Baby Girl

by Bette Lee Crosby

  He once told me Mama had a bitter attitude toward life because of what happened with her sister, Gilda. He said Granny Keller had Mama late in life, so between a sister who was twelve years older and parents who were already up in years Mama was spoiled from the get go. Whatever she asked for she got, and if she didn’t she’d throw a hissy fit. When everybody got weary of listening to her scream and cry, they’d give her what she wanted just to hush her up.

  “Why’d you marry Mama if she was so spoiled?” I asked.

  Daddy gave a sad little smile and said, “Because I fell in love with her. Once you fall in love with somebody you keep loving them, even if they’ve got faults.”

  According to Daddy, Mama was sixteen when Gilda got married and moved to London. Going off and leaving her behind was something Mama never could forgive. She refused to answer Gilda’s letters or even speak her name. Two years later Gilda and her husband were both killed in a car accident, and Mama never got over it.

  “It’s not that she doesn’t want to love you,” Daddy said. “She’s afraid to.”

  I asked how he knew all that stuff, and he said Granny Keller told him the year before she died.

  ~ ~ ~

  With Daddy gone it was just Mama and me, and we didn’t have much to say to one another. After a few weeks of eating dinner in silence, Mama bought a little TV and set it on the kitchen counter. That’s how we ate dinner every night, Mama with her eyes glued to the television and me listening to a Sheryl Crow or Mariah Carey cassette on my Walkman.

  I can’t begin to count the number of times I cried myself to sleep that year. I’d wake up in the morning and get dressed for school with my eyes all red and puffy. It got to the point where even Mama noticed how bad I was looking.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. She suggested maybe I ought to stop in and let Doctor Simpson take a look at me. Not once did she consider that maybe all I needed was a big old hug like Daddy used to give me.

  That year I walked to school by myself every day. Ryan had graduated the previous spring and now had a job working in Mike’s Automotive Shop. He also had a car and a girlfriend, so I seldom saw him. It was as if I’d lost both Daddy and Ryan that same year.

  I tried to get back to some semblance of a normal life, but with Mama it was impossible. In mid-December when every store in town was blinking red and green Christmas lights, I asked if we could have a small tree.

  “Just something to brighten up the house,” I said. “Make it seem less gloomy.”

  Mama looked at me like I’d gone stark raving mad. “Have you no sensitivity? Can’t you see I’m a woman in mourning?”

  Oddly enough Mama seemed to be enjoying her mourning way more than she’d enjoyed life with Daddy. As long as she continued to walk around dabbing at her eyes the neighbors showered her with sympathy, and that was something she reveled in.

  That Christmas I used my babysitting money to buy her a nice new robe. When I gave her the robe, instead of saying how happy she was to have it she said, “How can you think of gifts when my Felix is lying dead in the ground?”

  Mama seemed to have forgotten that her Felix was also my daddy.

  Christmas morning we went to the cemetery together, said a few prayers at his grave, then went home. That afternoon was the same as every other day. We sat across the table from one another eating ham sandwiches, Mama watching the TV and me listening to music on my Walkman.

  After it got dark I went for a walk by myself. Being alone on the dark street was comforting in a way. I could let go of the misery inside of me and didn’t have to explain it to anybody. That night I pretended Daddy was walking alongside of me, telling me to dry my tears and be patient with Mama. I knew it was the kind of thing he’d say if he were still here.

  With school closed until January 3rd, that was the longest and most miserable week of my life. That Thursday I walked down to Ryan’s house thinking maybe we could hang out but Miranda, his girlfriend, was there, and she was hanging on to him like he was the last man on earth.

  He asked if I’d like to go to the movies with them, but I said no. I didn’t want to be a third person tagalong. I wanted to be Miranda.

  ~ ~ ~

  I can’t say if life got better with Mama or I got used to living the way we were, but by the end of the school year we’d stopped looking daggers at each other. Mama eventually gave up her role as the grieving widow and went back to being her old cantankerous self.

  Without Daddy to remind her that I did have some good qualities, she started finding fault with everything. My skirt was too short. My hair was too long. I didn’t sit straight. I had a sassy mouth. Her list was endless. Even when I tried to be pleasant, she’d say I had an attitude that was not becoming of a lady.

  The only person Mama didn’t find fault with was Blanche Carter. Neither of them saw the faults in each other, but once they’d parked themselves at the kitchen table with a full pot of coffee they could tell you everything that was wrong with the rest of the world.

  The day school let out I went down to The Produce Basket and got a job working the cash register. I loved that job. It got me away from Mama and put money in my pocket. I saved most of what I made and added it to the college fund Daddy set up for me.

  On the Fourth of July, The Produce Basket was closed. Mister Barnes said not to bother coming to work because everybody in Back Bay would be picnicking or getting ready to watch the fireworks.

  Needless to say, Mama and I weren’t doing either.

  That afternoon when we were eating lunch at the kitchen table, I asked Mama if we could go to the fireworks together.

  “I’ve got no time for such foolishness,” she said.

  I argued it was just one evening and she’d have a good time, but it was like talking to a stone wall.

  Daddy was the one who loved fireworks. Every Fourth of July he used to take me to the town square. We’d bring a blanket and sit in the grass. He’d buy us two bottles of soda pop; then we’d lean back and watch the sky light up. While the fireworks exploded in bursts of red, white and blue, the high school band played Yankee Doodle Dandy and a bunch of other songs. At the end they’d play God Bless America, and everybody would stand up and sing along.

  Remembering how it was made me miss Daddy more than ever. I squatted on our front steps feeling miserable and watching the sky turn dusky when Ryan pulled up in his convertible with the top down.

  “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

  Missing Daddy and the fireworks had put me in a bad mood, so I gave him a short answer.

  “What’s it look like? I’m sitting here doing nothing.”

  “The fireworks are gonna start in a half hour,” he replied. “You’d better get a move on.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Why not?”

  I was in no mood for beating around the bush. “I don’t have a car, and Mama won’t take me.”

  “If you wanna go, I’ll take you.” He smiled and gave a nod toward the passenger seat. “Come on, hop in.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure Miranda would love to have me tagging along.”

  “Miranda?” He laughed. “We broke up two months ago.”

  “Give me five minutes to put on some lipstick,” I said and dashed into the house. In two minutes flat I had tugged on my new white shorts and pink tank top, brushed some lip-gloss on my mouth and was out the door.

  I still remember that ride to town with the wind blowing through my hair and the smell of Ryan’s after-shave tickling my nose. For the first time since Daddy died I was happy. Truly happy.

  The square was already crowded when we got there. Ryan parked on the far end of town, grabbed a blanket from his car and looped his arm across my shoulder as we tried to find a spot. After walking around the square three times, we finally found a narrow strip of grass between Wilke’s Drugstore and the parking lot. That’s where we spread the blanket.

  When the fireworks started I scooted close to Ryan the same way I used to do wit
h Daddy. He looked down, gave me a sly grin, then wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged me even closer. Before the evening was over, I was flat on my back and Ryan was kissing me just the way I’d always wanted.

  ~ ~ ~

  You can’t love someone with your whole heart and keep parts of yourself from him, so I suppose it was inevitable. But it was different than I’d imagined. I’d always thought one special night we’d go out for an elegant dinner with wine and dancing, then check into a fancy hotel, and there, in a room with brocade draperies and plump pillows, we’d make love.

  Instead it happened on an August night when the daytime temperature had skyrocketed past 102. The air in our stuffy little house was almost too hot to breathe. I was dressed in a pair of skimpy shorts and a camisole with no bra. When Ryan beeped the horn in front of the house, I ran out and jumped in the car.

  Fanning my hand back and forth in front of my face, I said, “Let’s go.”

  He stepped on the gas, and minutes later we were breezing along Cascade Avenue. He drove around for fifteen or twenty minutes; then we stopped at the roadhouse on Route 9 and ordered icy cold mugs of beer.

  Afterward neither of us was in the mood to go back to the sweltering heat of Spruce Street, so he drove to Lookout Point and parked. The night air felt good against my skin, so I reclined my seat and looked up at the stars.

  “I wish we could stay here forever.” I sighed and closed my eyes.

  I expected Ryan to kiss me but didn’t expect he’d already have his shirt off. The feeling of his bare skin against mine aroused a passion that shot through my body like an electric current. One moment we were kissing, and then before I knew what happened he’d slid his hand inside my camisole and climbed astride me. I should have stopped him right then, but it was already too late. I wanted him as much as he wanted me. Perhaps I’d sound less trashy if I said I tried to fight him off, but the truth is I didn’t. I gave myself willingly.

  After that first time there was no more holding back. Night after night we’d go off and make love in the backseat of his car. I told myself what’s done is done, and besides it wasn’t just a physical thing. We were in love. Truly in love.

  We even had plans to get married. I had one more year of high school and then two years at the junior college. So we’d continue to live at home, save our money and get married when I finished college. That was the plan, and at the time it seemed we had all the bases covered.

  On warm summer evenings we’d walk through town arm in arm as if we were already married, sometimes pretending we were the Mister and Missus Carter who lived in the charming six-story condominium building on the corner of Grant Street and Hightstown Boulevard. We’d already decided our first big purchase would be a house, either a cute little cape cod or a condominium in that building on Grant Street.

  This is how the dream went; we’d get settled in our own place and keep right on saving. In another year or two we’d have enough money for Ryan to open his own automotive repair shop.

  Looking back I ask myself if it was ever really my dream or if I was simply swept up in loving Ryan. Of course, it’s impossible to look back and see things as they were because your perspective changes depending on where you stand. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself. Move from one side of a room to the other and see if things don’t look different. What was once big and bulky now seems small, and the tiny thing that warranted no attention has suddenly become the focal point.

  This type of distortion is even more pronounced when you move forward or backward in time. In the blink of an eye time can shrink a span of years down to something that would fit on the head of pin, and you’re left wondering how it happened.

  Although a number of years have passed and there are a million small things I’ve forgotten, the one thing I remember about that year is that it was one of great happiness. I belonged to Ryan, and he belonged to me. Back then I thought I could never wish for anything more.

  Graduation – 1995

  By the time Mama finally broke down and got a Christmas tree, I was a senior in high school. It was the first tree we’d had since Daddy died. For two straight years she’d refused to have one. The first year she claimed it would be a disgrace to Daddy’s memory, and the second year she said it was too much damn work.

  If Mama had her way we wouldn’t have had a tree that year either, but Ryan showed up at the door with a six-foot Frasier fir. Had it been anyone else she would have tossed him and the tree out into the yard, but Ryan was Blanche Carter’s boy and that made all the difference in the world.

  On Christmas Eve Mama roasted a small turkey and invited the Carters to dinner. We ate in the dining room for the first time in years, and she let me play my Johnny Mathis Christmas tape. With the music playing, Ryan cracking jokes and Mama laughing, it was almost like it used to be when Daddy was alive.

  After dinner Ryan and I cleared the table and did the dishes. Then we headed out for the midnight church service. Mama and Blanche Carter stayed behind; they’d already settled at the kitchen table with their mugs of coffee.

  It doesn’t snow much in Virginia, but that night there were flurries. Not enough to stick to the ground but enough to make it feel Christmas-y. I was wearing my new red scarf pulled up around my neck. Ryan and I walked side by side, his arm tight around my waist and our hips brushing against one another every third or fourth step.

  At the Christmas Eve service there was no sermon, just the choir singing songs of praise and a reading from the Bible that told of Jesus’s birth. At the end they dimmed the lights, passed out candles and lit them from one another. When everyone lifted their candles into the air, the lights were turned off. The organ was silenced, and the only thing to be heard was the sweet clear voice of a woman singing Silent Night. After the first two lines, the choir director motioned for us to join in and we did.

  Standing beside Ryan in that candlelit sanctuary, hearing all those voices mixed together in happiness and praise, I felt anything was possible. It was a new world, a world of love and hope and goodness.

  That night Ryan gave me an engagement ring and officially asked me to marry him. We’d already talked about it, but the ring was a surprise. It was a pearl with a tiny diamond on each side. The ring probably cost less than a hundred dollars, but once he slid it on my finger it felt like a five-carat diamond.

  ~ ~ ~

  The following March I filled out an application for Bay River Junior College. They had a good dental technician program, and if I graduated it was almost a guarantee of getting a job for thirty-five thousand or more. Although an essay wasn’t mandatory, I wrote one and included it with my application. My marks were good, not great, but I stood a pretty fair chance of being accepted.

  For almost two years I’d taken the money I made at The Produce Basket and from baby-sitting and added it to the college fund Daddy set up for me. I had almost four thousand dollars. It was all in that savings account with just my name and Daddy’s name on it. Mama wasn’t listed, and that riled her to no end. At least a half-dozen times she’d suggested that with him gone her name ought to be on the account. I’d thought about doing it just to appease her but remembered Daddy saying this was strictly between him and me.

  The acceptance letter arrived in May, two weeks before graduation. When I got home from school it was lying on the hall table. Opened. I read that I’d been accepted and let out a happy whoop.

  It was obvious Mama had already seen the letter, but I was excited and didn’t take time to think. I hurried through the house and found her sitting at the kitchen table the same as always, her fingers wrapped around a half-empty coffee mug and her face puckered up with a look of aggravation.

  That look was nothing out of the ordinary, so I ignored it and shouted, “I made it! I’ve been accepted to Bay River!”

  Without changing her expression one iota, she said, “You’re not going.”

  When a roller coaster crosses over the highest trestle then starts down, there is a moment w
hen it feels like you’ve fallen through the floor; well, that’s what this felt like.

  “Not going?” I said, stunned. “What do you mean not going?”

  “It’s time you got a job and contributed to the upkeep of this house,” she said. “All these years I’ve been—”

  “Mama,” I said sharply, “I plan on getting a job soon as I finish college. A dental technician makes good money and—”

  “There’s not going to be any college. I’m not spending what little bit of money I’ve got—”

  “You don’t have to pay anything. I’ve already got my tuition saved up.”

  She snorted. “Enough for a year maybe; then you’ll have your hand out looking for more.”

  A swell of anger rose in my chest. “I don’t need your money! I’ve got my own money, the money Daddy left me!”

  I guess the thought of Daddy and me sharing something that didn’t include her got stuck in Mama’s craw, because she turned mean as a snake.

  “Okay then, Miss I’ve-got-my-own-money sassy mouth, let me put it to you this way. You either get a job and start paying for your room and board, or you can find yourself another place to live!”

  Pushing back my anger, I tried to answer in a civil tongue.

  “You don’t mean that,” I said. “You know Daddy intended for me to go to college.”

  Mama stuck her nose in the air and turned away.

  “I don’t know anything of the sort,” she said. “That was something you and your daddy never shared with me.”

  Without another word, she emptied the dregs of her coffee down the drain and left the room.

  Mama and I never did get along real well, but I don’t think I ever hated her as much as I did at that moment.

  For the remainder of the day we didn’t speak to each other. I went to my room, slammed the door, then laid on my bed sobbing.

  That night when Ryan came to pick me up, it was obvious I’d been crying. My eyes looked like two big red strawberries.