I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots

by Susan Straight

  Calvin came in first. “Hey, I don’t smell nothing! Don’t you got something for two starving travelers? We been wait all this time for real food, Mama.”

  “We too tire for cook,” Marietta said, hugging him. “Just watch that game take all our energy.”

  Nate came around him and Freeman yelled, “Daddy!” He ran with hands wide to catch Nate’s knees. Nate swung him up and said, “You been on my couch? I came to get you, boy!” Freeman screamed into his neck and kicked with joy. Nate’s tongue showed pink in the tiny triangle between his front teeth. “Okay,” he said. “I’ma say sorry for how I been, but you seen them boys I went up against, Mama. You seen how big they was.”

  “You ain’t apologize for me,” Marietta said, angry at his wide, I-told-you eyes. “Go in the bedroom and talk you wife. I ain’t live here with you—don’t sorry for me. Go on.” She stepped forward and took the squealing Freeman, whose laughter turned immediately to cries of anger. “Come on see you crazy uncle,” Marietta said, and Calvin grabbed his waist to fly him around the room.

  “You impatient?” she said to Calvin when Nate had led Carolanne into the bedroom.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Feel like they just take me for maybe, if somebody get hurt.”

  “No. But you can’t hope for somebody go down so you go up.”

  “Yeah, I can. I ain’t suppose to, but I do,” he said, tickling Freeman. “Frazier ain’t go nowhere. He a boulder.”

  “Like Bruce, the one Nate look at for Denver.” She raised her chin.

  “Yeah, Bill Bruce. Nate looking at three hundred pound of NFL.”

  “So you gon do it, too?” she said harshly. “Take them drug?”

  “I always like for lift weight, Mama, I’m cool,” Calvin said defensively. “I ain’t worry bout my size. Just a chance.”

  “Denver only five day from now. How you all be rest by then?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Seem like they say it be hell for four more week, then let up, so we can get through. They gon test me least one time, I figure.”

  Carolanne came out first, her lips hard and small. “Naw—I ain’t finish,” Nate said loudly from the doorway.

  “Yeah, you are,” Carolanne shouted. “You ain’t said nothin new.” Freeman trembled and held Marietta’s knee.

  “How Jeffrey?” Marietta said to Nate, folding her arms.

  “He okay, talkin big smack,” Nate said. “He ain’t have to look at Bill Bruce on Friday.”

  “But we have fe look at you every day, long time,” Marietta said.

  “Hey, I did something y’all don’t like. I got results, right?” Nate said, raising his chin, too. “Come on, Mama. Let’s go over Calvin’s and get this finish.”

  They went next door. Across the cool, glossy table from him, Marietta hesitated. His face was hard. None of this furniture was hers, none of these walls—she wasn’t scolding him in her house.

  “Go head, Mama,” Nate said. “You make we do everything for football—you study the playbook, make we lift, all that. Whatever it take, you always beena tell we—don’t complain.”

  “This ain’t in those limits,” she said, almost without thinking. Baby Poppa—he say that at the hotel all the time.

  “Yeah, it is. Look at them guys we up against, Mama.”

  She considered, staring at his knuckles. “Okay—maybe within the limit for football. For the game. But not for you family. I read bout them player gotta throw chair through the wall and break thing…”

  Nate interrupted her. “You gotta do that to get up for the game—get pumped.”

  “No—you got a baby. You can’t.”

  “I ain’t plan on no baby,” he said. “Somebody else did.”

  “I ain’t plan on you,” she said.

  “You was marry already, you didn’t know we daddy die.”

  Marietta almost bent over the table with the fingers of pain in her heart. She couldn’t tell him. “Why you marry she then?” she said, as hard as she could.

  Nate clenched his hands on the glass. “She so little and she been a talk so much smack, like she didn’t care if I ever look for she again…” he said, and then he stopped.

  Marietta imagined Carolanne watching him, seeing what he would do, what he wanted. Her eyes and smile—her fingers on his arm. Her back when she turned. “What you fe do she never look at you now—she leave and take Freeman? You gon chase she out, crazy from them steroid.”

  Nate let his head fall back against the tall chair Calvin loved. His neck was full and thick, no scars, no lines. “How I gon make it then? I gotta have edge over Bruce and them. I gotta make the cut.”

  “Be lonely you make the cut and lose you family. Lose me, too. Cause that my blood now—you choose for me when you marry she.”

  “What if I can handle it, if I act better?”

  “What if you don’t?” She saw him weighing it.

  “I can’t say what I’ma do later in the season,” he said finally, slowly. “I’ll quit for now. But I gotta keep my power.”

  “And I gotta keep you safe,” she said, standing up. He said nothing when she went back inside ahead of him.

  “Well,” she said to Calvin. “You tell Rock I look for he, go see he uncle sometime and fish.”

  “What you talk bout fish?” Calvin said, studying her face and Nate’s. “That little place?”

  “Fish in that lake probably so full a poison you shouldn’t eat em anyway,” Nate said, laughing, but looking at Carolanne. “Look what they did to Rock.”

  “Come on,” Calvin said. “Me and Nate got another hour. Let’s go get ice cream.”

  Marietta looked long at Carolanne, but she only shook her head slightly and picked up Freeman. “Come on, baby, you daddy treatin,” Carolanne said, narrowing her eyes at Nate. “He buying whatever you want.”

  The Denver game wasn’t televised, so Marietta waited in Calvin’s silent living room for the highlights and score reports between the New Orleans-San Francisco quarters. The Rams were down 7–0, but then Brigham ran seventeen yards for a touchdown, and Rock intercepted a pass to set up another touchdown. That was it, until the sports wrapup late that night.

  All these preseason game quiet, she thought. No big score. She wondered if Calvin had played, and waited for the phone to ring.

  They didn’t call until just before the news, and Nate said, “Bruce smother me. I didn’t even breathe, I didn’t do shit.”

  “Watch you mouth,” she said. “Calvin play?”

  “He did the last seven downs of the last quarter. He did okay. I got killed.”

  She watched the highlights. All the announcer said was “First-round draft pick Nate Cook, who forced a fumble in Cincinnati last week, was silent today. We didn’t hear his name called once, John.”

  “No, Phil, Bill Bruce pretty much took a nap on him today. But Jeff Foster, last year’s big draft choice at nose tackle, really gave Bronco running back Mark Roberts a hard time. Look at this guy slide off center. Wow.”

  “The big story, of course, was the interception…”

  Carolanne took a blood test that day, and she said she would take one more next week, the day before the first home game against the Chargers.

  “Then I have to see the doctor to evaluate the tests. And I can tell Nate a couple of weeks after that, okay? I’ll know the due date and everything.”

  “Would you like to come in with her and listen for the heartbeat?” the nurse asked. She was Marietta’s age, smiling and blonde. “When we had our kids, they didn’t have all this sensitive sound equipment. I bet all your doctor had was a stethoscope.”

  “No,” Marietta said, following Carolanne into the room. She saw Aint Sister’s small hands on her belly, tracing and feeling. “Not even that.”

  Carolanne was silent, watching the woman smear thick gel on her belly; Marietta was amazed at how small the hill was. Maybe it was because Carolanne was lying down. The skin was pale as lemonade.

  An Asian man whose hair shone bl
ueblack in the harsh light of the room walked in quickly. Marietta thought the thick hair was beautiful, straight and glinting when he bent over a clipboard.

  “Carolanne Cook,” he said pleasantly. “I’m Doctor Yee. You’ve had two blood tests, the HCG and the diabetes screening, right?”

  “Yes,” Carolanne said. “Last week and this week.”

  “Ten days apart,” Doctor Yee said. “And from the date of your last period, you estimate that you’re how far along?”

  “Almost five months,” she answered.

  “Is this your mother?” he said, turning abruptly to Marietta.

  “My mother-in-law,” Carolanne said quickly.

  “Well, what do we hear?” Dr. Yee began moving the wand over Carolanne’s skin, pressing hard and looking away at the wall. His eyes were unfocused while he concentrated. The moans and sliding noises coming out of the speaker made Marietta shiver.

  “A faint little beat in there,” he said suddenly, putting down the wand. “But you didn’t hear it, did you, Mrs. Cook?” He looked down at Carolanne.

  “No, I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “Is the machine broken?”

  “How much have you been eating, Carolanne? Have you been overly concerned with your diet during this pregnancy?”

  “Excuse me?” Carolanne’s cheeks turned deeper red under her makeup.

  “How much weight did you gain with your first child?” Dr. Yee sat down on the tiny stool near her.

  “About thirty-five pounds. Thirty-eight. My aunt said that was too much.”

  “Well, Carolanne, your HCG levels in the blood test don’t look good. They’re not going up like they should be, and that means your baby isn’t really developing. HCGs are the measure…”

  Carolanne said, “I know what they are, I’ve read plenty of books.”

  “Well, certainly you’ve read then that trying to limit your weight gain isn’t always best for the baby. We’ve revised earlier recommendations to suggest that women gain up to thirty-five pounds.”

  “My aerobics instructor only gained fourteen. Mariel Hemingway only gained nineteen.” Carolanne tried to sit up.

  “No, no, lie back and relax. Would you jump off a cliff if they did?” He smiled slightly. “I’m not saying anything for sure about the baby’s progress. But I’m very concerned. Of course all body types are different, and you’re very slim. But I want you to eat more this week and relax. I’ll want another blood test next week and we’ll check on this temperamental machine. Don’t panic—just concentrate on the baby. I know it’s difficult. Have your mother-in-law take that toddler off your hands for a time.” He smiled at Marietta. “I’m not trying to scare you, Carolanne, but if things aren’t better next week, we might be in serious trouble.”

  In the car, Marietta stared at Carolanne, horrified. “What you do to that baby? You try for get shed of it?”

  “Please, Mama,” Carolanne said quickly, just like Nate did, and they both stopped, hearing the word. “No. I just need to slow down, like he said.” She held her lips tightly together, trying not to cry, but her eyes were swimming-pink and her chin shook. “I don’t want anything to happen to the baby.”

  “Let me drive,” Marietta said, and Carolanne came around to the passenger side, holding the tears until she sat and closed the door. She looked around the parking lot and said, “Can we just go straight home?”

  Freeman would be at day care for another three hours. Marietta made a glass of iced tea for Carolanne and she said, “Uh-uh, I can’t have caffeine. I keep that in the refrigerator for Calvin. Hand me some 7-Up, please.”

  “You want the TV on?”

  “It’s too early for the soaps.” Carolanne sipped the soda and flipped the pages of a decorating magazine. “Look, did you see this wardrobe? Well, it used to be for clothes, but now you can put your TV and stereo in there, to keep them out of view. Look at the carving on this one.”

  “Carolanne,” Marietta said, sitting in the chair, “what that baby want?”

  Carolanne put the magazine in her lap. “What you mean?”

  “What it want? What you crave?” Marietta clicked her thumb and fingernails together nervously. “You have for feed that baby what it want.”

  She heard Aint Sister telling Rosie, “If he want egg, go on give he egg. Here.” And Tiny Momma saying, “I cain’t even look at no watermelon. People say my mama big with me in summer and ate watermelon all day. I never had no taste for it myself.”

  “They say you don’t give a baby what he want, that what he crave. What you give he too much, he gon hate. What he want?”

  Carolanne looked at her fingernails. “What did Nate and Calvin want?”

  “Fish. Make me feel they want fish. But you see em now.”

  “Yeah, but you lived by the water. Everybody ate fish. That wasn’t too weird.”

  Marietta paused. She saw Nate strutting by the river in Charleston, showing off at Newport Beach. He surprised people by wading out into the surf. And Calvin, fishing down at the river all day with other boys, quiet. Talking to Rock about fishing in Rio Seco. “What Freeman beena want—crunch something?”

  Carolanne smiled. “Cap’n Crunch.” Her lips went back straight. “But I don’t feel nothing this one craves.”

  “You ain’t listen.”

  “You think I don’t do anything right, okay?” Carolanne began to sob. “And you don’t know anything about it.” She buried her face in her hands, those claw nails resting by her hair, climbing up into the fine strands at her forehead, and Marietta thought, Baby ax for blood, don’t give he fingernail polish. Listen.

  She moved quickly to put her arms around Carolanne, but Carolanne didn’t stop trembling. “Listen that baby, listen hard.”

  Carolanne raised her face, the separate colors so close, not blending but patches of cheek, stark rose, eyes too green, and her tipped-red hands pushed into her stomach. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m scared that if I don’t do it right, this whole thing, Nate and the house and everything, if I don’t do what I’m supposed to, I’ll be back where I started.”

  Marietta’s heart jumped at the fear in her voice, real terror—of storms that took houses and boats away, of dogs, of white men in cars racing down the highway. Water seeping into graves, feet pressing muddy rice. She smelled the waxy lipstick near her nose when she pulled Carolanne back, smelled the perfume and sharp hairspray and salty tears.

  Freeman kept clinging to Carolanne that night, refusing to be put down in his crib. Carolanne sat on the couch with him on her chest, watched one half-hour show—the kind Marietta hated, with wooden kitchens crowded with laughing families who were always eating. Then Carolanne got up to take him nodding to the crib, but he screamed again.

  “I can’t hold you all night!” she said. “I got one in here already—I can’t breathe with both of em pushing me!”

  Marietta took him next door, lying on the bed with him draped over her heart. His fingers cupped her chin, pressed reflexively now and then to be sure she was there. When sleep deepened, his hair grew damp and heated under her chin, and she remembered Calvin—the holding, the razor cuts on his arms. This my blood. She stared at the dark walls. This Cook blood—he daddy mess up he own blood with them drug. He mama trying thin she blood out, starve. What I gon do?

  Nothing. Nothing I can do. They grown now—but this one ain’t.

  She could go back to Charleston and take Freeman with her—but what would she do for work? She could have them send money—but another apartment, a house? She couldn’t go back to the hotel to work—the boys wouldn’t let her. She didn’t like doing nothing here. No—in Charleston she wouldn’t be able to see all the Rams’ games, watch the players. She liked Rock and Jeffrey and the others, even if they sometimes frightened her and Jeffrey pressured Nate. But he hadn’t forced Nate to do anything. Nate chose.

  Fish wasn’t curing him. She tucked her chin into the moist hollow of Freeman’s neck. The boys had begun to pull away so soon back
then; they’d pushed her chin out with shrugging, turning shoulders. She missed the heat of a baby’s sleep, the patting, directing hands and cocked heads. My blood—my granbaby. I keep a eye for he now.

  She took him in the car with her in the morning. “Mama rest today,” she told him, and they drove on the freeway to Rio Seco. “Dig duck!” he shouted at the long truck beside them.

  Could Carolanne handle Freeman and Nate and the new baby? Maybe she’d take Freeman for a few months, until they settled down. She passed over the river, thin as a stream of rainwater leaving the yard, and then she drove slowly through the streets until she saw the dark faces again. What you want? she thought, listening to Freeman saying, “Dig duck. Man. Go bye-bye.” She slowed the car to see the geraniums brick-red like the ones growing in tomato cans on Charleston piazzas; cloudy gray-green collards marched on their thick stems in side yards, along fences. And one yard outlined with shells, all along the edges of the grass, large clamshells stuck point down.

  She turned onto Picasso Street and found Red Man, Rock’s uncle, sitting in his yard with two other men. “They gon remember we?” she asked Freeman, pulling to the curb and rolling down the window. “Hello,” she called. “You remember, Nate and Calvin Cook mama?”

  Red Man’s wife, Mary, brought a Pepsi and Marietta sat next to her on the long couch in front of the porch. “Mary, you got any more plums?” the man with the baseball cap said, and she got up and brought a bowl of deep purple plums, nudging each other in their ripeness. “These is the last ones,” she said. “Boys went to that board-up house in the lot to get em. She always did have the best plum tree, except for yours, Lanier.”

  “Mine finish up,” the older man with the big-knuckled hands said. “Hey,” he called to Freeman. “Where you think you going?” Freeman ran away from the parked truck he was headed to and buried his face in Marietta’s lap.

  “He look more like his mama round the face,” Red Man said. “But he got Nate’s forehead.”

  Marietta nodded. “Red Man didn’t lose his manners, cause he never had any,” the man with the cap said. “I’m Roscoe Wiley. I assume you’re Mrs. Cook, the famed Rams’ mother?”