room when you were born. I had been with Jodi most of the day, ran home for a quick shower, and came back to the hospital to bring some Popsicles and some thick, plush washcloths for your birth mother’s head.

  Jodi smiled at me weakly and said, “Cherry flavor would be real nice.”

  She winced in pain, blew her breath out, and I said, “Bad contraction?”

  She nodded. “This is real embarrassing,” she whispered. “I gotta go to the bathroom, but I cain’t get up ’cause I cain’t feel my legs.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I leaned over and mashed that nurse button about a million times. The head nurse came over the intercom, and said, “May I help you?”

  “Yes!” I practically screamed. “I don’t know the first damn thing about delivering a baby, and she’s feeling like she needs to push!”

  It wasn’t a heartbeat later that two nurses came rushing in and, as the door slammed, a doctor charged in right behind. I held Jodi’s hand and wiped her pale, sweaty face with one of those cold rags while the doctor checked her. “Ten centimeters!” he exclaimed, snapping his glove.

  I patted Jodi’s hand, and neither of us said a word, but the look on her face told me that she was terrified and could I please stay. So, of course, I did. In the moment, you aren’t thinking about how you’re seeing someone’s parts that should be reserved for husbands and bedrooms. You’re thinking about how God’s greatest miracle since creation is happening and you get to witness it. That’s what I was thinking, anyway.

  She closed her eyes in the calmest, smoothest way I’ve ever seen, and I swear it wasn’t ten minutes later you were born. When you watch people on TV give birth it’s always screaming and hustling around and doctors directing nurses. But it wasn’t like that when you were born. It was peaceful. It was so still and quiet in there, church on a summer day when almost everybody’s at the beach. Maybe that’s why you didn’t make one peep when you were born. You just came out, your little eyes open and looking around, taking it all in for a few moments before you showed us what those tiny pipes could do.

  And it wasn’t until I laughed, tears in my eyes, and looked back at your mom to say, “You did it!” that I even noticed she had passed out. I gasped and said, “Nurse!” which is when she handed you to me.

  My mind was racing because, even though I knew your birth mom was prone to fainting, there are still those incredibly rare cases where childbirth doesn’t go well. But the panic alarm in my head quieted when I saw your beautiful face. Puckered little lips and big blue eyes. I shouldn’t actually admit this anywhere but in my mind, but, for a breath, I thought that if Jodi didn’t wake up I’d take the best care of you in the world. It wasn’t like I didn’t want her to wake up. But, you know, you have to prepare for the worst case.

  But then she opened her eyes, and I handed you to her. It was such a moment of pure, unadulterated love between a mother and her child that I didn’t even feel sorry it wasn’t happening to me. I relished the glow of it all. With me contemplating surgery and fertility drugs and in vitro and other words I never thought would be a part of my vocabulary, I thought that seeing Jodi hold you might hurt just a little, give me the slightest pang of envy for the motherhood journey that she was embarking on and leaving me behind. And that’s how I know for sure that what Pauline always told me was true: God gives you the grace you need for even the toughest moments.

  Jodi

  LOVE AIN’T ENOUGH

  Some vegetables, they like to be crammed up in the jar, juice squirting and getting all good and marinated. Butter beans, they ain’t like that. They gotta have their space. They get to absorbin’ all the liquid, and if you don’t leave enough room for them to expand, they explode just like that.

  Having a baby’s near like being one of them butter beans that ain’t got enough room. There’s not one spare squidgen a’ space in your life for nothing save feeding, changing, bathing, holding, and then startin’ all over again. I’ve met some girls that handle it like ain’t nothing much changed in their life and waking up every two hours all night long to feed and change a baby ain’t nothing to get excited about. But I was like them crowded butter beans: fixin’ to explode.

  I cain’t say nothing ’bout other alcoholics and what makes them want to drink, seeing as how I’m just me. But being
tired is like inviting ants to a picnic. That soft voice that whispers real sweet and slow in the back of my mind gets louder. That feeling I can push on outta here, the wind kissing a sail on a calm day, ’fore I know it it’s a hundred-knot gale.

  But here’s the thing, baby girl: I loved you like I didn’t know I could love nothing. That tiny voice crying out ripped through me like a machete on a tree branch. I wanted to wrap you up and hold you tight as a tick into me and not let nobody hurt you. But you know what they say: Sometimes, love just ain’t enough.

  I weren’t nowhere near prepared for what it was gonna be like to try to raise a baby on my own. I saw them babies on Gerber commercials and thought it was real sweet to have one of them little people all to yourself.

  Maybe it’s ’cause there weren’t nobody to help me, but the whole dern thing kinda felt like playing the same song over and over on repeat ’til you thought you’d die if you didn’t snap that CD clear in two. You would wake up screaming every two hours on the hour, day and night. And that sweet little pansy mouth felt like a hot poker lighting me on fire every time you ate.

  But then I’d get to wishing for that hot poker because sometimes you’d rear that head back and get to screaming like I was pinching them skinny legs underneath your hand-me-down lace daygown. Trying to get your little mouth to make them fish lips would have me in a sweat worse than cutting asparagus all day. We’d both finally get all quiet and relaxed and dang if we weren’t at the whole thing again an hour later.

  You weren’t one a’ them sleeping babies you see on the TV neither. You’d wake up and want me to tote you around for a while. If I thought about sittin’, you’d scream that little head off.

  Even the standing and walking didn’t help for ’bout three hours every afternoon. You’d be all changed and fed and comfy and you’d just work out them little lungs anyhow. They told me at the doctor’s they call it something like the purple period. Felt more like black to me.

  All that crying, it’d get me to feeling like walking out the door of the trailer, hobblin’ as best I could to the nearest ABC store and using my fake ID to get so good and lit up I wouldn’t care ’bout no crying. I liked to think if my sponsor hadn’t fallen off the wagon and died of a cocaine-fueled booze binge that she might coulda helped me. But I wouldn’t have called her noway.

  And what you got to know is there wasn’t one single thing wrong with you. You are the most perfect youngen I ever seen. But, being a momma, it’s all brand-new, and being all alone with my head not on quite right, it was all a lot for me to take.

  I guess I could say that feeling like I was driving through one of them long, black tunnels with no end in sight was what made me feel like I needed a cold, stiff drink. But if I learned one thing in all that rehab I went to, it’s that I wanted to drink on account of me being an alcoholic. Lord knows, Jesus got me through my drinking patch and clear on out the other side. But I was too ashamed to ask for His help now. I shoulda been thankin’ Him and singin’ His praises so hard and high the angels was dancing. But I didn’t feel thankful. So I didn’t say nothing.

  When you were two weeks old I’d got all sick—fever, headache, vomiting, you name it. You weren’t sleeping none, day or night, meaning I hadn’t slept none either. We were just dozin’ on the couch when I heard a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I called, feelin’ too lazy to get up and answer it.

  Marlene just come busting in saying, “It’s Aunty Marlene here to bring you a present!”

  She scooped you up off the couch, and I was real grateful for the company. Then she handed me a container of formula with a ribbon tied around it. “What’s this?”

  She looked up at me like I weren’t quite right. “It’s formula. What the hell you think?”

  “Marlene, I told you ’bout a million times I’m breast-feeding.”

  She shivered. “Girl, ain’t no man ever gonna want you once you ruined yourself like that. We both grew up on formula and look how good we turned out.”

  I raised my eyebrows, and we both got to laughing. That might not’ve been the best argument she coulda used. But I was real glad to see Marlene. I needed some company, and I was feeling right warm toward her. She’s the one that named you, after all.

  I was sitting in that hospital bed, Marlene up there helping me get you home. She was holdin’ you and we was just talkin’ like it was normal. That nurse come in and said, “Miss Jodi, you aren’t going a place until you name that baby.” Then she walked on out quick as she’d come.

  “Marlene, I don’t know what to name no baby.”

  “Why don’t you name her after your grandma?”

  We both busted out laughing. My grandma, she’s the best woman I ever known. But don’t nobody want to be named Ollie Bell.

  Marlene, she got out her phone, and music started pourin’ out that little speaker. She got to looking through baby names, that finger just a goin’. “How ’bout Marlene?”

  I smirked.

  “Maggie?”

  “Nah.”

  “Madison?”

  “You got any names on there that don’t start with M?”

  Marlene glared at me and then said, “Oh, yeah. Now this here’s a good song!” She clicked the button on the side of her phone, turnin’ up that volume so I could hear, “You’re so fine, girl you’re one of a kind, sweet Carolina girl.”

  That song, it was my daddy’s favorite. We’d ride around in the truck, just him and me, on Sunday afternoons, listening to Steve Hardy’s Original Beach Party on the radio. And when that song would come up, we’d turn it up even louder, toes tapping on the floorboard.

  Marlene cooed down at you, rubbing her finger on your tiny cheek, “You’re a sweet Carolina girl.”

  Then she looked up at me, and we both said, “Carolina,” right at the same time. It was the first name that seemed right.

  That day in the trailer, the phone in the kitchen got to ringing. I thought it was gonna be Khaki saying she’d pop on by.

  But it was some man saying, “Jodi?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “This is Richard Phillips from Sunny Daze Dry Cleaners.”

  My heart got to pounding and my palms got to sweating. I smiled and give you and Marlene a thumbs-up like maybe you knew this could be a big break for us.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Phillips,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound nervous. “How you doin’?”

  “I promised you I’d call if I got an opening,” he said. “And I need a new counter girl starting next week. It pays ten dollars an hour, eight to five, Monday through Friday.”

  “All right,” I said.

  I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning to be busting outta here. I was damn close to figuring what was the day and what was the night again. But then it hit me: What on earth was I gonna do with you?

  “You get thirty minutes for lunch, two fifteen-minute breaks, a week’s paid vacation, and three days sick leave.”

  “All right, Mr. Phillips. That all sounds real good. I’ll be there at eight sharp.”

  “Fantastic, Jodi. I’ll look forward to working with you.”

  “Woo-hoo!” I said.

  “What’s that?” Marlene asked.

  But I put my finger up, ’cause I was thinking. Working again, being busy, it was the best thing for shutting up that voice in my head that was dying for a drink. I thought that with three breaks a day I could use the breast pump the WIC people give me. Good thing. Weren’t no way I could afford formula, no matter what Marlene said.

  I did some quick figuring in my head. Eighty dollars a day was $400 a week, $1,600 a month, $1,300 after taxes. The trailer payment was $400, that damn truck that I cosigned for Ricky, that I could just spit about, was $300, the bills were $200, and I could probably get by on $200 of groceries, $150 if I cut out meat and packaged snacks. Then there was $60 a month for
car insurance. That left $190 for diapers, wipes, and baby clothes, $270 if I canceled the cable. I looked up at the TV and dern near got to crying. It had been my main talking company those past two weeks, and I sure did hate to see it go. There weren’t no money for health insurance, but that weren’t nothing new.

  “Thank the good Lord for Medicaid,” I said out loud.

  “What are you talking ’bout, girl?” Marlene asked.

  I told her about the job, but then I got to realizing it. “Daycare’s gonna run me four hundred a month. Ain’t no way on God’s green earth I can pay it.”

  Marlene and me, our eyes met and she said, “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t you do it, Jodi. You know you cain’t.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t have no choice. I’m gonna have to ask my momma to keep Carolina.”

  I corralled your diapers, wipes, burp cloth, pacifier, outfit, and extra blanket in the old purse Marlene give me that was so worn out the strap was about to break clean off. That nausea almost got me again as I cranked the engine of that old Ford.

  And it got me good as I started driving through the trailer park where I grew up. I could see Momma’s droopy eyes, her shouting at Daddy, “You’re so damn stupid. Cain’t even make enough money to keep decent food on the table.”

  But Daddy needed Momma right near as much as the crops need the rain. ’Cause even though she drank too much and treated him like something she’d stepped in and spent every dime she could get her hands on, someone was there when I got home from school so he could work.

  I could almost smell the kerosene seepin’ outta the door of that rusting bucket I’d come up in. I waved at Mr. Jackson, sitting in a plastic lawn chair like always. “Just keeping an eye on things,” he’d say. All them people in the trailer park, they were the best people I’d ever known, always looking out for me, making sure I had a home-cooked meal. Well, all except my momma.

  I scooped you up in my arms. Just like when I was little, I didn’t know which Momma I’d get. Last time I’d seen her had been at my intervention. She was all sober and sweeter than the last maraschino cherry in the jar. But when she got to drinking . . . Well, there weren’t nothing sweet about that Momma.