This Side of Providence

by Rachel M. Harper

  “You’re the only person I ever told. At the hospital they thought it was a drug burn and we told the kids it was from the stove. Everybody got a different story.”

  She covers the scar with her hand. “I’m glad you trust me,” she says, squeezing my arm softly. “Enough to tell me the truth.”

  She’s wrong—I don’t trust her. But I don’t trust anybody, including myself. If I trusted her, I would tell her about the flashes I get from my childhood, how I wake up in the night crying but no tears come out. I would tell her how I blame myself for letting the neighbor touch me all those years when I was a little girl, how I wish I told my father or my brothers so I wouldn’t be the only one who has to remember what he took from me. I would tell her I still love my husband, even though I know I’ll never see him again, because sometimes your heart knows things you don’t even understand. I would tell her that sometimes I’m afraid I don’t love my children enough, because if I did, wouldn’t I be able to stay clean for longer than a baseball season? I want to share these things—my dreams and nightmares—just to get them out of my head, but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to be someone I never been.

  Lucho looks at me. “You’re a survivor, Celie. I always knew that about you. Promise me you’ll never forget.”

  I smile at her as my head sinks deeper into the pillow. She’s right—I have survived—but I don’t think surviving is good enough. There has to be something better.

  After she leaves I can’t fall back asleep, even though it’s dark in my room and feels like the middle of the night. I curl onto my side and look into the blackness. All I see are the roses Cristo got me for Valentine’s Day, drying in a glass pitcher on top of my dresser. They shrunk a little, but even in the dark they look beautiful. I grab the pitcher and bring it back to bed with me, holding it between my legs. I pull each rose out, one at a time, and bring it to my nose. I want to smell something sweet while I still can.

  Some are too strong. They smell fake like soap or lotion. Others have no scent at all. The prettiest, most perfect one has a sharp, almost sour smell. The one that’s dried up the most—the ugliest one—smells the best, bright like fresh laundry. I want to put the whole bulb into my mouth, so my own breath can smell that clean.

  I collect all the roses together, holding the dried-out bouquet in my hand. I’m careful not to prick my skin on the thorns. It’s strange to watch a flower die. The petals dry out, thin and weak like tissue paper, but the stem gets hard like a knife. How can one thing die in two different ways?

  I put my face over the flowers and breathe in as much of the scent as I can, holding it until my lungs give out. I know I’ll never smell anything this deeply again.

  SHE SEES the girl washing laundry in the sink. She scrubs an old rug until her knuckles ache. No, it is not a rug. It is her dress. Passed down from her mother. She holds it under the running water, rinsing out a stain as wide as her chest. The water turns pink with her blood. Her nose begins to run. She wipes it on a towel. Now the towel is stained too. There is blood everywhere. He doesn’t mean to hit her. He doesn’t mean to get angry. She packs her bag when she is alone in the house. The baby’s bag, too. Her son is sleeping when she leaves. She holds her hand over his heart. Counts the beats. Kisses him good-bye. She carries her daughter in her bruised arms. She can’t leave her behind. Not like she was left. The only girl in a house of men.

  Luz

  Everything in Miss Valentín’s bathroom is white. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the tub, and the sink. All of it. I don’t usually pay attention to things like that, but in books they’re always using colors to talk about something the author wants you to know without coming straight out and telling you. My teacher calls this symbolism, and she says it’s a sign that the author’s a very smart person. And the reader is, too, if she picks up on it. In the dictionary, white means a lot of good things like pure, innocent, and harmless. I guess that’s why Caucasians started using it for themselves. Another definition is fortunate, which is what I keep thinking about every time I walk in here and see all this endless white, like they covered the whole room in powdered sugar. I figure it’s got to mean something good’s about to happen for Miss Valentín, but maybe for me too since it’s right next to my bedroom and she basically said it was mine.

  Every Saturday I help Miss Valentín do chores. One of my jobs is to clean the bathtub, even though neither one of us ever uses it. It’s so shiny it looks like a polished rock. Miss Valentín says it’s made out of porcelain, which means it’s old and hard like a tooth. She tells me she loves baths, that she used to sit for hours when she was a kid, trying to watch the hair on her legs grow. She used to sleep in the bathtub, too, she says, and dream, and hide. When I ask her why she doesn’t take baths anymore she laughs and says she doesn’t have the time, but sometimes I catch her staring at the tub like it’s a person she hasn’t seen for a while but still mentions every night in her prayers.

  Me, I don’t like taking baths. It’s too boring to sit down for all that time, and too babyish. Instead, I shower twice a week in the small, stand-alone shower in the other bathroom. Or whenever she makes me. The showerhead is so tall, and I’m so short, it’s like the heavens themselves are raining down on me. Sometimes I imagine I’m drowning, but other times I act like a fish and pretend to breathe under water. I don’t really like either one, but at least in the shower I can stand up. I always keep my eyes open, no matter what, and I always lock the door. I trust Miss Valentín as much as I trust anyone, but I trust a locked door even more than that.

  One Saturday while we’re doing chores, I find Miss Valentín kneeling in front of the bathtub. Her eyes are closed and she’s holding onto the side like it’s the only thing keeping her from being laid out on the tiled floor. She’s moving her lips and I hear her say something about God. I try to be completely silent, but I end up making the door creak. Her eyes flip open.

  “Sorry.” I back out of the room, trying to disappear.

  “No,” she says, “it’s okay. I was just praying.”

  I stand in the doorway, a plastic bucket hanging from the bend in my arm. I’m holding a sponge as thick as a book in my hand, wet from cleaning the kitchen floor.

  “Come here.” She motions for me to enter, but I only take a small step toward her. “I used to pray all the time when I was a kid. My parents expected it. But I never knew what to say.” She struggles to stand up, her knees covered with marks from the bath mat. She pulls her skirt down to cover them. “Now I can’t figure out when to stop.”

  “Mami used to say prayers are just a list of what you want.”

  Miss Valentín smiles. “I’m praying to God, not Santa Claus.” She folds a towel that was hanging around her neck like a scarf. “God gives you what you need, Luz, which is not always the same as what you want.”

  I look down at the sponge in my hand. Water drips from it, leaving gray drops as round as quarters on the floor. I bend down to wipe them up, but I only make it worse, turning the spots into large dirty swirls.

  “How do you know the difference,” I ask her, “between a want and a need?” She doesn’t answer right away, she just stands there cracking her knuckles. They pop like gunfire. When I’m done wiping up the swirls, I stand back up.

  “By looking at what you have in your life,” she finally says. “You only get the things you need.”

  I rinse the sponge in the sink, using both my hands to squeeze it dry.

  “Did you need me?” I ask, keeping my back to her. “When I came here to stay with you?” I watch the dirty water run down the drain, leaving a trail of sand and grit in the sink. When I turn the faucet on, the water washes all traces of the dirt away.

  “Yes,” she says. “But I wanted you, too. Maybe not under these circumstances, but I wanted you regardless.”

  “We wanted to be here,” I tell her. “Back in September. We thought you didn’t want us.” I run my fingertips over the sink, just to feel the squeak of something
clean.

  “I always wanted you. You and your brother. But back then I thought you needed something else. I don’t know, maybe I was wrong.”

  When I turn around Miss Valentín’s shaking her head. She looked worried before, when she was praying, but now she just seems sad.

  “It must be hard being a parent. They’re always telling kids it’s okay to make mistakes. But you’re not supposed to be wrong.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she says, “not yet.” She tries to smile. “But you’re right. They say parenting is one of the hardest things to do well.”

  “It’s hard for my mother.” I feel bad saying it, but we both know it’s true. Miss Valentín looks at me for a long time before speaking. “It’s hard for everyone,” she finally says. “For all of us.”

  I turn back to the sink, catching my reflection in the mirror. I can see her, too, high in the corner like she’s floating above me, and from this angle we look like we could be mother and daughter. She looks small in the mirror, and young, like how she must have looked as a child, and I look strangely big, my features distorted from standing so close. In this moment, she is me and I am her, which somehow makes me think that we belong together. That it makes sense for me to be here, to be with her, when my own mother is just a few miles away.

  “Does it work?” I ask her.

  “Does what work?”

  “Praying. Does it make you feel better?”

  She starts to laugh but then realizes I’m not joking.

  “Well, that depends on the day. But yes, usually it does.”

  “Good,” I say. “Maybe I’ll try it.”

  She smiles at me on her way out, closing the door behind her. I stand completely still, staring at the spot in the mirror where she just was. I hear my heart beating in my ears. It’s strange, how people can disappear even when you’re looking right at them.

  I turn around and stare at the bathtub. It’s long and skinny like a casket. Without thinking, I drop to the ground in front of it. The tiles are cold and hard against my knees. I press my palms together like I’ve seen people do on TV and close my eyes. I try to stay like that but my eyes won’t stay shut. They keep popping open, every time I think there’s someone in here looking at me.

  I stand up and turn around, looking from the tub to the toilet and back again. I can either sit on the toilet or lie down in the tub. Those are my two choices. Christ, who knew it was so much work to pray. Even with my prejudice against baths, I end up choosing the tub. I climb into it and sit down with my legs stretched all the way out. It’s empty, cold, and hard, but it’s still more comfortable than kneeling on the floor. The bottom is smooth against my bare feet. I lean back and rest my head on the curved lip. It smells like Ajax, which comforts me enough that I close my eyes and take a deep breath. God, I like when things are clean. My eyes pop open. Does that count as my first prayer? Probably not, since I forgot to put my hands together. And I’m lying in an empty bathtub with all my clothes on.

  I close my eyes again and the first thing I see is my mother. She’s standing over Trini’s crib, laughing. Her hair falls onto her face, covering her eyes and mouth. She disappears. I open my eyes. Check the door. Check my body. Nothing has changed. I close them again and this time my mother is grating yucca at the kitchen table, working so hard she doesn’t see me. I touch her shoulder and she turns to me, says my name like it’s a question. I sit in the chair next to her, but it is not a chair, it is her lap and she holds me like a baby, stroking my hair as I melt into her. God, I miss my mother.

  I suddenly remember that the bathroom door is unlocked. My eyes pop open. It’s okay, a voice tells me. You’re safe here. I close them again and see myself as a child, a little girl in a bubble bath. Someone is washing my hair. I feel the warm water run down my back, chilling me with how good it feels. Cristo is laughing, shooting me with water from a plastic pig. I hear my mother’s voice telling him to stop, protecting me. She wipes the hair from my eyes, kisses my head, smiles at me. I feel her presence, her love, stronger than I ever have. God, I want to feel that again. I wonder if it’s possible, even when I’m not with her. Can I carry her love anywhere I go? Anywhere she goes?

  I open my eyes. The bathroom door is still closed. I am still safe. I lean forward and turn the water on full blast. It comes out bubbling, like soda from a shaken can. I imagine it’s cold like the ocean, but the faucet is so far away I can’t feel it yet. By the time the water creeps up to where my feet rest, it’s hot, and after a few seconds I have to turn on the cold so I won’t get burned.

  I’m wearing a pair of tan shorts with a pink butterfly sewn on the pocket. I would hate to be that butterfly, to have both my wings pinned down. When the water touches my shorts they turn a darker brown, almost the color of my legs. As the water rises, it covers my T-shirt as well, which clings to my belly like tight skin. I slip down into the tub as it continues to fill, floating in the warm, clear light of the water. I am completely covered now, and I swim like a baby in her mother’s belly. My clothes feel heavy, unnecessary, and I slip from them to let my body be free. They sink to the bottom and hover over the drain, abandoned like snakeskin.

  I pull the shower curtain closed. A map of the world spreads out above me, painted on the plastic curtain. Every continent is a different color, the names printed in bold, black letters. I run my hand over the map, touching places I’ve only read about. With a glance, I can go anywhere. Providence is so small it’s not even a dot on the map. And yet here I am. We are all here, even when we can’t be seen. I dip my finger in the water and write my name on every country I see, again and again and again. I place myself all over the world.

  Snowman

  For years I had the same dream, over and over again. A nightmare, really, about Justin drowning. We were swimming in a waveless ocean, somewhere warm and bright where the sun is always shining. Everything was white: the buildings, the clouds, the sand, and me. Only Momma and Justin were dark, like penguins against the snow.

  At first we were all swimming together, but then Momma got out to lie in the sun. I was holding Justin, teaching him how to kick and blow bubbles and paddle his hands like a dog. A wave came from behind me, crashing over us. The salt water burned so I closed my eyes and just as I did I felt Justin slip out of my hands. I opened my eyes to look for him. I scanned the water, but the surface was completely still. He was gone. I dove under the water but it was too dark to see. I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face.

  I yelled for Momma to come quick, that Justin had gone under the water. She stood in the sand, towering like an ancient tree, one that would not grow on the beach and yet somehow did, learning to adapt to the constant wind, the salt, the sea-thick air, and told me to find her son.

  “Bring me my boy,” she yelled from the water’s edge. “I don’t care what you have to do. Bring my boy back to me.”

  I dove under the water again and this time I saw him right away. He was frozen in motion, his eyes wide open like a doll. I picked him up; his body was stiff and cold. His lips were slightly parted like he was talking or about to smile. I stepped from the water to a chill I’d never known. I held him in my arms and walked out of the sea, his body limp and breathless. The sand was cold against my feet, packed hard like snow. I tried to revive him, to bring him back to life, but nothing I did worked.

  By the time I looked up to face Momma, she was gone. She and Justin were both gone, and I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life alone.

  I realize I’m probably making a huge mistake by renting Arcelia the apartment, but I did it for the kid and his sisters. And for her. So that’s how I justify it. She’s sick and I took pity on her. How am I going to say no to a lady that’s dying?

  To convince myself, I try to believe she’s changed. That she can really stay clean. But I’ve seen enough of my neighbors try to straighten out to know it’s close to impossible. Heroin fucks with your brain chemistry, not just your body, and that shit never heals no matter ho
w long you’re clean. It’s like cutting out the piece of your brain that makes you feel good, and then hoping you’re going to be okay without it. When you got a hole like that, you spend all day filling it; by nightfall, if you’re lucky, you’re back up even with the ground. The hardcore junkies don’t even get a high, they’re just using to maintain. Because if they didn’t the hole would grow to the size of the Grand Canyon and they’d feel so sick by the end they would rather just be dead.

  The first few weeks go pretty smoothly. She gets the subsidy and pays first month’s rent and the security deposit, and every time I stop by everything seems okay. She’s by herself most of the time, usually washing dishes or cooking, sometimes writing in this fat spiral notebook she leaves on the kitchen table. She looks more comfortable with a knife than a pen. She seems calm, or actually more like somber, and I take that as a good sign. It must mean she’s still clean.

  When I see Cristo he looks happy. The smile on that kid’s face when I show him his bedroom—when he slides across the clean wood floors in his socks, when he opens the brand-new refrigerator and shows me the ice maker—that makes it all worth it. Even if I regret it later it’s worth those few seconds of joy. For him and me.

  He comes to see me at the pool one day and brings a pair of cutoff jeans to swim in. There’s problem number one: the kid needs a real bathing suit. He says he’s ready to do laps with me, but after a few seconds in the water I can tell he can’t really swim. He keeps himself afloat, but he doesn’t know any strokes except the doggy paddle. Problem number two. I tell him to come back next weekend after my workout and I’ll show him a few things.

  In the meantime, I buy him a pair of goggles and a spandex cap to keep his hair out of his face. And a Speedo so he isn’t dragging all that unnecessary weight through the water. When he’s all suited up I teach him how to move his arms for the crawl and how to breathe on alternating sides. I show him the flutter kick, and I hold his hands in the water as he practices.