by Terra Little
“I’m doing the best I can here, baby, okay? You think it’s easy for me, having to be with you like this? Sitting here, waiting for you to come over and then dropping you off when it’s time for you to go home? I hope you don’t, because it kills me a little more each and every time I have to do it.”
“You wouldn’t have to if there was room here for me to live with you.” She pushes her feet into her shoes without bothering to unlace them, and her heels hang over the backs.
“You said you didn’t want to come with me. I asked you and you said you wanted to stay where you were. Was I hallucinating, or didn’t we have that conversation?”
She says nothing as she pushes her arms through her backpack straps and slings it across her shoulders. There is a knock at the door and I assume it is Vicky, come to collect what is hers and no longer mine.
“Are you going to answer that?” I ask after the second round of knocking.
Vicky comes storming into my apartment, looking from me to Beige curiously. “What is going on over here?” Her house slippers slap against the soles of her feet as she walks to the middle of the room and puts herself in between us like a referee.
“Apparently Beige is angry because I have friends and because she doesn’t have a room of her own here and because I don’t have a bigger place, even though she said she didn’t want to live with me.” I blow air through my fist and watch Beige push past Vicky and disappear into the hallway. “I’ve done something wrong. Again.”
Vicky looks out the door. “Beige, you did say you didn’t want to go with Lena when she moved.”
“Well, maybe I changed my mind,” Beige calls from the hallway. “She didn’t ask me if I changed my mind.”
I take one, then two breaths. And then I lose it. “How was I supposed to know you changed your mind, little girl? A few months ago, you didn’t even want me touching you, and now I’m supposed to guess the precise moment you finally decided that I was worth your time?” My voice is loud and the entire scenario is moving into ghetto territory. Vicky covers her face and mumbles something about God helping us, and I roll my eyes. God stopped looking our way years ago.
“Beige,” I shout, “get your narrow ass back in here and look me in my face while you talk your shit. You want to talk like a woman, then be woman enough to face me.”
I give her ten seconds, and when she doesn’t come back inside the apartment, I go out into the hallway after her, with Vicky right on my heels. “Leenie, calm down please,” she whispers, and I swat her away like a fly. “You know how you get.”
That makes me turn on her. “How do I get, Vicky?”
“All I’m saying is—”
“Fuck that. Don’t try to backpedal now. Tell me how I get.”
Somewhere below us, a door closes. Vicky looks around nervously and licks her lips. “Could we go back inside and discuss this rationally?”
“There’s nothing rational about this situation. I mean, I know you’re rational and everything. You think everything to death and you find excuses for why things are the way they are, and that’s fine because that’s just who you are. I have always accepted that about you. But Beige isn’t being rational right now, and we know damn well I’m not, because you know how I get, right?”
Vicky’s hand is shaking when she raises it to smooth the wrinkles from her forehead. She glances at Beige, and then she turns pleading eyes on me. “Leenie. Please. She’s fourteen. She doesn’t know the way you and I know. I think what she’s trying to make you understand is that you were gone for eight years and she missed you. That’s all.”
She wants that to be all. Wants me to grab hold to that simple piece of the puzzle and leave everything else out of the equation. Her eyes beg me to keep my mouth shut and let things be, and I know it is the right thing to do, the best thing for Beige. But I don’t know if I can continue being the sacrificial lamb for everyone else’s peace of mind and at the expense of my own. It is a tiresome job.
“You should tell me what you feel,” I say to Beige. “If you missed me and you want to spend more time with me, then tell me that. If you changed your mind and you want to come and live with me, then tell me that too. But don’t give with one hand and take back with the other. Don’t be selfish with your affection and make me beg and grovel for it, because I won’t. I’ve lost enough already. I won’t give anybody my dignity. Not even you. I worked too damn hard to earn it back.”
Beige gives me attitude, shifts her weight to one side and stares at the wall. “I’m ready to go home now, Mom.”
I feel myself stretching to the point of snapping in two, and can actually see myself snatching her by her collar and shaking her until her teeth rattle. I take a step in her direction. “Which one of us are you talking to, Beige? Me or Vicky?”
“You act like you don’t want to be my mother,” she says, still staring at the wall.
“Everything I’ve ever done in my life that was worth anything, I did because I’m your mother. I got myself in the situation I’m in because I’m your goddamn mother. You think you know so much, but you don’t know shit. You don’t have a fucking clue.”
Vicky touches my arm. “Leenie.”
I shrug her hand off and back away from the cliff. If I jump I will take my daughter with me, and no matter how angry she makes me, I don’t want to do that. I sacrificed myself to protect her from the cliff. “I don’t need this. I can’t deal with this right now.” I catch Vicky’s eyes. “Take her home. She doesn’t want to be here.”
Beige takes off running down the steps, and after she is out of sight, Vicky is in my face.
“She doesn’t know,” she repeats for my ears only. “She doesn’t remember anything, and I don’t know about you, but I hope she never does.”
“And why did I do what I did, Vicky? Was it because I want her to have nightmares every night and piss in the bed until she’s seventeen?” She colors beautifully, ashamed of the memory that belongs to her. “Or did I do it because I want the same things for her that you do? I don’t want her to remember, either. And maybe I want that just a little bit more than you do, since I’m the one who brought her into this fucked-up universe in the first place.”
“Leenie . . .”
“Take her home,” I say and close the door in her face. In a secret place inside myself, I am devastated over the fact that Beige still prefers Vicky over me. Angry that Vicky broke records getting here to save Beige from me. And scared to death that it will always be this way. I’m terrified that, after everything I’ve been through, wanting a fledgling relationship with my child will be what ultimately destroys me completely. Beige has no idea what I would do for her, what I would do to keep her with me, but Vicky does.
Chapter Seventeen
I disturb Aaron’s workflow when I knock on his door a few minutes later. I follow him into his office and see that he is in the middle of putting a column together. His half-dead computer is working overtime, and he has stress wrinkles in his forehead. He sits down at his desk and slips back into his zone.
I curl up in a recliner, pull my gown down over my knees and chew on my thumbnail. Watch him work and steal some of his quiet. Minutes pass and then hours. At ten to one in the morning, he rears back in his chair, hits the save button and scratches his head.
“She’ll call or come by after she calms down.” He slips a blank CD into the drive and looks at me over his shoulder. “This too shall pass, Lena. You’ll see.”
“She’s jealous of the time I spend with you. She thinks I love you more than I do her.”
“It doesn’t work like that, does it?”
“In her mind it does. I almost let loose on her.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t because you know how you get.” We stare at each other for several seconds. Then he cracks a smile and I throw my head back and crack up.
When he’s done working, we do something different. We don’t sleep. At three o’clock in the morning, we leave his apartment and cross the stree
t together. He challenges me to a race, loser buys breakfast, and I forget that I am chasing him around a track that goes round and round in a circle, with no set destination, like a hamster’s wheel.
We run until our clothes are wringing wet and then walk our sweaty asses into the Waffle House and sit at a booth like neither of us leaves foul odor in our wake. He orders enough food to feed three people, most of it animal flesh, and I make do with a waffle and low-fat syrup. Still hungry, I finish my meal off with a bowl of fresh fruit and a glass of orange juice. I prop my elbows on the table and watch him put away more food than I will eat in a week’s time.
“What did you write about this week?” I say as he puts a whole sausage link in his mouth and chews exactly thirty-two times.
“I responded to some reader questions. IRAs versus money market accounts, 401Ks and stock market questions. Stuff like that.” The waitress leaves our bill on the edge of the table and he pushes it closer to my side. I push it back to him and he chuckles. “It’s like that, huh? You’re a sore loser?”
“I didn’t lose. You cheated. You took a shortcut you didn’t think I saw you take.”
“You’ve got eyes in the back of your head?”
“Front, back and both sides.” A memory creeps to the front of my mind and my smile turns into a giggle. “I used to have a cellmate named Yo-Yo who had one lazy eye and one that rolled around to the side of her face. You couldn’t sneak up on her for shit.”
“Yo-Yo?”
“Because she was crazy. Up and down like a yo-yo, you know? Her real name was Yolanda.” I roll her name around on my tongue and taste it, and then I say, “Yolanda Maria Callahan. She was my first friend in prison.”
“Where is she now?”
“Dead. She killed herself and left me to find her body. I wanted to bring her back to life and kill her all over again for leaving me.”
He thinks my words over as he crunches ice. Wipes his mouth with a napkin and follows a waitress around the restaurant with his eyes. “You made other friends . . . after she died?”
“A few. Pigpen and Squirt.” I give him names. “White Girl Julie and Don Juan.”
“Pigpen?”
“Her cell was always a mess.”
“And White Girl Julie?”
“She had skin pigmentation issues. Had more white spots than black, so we gave her that nickname.”
“Do I even need to ask about Don Juan?”
“Probably not.”
“What about you? What was your nickname?”
“Lucky,” I say and hear the pride in my voice. “I was Lucky.”
“Lucky Lena.”
“No, just Lucky. Lena didn’t exist.” I flip the bill over and reach into my sock for the money I stashed there. “Yo-Yo gave me that name because she said I was a lucky charm, and it stuck.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there. Leave it. You’re right, I did cheat a little bit.”
“There is a story, but it’s not mine to tell. It’s Lucky’s. She’s the only one who can tell you about her life in prison. Lena wasn’t there.”
“Where is this Lucky woman? Have I ever met her?”
I look around, over my shoulders and behind my back. Smile at Aaron like there’s still a few feathers hanging out of my mouth. “She was just here. You didn’t see her?”
“You’re playing with me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m trying to tell you that you’re going to have to be a little quicker on the uptake, writer man. If you want to talk to Lucky and get her to tell you her story, then you’re going to have to learn how to tell when she’s looking right at you. Learn what questions to ask and when. She comes and goes and she’s cagey like that.”
“I know another woman who’s kind of cagey too,” Aaron says, narrowing his eyes at me and looking deep in thought. “Her name starts with an L. Can you guess who I’m talking about?”
“Comes from being caged like an animal for so long. Living in a zoo.”
“There are a lot of different animals in the zoo, so help me out here. What are we talking about—lions, tigers, bears? What?”
“I was something like a cross between a wolverine and a lion cub. I had fangs and claws, but I didn’t like to use them unless I had to.”
He tilts his head to one side and lets his eyes land all over my face. “Am I talking to Lucky right now?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out. The first thing you need to know is that you’re dealing with two different people and they need to stay separate. One is past and one is present. Some of the things you might hear . . . they’re pretty rough. Might change the way you think about . . . some people . . . and you need to be prepared for that.”
“Is this the part where I get scared and decide to leave you alone before things get too deep?”
“This is the part where I remind you to be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.”
Beige plays phone pranks, thinking that I don’t know it’s her. She calls and hangs up when I answer. Sometimes she holds the phone and sounds like she is struggling with speaking, and then she hangs up because she does not know what to say. She knows that I don’t have caller ID, and she thinks she is safe from detection. She does not know that I have learned to identify a person’s intent just by listening to the pattern of their breath. It is a survival instinct, the same way that interpreting the sound of an oncoming person’s footfalls is, and her intent is to make me suffer.
A week has passed since she reverted to acting like a toddler and I jumped into the sandbox along with her. We are both being silly, and since I am the adult, I know I should be the one to make the first move toward reconciliation, but I am moving in slow motion. I am punishing her as she punishes me, though she doesn’t know what she is being punished for or why. I can be cruel, but I’m not cruel enough to ever want her to know.
So I punish her by not giving her what she wants, which is for me to be the first to speak and make it easier for her to follow suit. She hurts me by rejecting me, and that is a bitter pill to swallow. Every time she calls, I listen to her breathe anxiety, immaturity and confusion in my ear, and I say nothing for several seconds.
Then I say, “I love you,” and hang up the phone first.
Kenneth Kimmick ushers me into his office and tells me to have a seat. His voice is rough from too many years of cigarette smoke, and he reminds me of a drill sergeant, the way he clips his words off at the ends and makes each one sound like a sharp command. He looks like one of Santa’s helpers on steroids. Short and round, with a long gray beard that stops in the middle of his chest and a smooth dome of a head surrounded by tufts of shaggy salt-and-pepper hair.
I sit in the middle of a worn leather couch and drop my purse on the floor by my feet.
Motorcycle memorabilia is everywhere, covering the walls and littering the surface of his desk with no rhyme or reason. I think I have stepped back in time, right into Hell’s Kitchen.
“Do you still smell it?” he asks out of the blue.
I look away from the clock on the wall and focus on his face. Only forty more minutes to go. “Still smell what?”
“The stink of prison.”
“Prison has a stink?”
“Doesn’t it?”
“How would you know?”
“I don’t know. How would I?” He cracks a smile and pisses me off.
“This is funny to you?”
“No, not this.” He points to the floor between his knees. “Not the situation. You are though. Look at the way you’re sitting right now.” His finger turns on me and makes me look down at what he sees. “You’ve got your arms wrapped around yourself like a python. Like you’re scared something might slip out if you relax.”
“And that’s funny to you?”
“It’s funny in the future,” Kimmick tells me. “The day I remind you of this day and you can sit back and laugh about it with me, it’ll be hilarious then. Tell me something about yourself, Helena. Some
thing you feel safe telling me right now.”
“Nobody calls me Helena, except the woman who gave birth to me. It’s Lena, and how are you so sure I’m going to be here in the future?”
“Will you be?”
Impatience has me throwing my hands up and then slapping them on my knees. I roll my eyes to the heavens and ask somebody to give me strength. “Here we go with the twenty questions again. Is this what it’s going to be like every time I come?”
“Works every time.” Laughter makes his belly jiggle.
“What works?”
He points at me again. “You’re not wrapped up in a cocoon anymore. Maybe now you can tell me a little bit about why you’re here.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be able to figure that out?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
I wrap myself back up and stare at him. I don’t think I am ready for this, and I don’t think he is ready for me. He stares back at me, and then he smiles and says our time is up. I hate him.
Madame Sula’s real name is Thelma, and she tells me that her family is from the Louisiana Bayou. The sight, she says, swung from limb to limb on her family tree and hopped on her back quite by surprise. It came up in time from before the cotton fields, landed on her grandmother’s head, skipped her mama’s head and then was gifted to her. She has two sisters and a brother, but she is the only one who can see beyond what is in front of her face.
She remembers looking into people’s souls as early as age six, and she says she scared the shit out of more than a few of her school teachers over the years. She knew the church pastor was fucking the choir director, who was a man, way before his wife stopped by the church one sunny afternoon and caught him in the act. She knew her father was keeping a second family three towns over, long before her mother loaded a shotgun and went to see for herself late one night. And she says she has always been able to speak with the dead. As an afterthought, she adds, in case I care, that she didn’t start charging people money to look into their souls until she was over the age of eighteen.
