by Gina Holmes
By drink, I knew he meant booze, but of course Sheckle Baptist was not about to hand out whiskey chasers along with instant mashed potatoes. “No, but I got you cigarettes.”
His face relaxed as I led him by the arm to the kitchen and planted him near the fridge. He patted the wall, then leaned against it. I walked over to my purse. My heart pounded away as I retrieved Callie Mae’s Salems.
I gathered up his hand from his side and set the pack in his palm.
He squeezed along the top of the pack, stopping to feel the exposed filters, and made a face. “You smoke a few?”
I went back to putting groceries away, keeping a watchful eye on him from my periphery. “No, of course not. They gave them to me for free since the pack had been opened.”
You would have sworn he could see me by the daggers he shot my way. “What are you talking about?”
I set a can of store-brand tuna in the cabinet, trying to sound casual. “We didn’t have enough money at the register and I was going to put back the—” I hesitated as I looked in the grocery bag— “bag of rice, but the check-out lady pulled out a pack of Salems from under the register and said she couldn’t sell them, but I could have them if I wanted.”
“Salems are menthol,” Trent said, his face all twisted in confusion.
“I know, but they were free.”
He had the weirdest look on his face as he felt his way to the kitchen table and sat down. “You mind grabbing my lighter? I left it in the bedroom next to the ashtray.”
“Sure, baby,” I said, relieved he’d bought my story and didn’t seem mad. I went to the bedroom and found a bunch of cigarette butts smoked down to the filter lying in and around the dirty ashtray. It turned out he hadn’t been lying after all, and I was doubly relieved for that.
I brought him his lighter and figured now was as good a time as any to tell him about you. “Maybe you should smoke that on the porch.”
He tapped a cigarette out of the pack, slid it between his lips, and spoke around it. “Just light the thing, One Cent. It’s my house. I’ll smoke where I like.”
I held out the lighter but stopped short of running my thumb over the steel roller to ignite it. “Secondhand smoke’s bad for the baby.”
“What baby?”
I set a hand on his cheek. “I’m pregnant.” It felt so good to tell him and so scary at the same time.
The cigarette dropped from his mouth.
I sat down at the table beside him. “Say something.”
“Are you sure?” he choked out.
“We can’t afford to go to the doctor to get a second opinion, but the pregnancy test says yes, and so does my body. Yeah, I’m sure.”
When he grinned at me, I let myself breathe. “Are you serious? We’re having a baby?”
I laughed. “Yes, a baby. A baby!”
His hands were shaking when he picked the cigarette off his lap and put it back in his mouth. “You need to light it now, Penny. I’ll start smoking outside after this. Promise.”
I lit his cigarette and watched him wince at the taste he wasn’t accustomed to. He took another drag. “Well, don’t this beat all.” His smile suddenly faded, and I knew it hit him then that he was blind and we were broke.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said, “but it’s going to be okay. Don’t worry.”
He exhaled a plume of white. “I can’t even support us. How am I going to—”
I turned my head to keep from breathing in the smoke. “God will provide.”
“Like he provided that pipe full of gasoline that left me blind? No offense, but I think we might need a plan B.”
There was no arguing God with that man. He didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t control.
“I was offered a job cleaning houses today.”
Before I even got all the words out, he was shaking his head.
“Now don’t start. I’m not going to stand by and let my husband and baby die because of your pride.”
One hand held the cigarette, the other balled into a fist and pounded the table, sending vibrations through me. I pushed my chair back, fixing to get away from him, but the look on his face told me I wasn’t in danger of anything but feeling sorry for him. This time when he cried, he hid his face from me.
“I hate being blind,” he finally said as he swiped the heels of his hands across his eyes.
“I hate it for you,” I said, but it was just another lie. I was beginning to see what he could not—his blindness was turning out to be the best thing that had ever happened to us.
EIGHT
I DON’T KNOW if it was all in my head, but it seemed like the minute I found out I was pregnant, the nausea started. Wanting to make a good impression on my first day of my first-ever job, I woke up early, intending to make up my face and put a few curls in my hair, but I spent most of the hour leaning over the toilet.
Every time I retched, your father gagged in response. “Dagnabbit, Penny,” he yelled from the living room, “keep it up and you’re going to make me puke too.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” I called back as I cupped my hand and filled it with water from the faucet. It tasted so sweet compared to the bile I rinsed away. After a couple of swish-and-spits, I grabbed my toothbrush from the holder, wet it, and dipped it into the baking soda we were brushing our teeth with.
I don’t know if it was that paste or the bristles against my tongue that got my stomach trying to turn itself inside out again, but somehow I managed to keep myself from starting the heave cycle all over.
I left your father sitting at the kitchen table looking miserable. He wouldn’t even acknowledge my good-bye, but I was too excited to care. I had a job, Manny! That might not seem like such a joyous thing to most, but to me, it meant release from a very long sentence of house arrest.
Twenty minutes and two wrong turns later, I’d finally found my way to the address Callie Mae had given me and pulled up in front of a large stone home on a Mercedes-lined cul-de-sac. When I rang the doorbell, the door flew open and Fatimah Wek, the Sudanese woman Callie Mae had put in charge of training me, waved me in.
“You are late,” she said, adding an annoyed tongue click for good measure. Although she wore her hair cut tight around her head like a boy’s, there was nothing else boyish about her. She had the most magnificent features, strong but feminine. With her long face, wide brown eyes, and the highest cheekbones I’d ever seen, she looked like an African princess.
“You stare at me.” She set her caddy of cleaning supplies by her feet. “I am dark. You never see a woman so dark. True?”
I opened my mouth to say that wasn’t true, but it was.
“My husband is not so dark. My family were not so dark. I am blackest in my family, even my village. Even the refuge camp.”
“Your skin’s beautiful,” I managed through my embarrassment.
She looked down at the ground. “Beauty is inside.” She glanced at me. “What of you? Are you beautiful?”
I blushed, but said nothing.
She pulled two sponges out of the caddy and handed me one. “You clean counters, sink. I sweep and mop floor.” She studied me to make sure I understood.
“Why do you get the good jobs?” I asked with a wink in my voice. It felt good to joke. I learned early on with Trent that ribbing, taken the wrong way, could have painful consequences, but something about Fatimah made me feel safe.
“I give you the good job!” She looked really put out by my teasing, until she registered my smile. Deep and full, her laugh was so contagious, I couldn’t help but laugh too.
“You play with me. Good. I like to play too.”
When I lifted an empty wine bottle from the counter, she grabbed my hand. “We do not take up mess. We clean, but we do not tidy. Truth.”
I was confused. “Picking up trash is part of cleaning.”
She let go of me and shook her head. “No, they take up. We clean. You take that up today, tomorrow we must only take up more.”
Although I’m sure she didn’t intend it, her words held a double meaning I still remind myself of to this day.
She eyed the room, sizing it up. “We have only two hour to clean this giant house.”
I followed her gaze. Oak cabinets stopped about ten feet short of cathedral ceilings. White leather stools sat in front of an enormous, brushed-steel island. The floor was a larger version of the turquoise counter tiles. My entire house could fit inside this kitchen. I wondered what profession paid enough to afford a home like this.
Side by side, Fatimah and I worked, scrubbing floors and toilets, counters, and appliances. Before I knew it, we were done and she was packing up our supplies for the next job.
She insisted we ride together to the next house to save on gas, and in my financial situation, I wasn’t about to argue. I sat beside her in her old Chrysler LeBaron, trying to name the spice the car reeked of. The fabric roof was held up with pushpins every inch or so, giving it a coffin-liner appearance. The console on my side was torn, offering a clear view of the yellow foam under the hard plastic. As she drove, she threw me a glance. “I make purchase of this car for two hundred dollar.”
Not knowing what to say, I nodded.
She thrust two fingers at me. “Two hundred dollar. Imagine!”
I wasn’t sure if she thought that was expensive or cheap. So I went with a generic, “Wow.”
“Two hundred dollar would feed my village.” The look she gave me told me I should find the humor in that, but I didn’t get it. “I almost forget.” She leaned over, opened the glove box, pulled out a rectangular piece of paper, and handed it to me. “Callie says it is advance. You will get the other portion in two weeks.”
I looked down at the check made out to me and almost cried in relief. This was half of what she’d promised to pay bimonthly. It touched me that she trusted I wouldn’t just take the money and run. It was a good reminder that not everyone was as cynical as Trent.
I folded the check, slipped it into my back pocket, and picked at the hole in the knee of my jeans. “Was it hard living there—at the refugee camp, I mean?”
She sighed. “I make many friends who became my family, but I still missed my own. My sisters and brother. They are mostly gone except my father, who I am dead to, and only one sister. She is married to . . .” Her shoulders shimmied and her lips puckered like she tasted something bitter. I took it she wasn’t a fan of her brother-in-law. “I tried to buy her here, but I won’t buy for him, too. He is one of the men who . . .” She couldn’t finish, and by the haunted look in her eyes, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to.
She jerked the steering wheel hard and fast as if remembering her turn a second too late. I slapped my palm against the door just in time to prevent the side of my head from hitting the window. We nearly took out a buzzard pecking at roadkill as we screeched around the bend. The bird shrieked, stretched out its enormous wings, and flew away from the flattened fur in the nick of time. My stomach, which had settled since that morning, started to roil again. I took a deep breath and focused on the road ahead.
A wave of warmth rushed through me and I pulled at my shirt collar. Hot air streamed from the dashboard vents. I rolled down my window and let the spring air hit my face. “You don’t like your sister’s husband.”
“Yes, I do. I like him very much—in a pot of stew.” This got her laughing. “With potatoes and carrots,” she added.
For all I knew about the world back then, they really might have been cannibals in Sudan. She must have seen the uncertainty on my face because she pulled in front of a house half the size of the first, shut off the engine, and bared her teeth. “I eat you, too!” When she chomped in my direction, I jumped in my seat.
This got her to laughing again. “We eat cows and vegetables, not white people. Do not worry.”
“What about squirrel?” I asked.
“A squirrel is a rat. So, yes, I would eat one.”
We both chuckled at that one, though I still didn’t understand her humor enough to know if she did eat squirrel and rat, or didn’t. It didn’t much matter to me what she ate, where she was from, or how she mispronounced my name, I liked her. Staring at her beautiful profile, I smiled. Callie Mae was exactly right.
I sighed in contentment. Now I have two friends, I thought with a lightness in my heart. Two friends, a husband who hasn’t hit me in weeks, a job, a little money, and a baby on the way. Just when I thought my life would never be anything but misery, everything had changed.
NINE
CALLIE MAE met Fatimah and me at Mountain Man Deli for what she called a working lunch. I hadn’t been out to eat in eight years, and that was only if you counted the fast-food lunches your father would occasionally treat me to in our early days. Callie Mae insisted the meal was on her, and it’s not like Trent would even know, since it was during the workday. But still I couldn’t shake the feeling I was doing something wrong by being there.
The place was noisy with chatter, clanging silverware, and plates slapped down by rushed servers. It smelled of baking bread, dill, and raw onion, which didn’t help my morning sickness in the least. It was odd to feel both ravenously hungry and sick to my stomach all at the same time, but I refused to complain. For you, Manny, I would have lived my whole life leaning over the toilet. You were worth every saltine and ginger ale I had to choke down.
I was so anxious to share the good news about you with my new friends, but afraid at the same time it might cost me the job Trent and I so desperately needed. Callie Mae seemed to be in a good mood, but your father had taught me well that a smile could change on a dime, so I decided to wait and feel her out.
Callie Mae wore her thin, blonde hair pulled up in a clip, making her seem ten years younger than I would have guessed at the food bank. Her fine features made her look as delicate as a china doll, but I would soon discover the woman was anything but fragile.
The waiter set down our sandwiches and asked if we needed anything else. Callie Mae wanted a refill on her iced tea and Fatimah asked for extra napkins. I eyed the brown mustard on the booth behind us, but as usual, said nothing.
Callie Mae must have seen me looking because she scooted out, grabbed the bottle, and set it in front of me, then retook her seat. It was such a simple act, but it made me feel like such a loser that she found it easy to take what she wanted when I couldn’t. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself I didn’t hear Fatimah speaking to me.
“Peeny, where are you?” she asked.
Jolted out of my thoughts, I was surprised to find both women staring at me expectantly. “What?” I asked, confused.
A group of businessmen passed by us, and when I looked up at them, the oldest winked at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. Without responding, I turned back to my lunch dates.
“I’ll get this one,” Callie Mae said. “You get the next.”
I thought she meant the check. When she grabbed my hand in one of hers, and Fatimah’s in the other, I was relieved to find she was talking about the one thing I could actually afford—grace.
“Lord, thank you for bringing these beautiful ladies into my life. Bless this food to our bodies and this fellowship to our souls.”
Her prayer made me want to cry. As far as I knew, no one had ever thanked God for me before. After we added our amens to hers, Callie Mae picked the top bun off her turkey sandwich and scraped off the hot peppers with a butter knife. She let them plop to a slimy mess on her plate beside her potato chips.
My stomach roiled. “Why did you ask for them if you’re just going to take them off?”
She gave me a librarian stare. “You sound like my late husband. For your information, I like a hint of peppers in my mayonnaise. Is that all right with you?”
“I . . . no . . . it’s okay. I was just curious.” Great, I thought, I’ve offended her already. Eating at me was the same feeling as when I’d earned Trent’s disapproval.
The way Callie Mae squinted at me made me feel exposed. I turned away, but still
managed to see her and Fatimah share a private look. Trying to deflect the weakness they had just discovered in me, I threw out a joke. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you there are starving children in Af—” My eyes must have become the size of plates when I realized what I was about to say. I jerked my head toward Fatimah, who sat beside me. Unaware, she ate potato chips as she watched a baby throw his sippy cup onto the floor.
Callie Mae touched my arm, making me jump. “Penny, it’s okay. Calm down. You’re with friends.” The way she looked at me with that sweet expression touched me to my soul, and I knew she was right. I was with friends. I was safe. Still, my face was hot with embarrassment. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
With a raised hand, she summoned our waiter back to the table. “Excuse me, young man, do you think you could find me an envelope?”
He gave her a tired look, but left and returned a few minutes later with one of the long, check-holding kind. “Will this do?”
“You don’t happen to have one that’s insulated with dry ice, do you?”
He slowly shook his head with a weary expression. “Sorry, all out. Anything else?”
“That’s it. Thank you very much,” Callie Mae said.
He set the envelope down on the edge of the table. When he left, she picked the peppers off her plate and dropped them, mayonnaise and all, into that envelope. The liquid bled right through, making an oil stain on the front. She peeled back the flap, gave it a lick, and sealed it up. “Fatimah, what’s the address for Africa?”
Fatimah turned around, looked at the envelope, then at Callie Mae. “For the last time, woman, we do not want your scraps.” A crumb of potato chip clung to the corner of her mouth, moving up and down as she spoke until she brushed it away.
I sat, stunned, looking back and forth between the two of them.
Fatimah took a sip from her drink, then looked at me. “She tells me mothers here tell their children to finish everything on their plate because there are starving children in Africa. There are hungry children here too, true?”
