Pushing Pause

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  After she didn’t say anything for a while, I turned to leave. I got halfway down the hall and I heard her start talking again. “No, she doesn’t know. I’ll tell her when she comes in tonight.” She paused. “Yes, Mom, I know it’s late. But she’s my daughter. Okay, bye.”

  I stood in the hall looking back at her door, debating whether or not to go back over and knock. I finally decided to just do it. I knocked. “Mom, I’m home.” The door opened more.

  “Kenisha, come on in,” she called out while dabbing at her eyes with one of the many crumpled-up tissues on the bed beside her.

  I opened the door all the way and stepped inside. Laced with muted shadows, darkness crossed the large room. I walked over to stand beside the bed. “Sorry I’m late, I was at Jalisa’s house, her mom cooked dinner, so I already ate,” I said before she could start. “We hung out and I stayed, but I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  “And last night?” she asked.

  “We missed the train and had to wait for another one. And then Jalisa’s sister had to leave work and bring us home ’cause Chili forgot to put gas in the car again.”

  “Sit down, I want to talk to you.”

  “I know what you’re gonna say, I’m grounded again, fine, whatever,” I said before she could, then folded my arms across my chest defiantly, expecting her to recite her usual grounded-for-life speech.

  “Kenisha…”

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked. I could tell that she was out of it. “That’s not what I was going to say. Sit down, we need to talk.”

  I sat, seeing her face clearly for the first time. She looked horrible. No makeup, her eyes red and puffy. “Somebody died, right?” I asked.

  “No, why would you say that?”

  “’Cause you’re crying. Is Dad sick or something?” I asked, suddenly nervous. “I saw him outside, we talked, but he said that I should talk to you.”

  “Your dad and I are…”

  “Let me guess, you’re getting a divorce, right?”

  “No, not exactly, we are separating.”

  “You’re already separated, he moved out, remember?”

  “That’s what we need to talk about, he’s moving back in…”

  “Oh, well, good, it’s about time,” I said finally, hearing some good news.

  “…and we’re moving out now,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  Her lips continued moving and I guess I was listening, but I swear I don’t remember hearing anything and I don’t have a clue what happened next. But I do remember getting sick. My stomach jumped and I started gagging. It was like the next few minutes evaporated into thin air and I found myself with my face in the toilet bowl. Mom was standing over me holding my hair back and rubbing my neck and shoulders with a cool, damp facecloth.

  “I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry, baby,” she kept repeating over and over again. “I never meant any of this to hurt you.”

  I realized that I couldn’t breathe. I was fighting for air, gulping like a fish on dry land.

  “Kenisha, slow down, relax, breathe slowly. We’ll be fine, I promise. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  After about five minutes, I sat down on the floor. She closed the lid and sat beside me, still stroking my hair back in place.

  “You’re all right,” she said soothingly as she held me close and started rocking me like a toddler.

  “No, I’m not all right, everything’s not all right, you said you’re separating and we’re moving out just like that, like no big deal, so how is everything going to be all right? Why can’t we just stay here? So what if Dad wants to move back in. This house is big enough for all of us. You two don’t even have to see each other.”

  “That’s just not going to work, Kenisha.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it won’t.”

  “Stop treating me like I’m five years old. I’m not a child. What’s going on and why do we have to move out?”

  “Sweetheart, it’s for the best.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s going to have to be.” She stood, grabbed the bathroom trash can, then walked back into her bedroom. She started grabbing the soiled tissues on her bed and putting them in the trash can. I went and stood in the doorway, watching her. She looked like a robot. When she finished, she stopped and looked around, then threw the can across the room, smashing it against the wall.

  I jumped; major violence wasn’t my mother’s style, either. She started breathing hard, like she was panting or something. Then she started crying again. “Mom, just tell me,” I said.

  She spun around fast. The anger in her eyes scared the crap out of me. “Your father is moving back in with—” she paused and swallowed hard “—his girlfriend.”

  “His what?” My stomach sank and my heart lurched. I know I didn’t hear her right. “You’re lying, he would never.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head steadily.

  “No, there must be some mistake, Dad would never do that to us, to me.”

  “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “He’s moving some other person in here, into our house and he’s moving us out?” I asked, still stunned.

  “It’s more complicated that that, Kenisha.”

  “I can’t believe this, is he crazy?”

  “Kenisha, he’s still your father.”

  “Since when, if he’s moving us out on the street and then his girlfriend in here, then he’s not my father.”

  “We’re not moving out on the street, we’re moving in with your grandmother in D.C. this Saturday.”

  “D.C.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Saturday?”

  “Yes.”

  “With Grandmom?”

  “Yes.”

  “But y’all don’t even speak to each other anymore.”

  “We do now. I called her, she’s expecting us.”

  “Uh-uh, no way, he’s just gonna have to come better than this and do something else. Buy his girlfriend a condo or something. I’m not leaving my house to live in no D.C.”

  “We have to, we don’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “No, we don’t, baby.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked over to the dresser. I turned around and saw an envelope lying on top of her jewelry box. I walked over and picked it up. I unfolded the paper and read the letter. “What is this?” I asked her, but she wasn’t even looking at me anymore. The words were simple, but I had a hard time reading them anyway. “A temporary restraining order, he took out a restraining order against you?”

  “He wants us out of the house by the end of the week, Saturday. I already made arrangements to have a…”

  By this time my head was all over the place. “What? No. We’re not leaving, that’s not happening. This is our house, too. There must be some mistake. I was born here. My life is here. What am I supposed to do?”

  “We have to, we don’t have a choice. My attorney said that we need to…”

  “What? Wait a minute, you have an attorney already. When did all this happen?” I asked.

  I looked at the restraining order again and saw the date on top, then put it back on the dresser. Without saying another word, I walked out. By the time I got to my bedroom, the tears were pouring down my face. My life had changed just that quickly; my life was over as far as I was concerned.

  In my bedroom, as soon as I turned my lights on, the television went on, too, it was automatic, but the sound was always on mute. I sat on the side of my bed and stared at the screen. Some video was on, but I wasn’t paying attention. I just sat there, I had no idea how long. All I knew was that my head was starting to hurt again and my stomach was still all twisted up.

  So I grabbed my cell and called my dad. His voice mail picked up. I hung up and called again, but this time I punched in 911, knowing that he’d call me back as soon as he got the message. But he didn’t. So
I waited. Fifteen minutes later, I was still waiting. So I called him again and this time I left a message.

  “So what’s up, you stop talking to me, too? Yeah, I talked to Mom and I saw the restraining order. Are we really moving or what? What’s up with that? Call me back.”

  I couldn’t believe it. So here I was, living my life like everything was cool, but really everything was all messed up, and nobody even said anything to me. So how was I supposed to wrap my head around this? I went out, then came back, and then I had to leave my house, move out and go live with my grandmother. A woman I barely saw once a year.

  I heard my mom in her bedroom. I had no idea what she was doing. It sounded like she was throwing things or moving furniture or something, ’cause it was really loud. I knew I had a million questions to ask her, but I couldn’t think of a single one. But then again, I didn’t really want to deal with her right then anyway. All I knew was that her and my dad really messed up.

  I looked over at the TV. Tyrece Grant’s video came on, not the one he’d just made last night, but they were talking about it. I guess somebody from the set went back and told them about it, ’cause they even had a video clip from the front of the dance studio. It was all shaky like somebody did it with their cell phone, but it was clear enough to see what was going on.

  It was Tyrece and he was walking out with a few of his boys, then there was a quick glimpse of some of the people around. I saw my cousin walking by, too. Then a few minutes later there was a scuffle, and it sounded like shots fired and everybody started ducking down and running at the same time. I saw LaVon for a brief second.

  I reached for my remote to turn the volume up, but the scene stopped and went back to talking about Tyrece’s career. I muted the sound again and called LaVon. He didn’t answer, so I left a message, then hung up and tossed the phone on the bed beside me. As soon as I did, the phone vibrated. I answered, my voice still trembling. “Hello,” I said, thinking it was about time my dad called me back.

  Wrong.

  “Damn, girl, you sound like shit, your mom must have grounded your ass for life,” Chili said, and Jalisa giggled via our usual three-way conversation. “See, I told you she couldn’t sneak in again without getting caught.”

  “What’d you get,” Jalisa asked, “another two weeks?”

  “I can’t talk right now,” I said. My head was pounding. All I could think about was waking up from this nightmare.

  “Oh, snap, first no dance class for a month and now your mom is taking your cell phone, too. That’s just cruel,” Jalisa said, assuming.

  “Nah, I’m just tired. I still have my cell.”

  Jalisa and Chili started talking about what was going on, but I didn’t say anything for a while. Their drama was the least of my worries right then. Besides, I wasn’t sure what to say. Yeah, Jalisa and Chili were my girls and yeah, we usually told each other everything, but this was different. This was personal, this was my family.

  So right now while they were talking about the video I was debating, going back and forth about whether or not I should say anything. But come Saturday they were gonna find out anyway when some big old truck pulled up and loaded all my stuff, so I guessed I’d better tell them before they found out some other way.

  Then I’m thinking, maybe it won’t happen after all. Maybe it’s just one of those things and it’ll all blow over in a day or two. Maybe Dad will come back and everything will be just like it was before. But I know better. Denial. I knew that this had been coming for a long time. So that’s it, without thinking, I blurted it out. “My mom is leaving my dad.”

  It went silent for a minute. I wasn’t sure if they even heard me, so I said it again. “My mom is leaving my dad.”

  Jalisa was the first to say something. “Aw, girl, I sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Damn, that’s too bad,” Chili added. “I wonder if there’s any video of me when I was talking to one of Tyrece’s dancers.”

  “Where she going?” Jalisa asked, ignoring Chili.

  “To D.C. to live with my grandmother,” I answered.

  “Are you okay?” Jalisa said again.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said.

  “You can visit her, right?” Chili said encouragingly.

  “She wants me to move, too,” I said slowly, hearing the words leave my mouth for the first time. They tasted bitter, almost angry. The line went silent again at all three ends. None of us knew what to say next.

  “Why, you can just live with your pops, can’t you?” Chili said.

  “She has to go where her mom tells her,” Jalisa said.

  “No, she don’t. She can live with her dad.”

  “You don’t get it,” Jalisa said.

  “I do so. She can just stay with her pops.”

  “No, I can’t. I have to go, too,” I finally said, interrupting their argument.

  “But why?” Chili insisted.

  “I don’t know, that’s just how it is, okay?” I snapped. I wasn’t in the mood to debate and discuss the issue anymore. I was simply stating fact and ending it there.

  “You don’t have to bite my head off, I just asked,” Chili said.

  “I know, I’m sorry, it’s just that this is so wrong. Their drama is so messed up, now I gotta deal with it.”

  “I know, girl. But maybe they’ll get back together. I mean, married people separate all the time and then get back together, right?” Jalisa said.

  “I don’t know, maybe, I know that I need to catch up with my dad and seriously talk to him about this,” I said.

  “Okay, so maybe it’ll only be for a short time,” Chili insisted. “After a few days you’ll be right back here where you belong.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, you never know, it might happen. After a few days away your dad is gonna want you and your mom back and it’ll be like nothing ever happened,” Jalisa added.

  I knew my friends were only trying to be supportive and all, but listening to them now only made me want to just hang up the phone and get it over with. “Yeah, maybe,” I said, hoping that it would be just like that.

  “So when are you leaving?”

  “Soon,” I said, without being more specific. I didn’t want to hear a whole new drama when I told them that it might be in a few days.

  “Soon, that can mean anytime,” Chili said. “Soon like in after school starts or soon like when you’re already in college?”

  “Speaking about school, what about school, it starts next month,” Jalisa said.

  “Yeah, how are you going to get all the way back here every day if you live in D.C.?” Chili asked.

  “Commute, probably until my dad buys me the car he promised for my birthday next month,” I said.

  “One thing’s for sure, there’s no way they gonna want you to leave Hazelhurst, your father’s even on the parent advisory board, right?”

  “That’s right, and your mom’s, like, vice president of the PTO.”

  “Yeah,” I said, knowing that none of that mattered anymore.

  Silence erupted again as we all three realized the answer at the same time: I wasn’t going to attend Hazelhurst anymore.

  “You can stay with me,” Jalisa offered.

  “Or me,” Chili added.

  “I don’t know what’s gonna happen about that yet.”

  “Did you tell LaVon?” Chili asked.

  “No, not yet.” Truth was, all this was happening so fast, I’d forgotten all about LaVon. “I gotta go, I’ll talk to y’all later.”

  I didn’t want to hear them saying goodbye, so I just closed my cell quickly and lay down on my bed. I curled up with my childhood teddy bear but the soft bed and fluffy pillows did little to calm my fears. I was scared. I closed my eyes and just waited for sleep so that I could wake up from this nightmare. When I did I’ll know it wasn’t true.

  So I dreamt that I was falling, but it wasn’t into some deep, dark abyss or some bottomless pit like you always hear about in the movies, it was into bright, blinding
sunlight and everything around me was moving in slow motion except me. I could see cars and house and people’s faces, but I was moving really fast. My hair was being pulled back and my arms were flapping, I was trying to fly, but the harder I tried, the faster I fell. Then it hit me to just relax and let it happen, like what they say about quicksand. So I do. I let go and let it happen.

  Nothing changed, I just kept falling.

  CHAPTER 7

  Ready…Set…

  “Between here and there is nowhere and everybody wants to get out. So you scream at the top of your lungs for someone to see you. Question: what’s real and what’s not?”

  —myspace.com

  I was still falling when I woke up.

  So then it was Wednesday, early, and the house phone kept ringing, but I just ignored it and stayed in bed. My mom stopped by a few times, but I pretended like I was asleep and she went away. Sometime later the doorbell rang. I got up thinking it was for me, but then I looked out my bedroom window and saw this big-ass truck parked out front and then these men were unloading a ton of boxes and bringing them inside.

  It had started.

  I picked up my phone and called my dad’s cell, then his hotel room and then his office phone. He didn’t answer any of them, so I left messages then called LaVon.

  “Hey, I was just about to call you,” he said, lying, of course. He said that to everybody when they called him.

  “I tried calling you last night,” I said.

  “I was out late,” he said, being vague about what he had been doing, as usual.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  “You’re moving, yeah, I heard,” he said, way too nonchalantly.

  Okay, now I was pissed again. First of all, his whatever attitude was all wrong. Then it was more like he was bored with the news of my moving rather than upset about me leaving.

  Now the first thing I thought was that word was already on the street about my mom and dad breaking up, but then it hit me that I only told Chili and Jalisa and I know my mom didn’t tell anyone else. I needed to seriously talk to my girls about talking my business.