by Nicole Seitz
“I cain’t tell you. It’s a secret, silly.”
She furrowed her eyebrows and said, “No fair. Tell me.”
I was so happy I thought I might truly explode. I was special, somebody really special! Poppy had said so.
“I’m special,” I said after carefully considering my words.
“Uh-huh,” said Rainey. She grinned. “Me too.”
“Yeah, but I’m a different kind of special.” I leaned up in her ear and said, “I’m an angel.”
Rainey glowed and said, “I gonna be the angel too!”
“No, Rainey. Maybe someday you will, but I’m already an angel.” Dejected, Rainey put her hairbrush down and plopped down on the toilet seat. “Yeah. You got the wings,” she said.
“No, I don’t think so, but I’m an angel anyway.”
“Yuh-huh, you do. Look.” Rainey pointed to my back, and I froze. Slowly, I turned to face the wall. I swiveled my head around until I could see in the mirror.
“I don’t see any wings, silly.”
“Right there.” Rainey stood up and lifted the back of my shirt. “See?”
There, in between my shoulder blades, were two beautiful golden wings, folded just so. I could not believe my eyes.
“Oh my goodness. You see that? I have wings! I really have wings!”
“Yeah, duh. Everybody know it.”
“But how long have I had them? Did they grow overnight?”
Rainey smiled a sly smile and said, “No, silly. You got wings since you the baby.”
Then she lifted up her own shirt and struggled to see her back. Rainey mumbled, “I never get wings,” and she left the bathroom to go find Mama and tell her it was time for work.
Chapter Fifty-eight
THE LONG ROAD BACK TO CYPRESSWOOD
The sky was dotted with dark clouds shaped like an army of mice as we left Forest Pines. I watched them, counting thirteen as our Police Interceptor exited the grocery store parking lot and turned right. Rainey was safely inside. Instead of bagging, they’d moved her to stacking products, cans, and occasionally produce until her arm had fully healed. Rainey was happy with this change in duties. It proved to her and everybody else she could do even more.
I sat in the front seat beside Mama. I had watched her walk right over the baby words on the sidewalk that Rainey had scribbled. She barely gave them a second glance. Nothing and no one would distract her from what she was setting out to do.
The wind was beginning to pick up and shake the car in gusts. Mama held the wheel a little tighter when that happened. She turned on no music. She barely seemed to breathe. She wore no makeup and had pulled her hair into a clean ponytail behind her neck. She was wearing a blue blouse and a loose skirt disguising her figure. She could have been any woman at all.
“I’m right here, Mama.” I put my hand out and touched her arm. It was cold beneath my fingertips. But it was Mama’s arm, and I didn’t mind. It had always felt the very same way. I was alone in my world, and Mama in hers. It was like those scenes in the movies where the person is being interrogated, and on the other side of the window, people are looking in. I was looking in on Mama’s world. She had no idea there were two sides to her mirror.
Just weeks ago, I was so ignorant about my life or lack of it. I remembered driving this same road, but the other way, as a family—Mama, Rainey, Grandma Mona, Poppy, and me. It was the last trip we’d ever take together. I wished I’d known it at the time. I would have appreciated it more, paid attention better. Tears sprang to my eyes when I remembered sitting next to Poppy in the backseat, holding his hand. I thought we were going on an adventure. I was secure in my place in the family, with the people I loved. And now it had all changed. Everything had changed.
Mama breathed in deep and let it out slow. She did this a few more times but never said a word the whole way to Cypresswood.
“Mama, please don’t do this,” I said as we were pulling into the driveway of Alisha’s house. “You can raise this baby. It’s not that hard. You did it with Rainey, and you have a nice house now. And did you know you’re having another girl?” I touched her shoulder. “I was thinking, Mama. This could be the last Macy there ever is. The baby in your tummy might be the very last one to carry the Macy family name. You can’t get rid of her. You just can’t! She’s a person, like me. Like you. A person!”
Alisha ran to us with a newspaper over her head. She was wearing shorts, and the tops of her legs dimpled and jiggled as she moved. It had begun to rain, and the sound of water on the car roof pummeled my ears. Sounded like my nervous heart.
“Hey, I’ve missed you,” said Alisha.
Mama tried to smile but couldn’t. “You too,” she said.
“You want me to drive?” Alisha asked.
“No. I’m fine.”
After Alisha had buckled in and enlightened us on all the gossip and trash and complaints about the pancake house, we drove in silence. I had climbed over the seat to the back and was sitting in between, my elbows propped on the console. I didn’t like Alisha much. She’d always been no good for Mama, and here she was, helping her make the second biggest mistake of her life. She didn’t care about Mama. She didn’t care that Mama would regret this decision too, that she’d have to live with it for the rest of her life. She didn’t care that Mama suffered deep inside about me and that she was so hardened she couldn’t even feel anymore. Alisha didn’t care about any of that. A true friend might have suggested these things, but no.
“My cousin James lives in Forest Pines,” said Alisha. “Works at the K & W as a manager. You remember meeting him at that party I had a few years back? I’m sure you met him, but you were living with Harlan still. Anyway, he’s single. Just got divorced. He remembered you and thought you were pretty hot. Maybe after you get today out of the way, I can set you two up.”
“I don’t—”
“Mama doesn’t want to date your cousin, Alisha. She’s in love with my daddy!”
“You don’t have to say yes today,” said Alisha. “I just thought it might give you something to look forward to. James is a hoot. Not bad looking either.”
“Thanks,” said Mama. I wished I could kick Alisha right out of the car. I leaned over in her ear, and as loud as I could I yelled, “I don’t like you!!! BOOOOO!
”Alisha jerked and looked over her shoulder, then back at the road. She stayed quiet after that. We all did, with jangled nerves. All the way to the clinic in Fervor.
To the naked eye of a regular person, I imagined the building looked like any other, white concrete, windows with bars, a sign with a staff and two snakes coiled around it, sad-looking women entering the door, sometimes alone, other times with a man or woman beside them. Some girls were young, real young. They clutched teddy bears and baby dolls as they ducked in from the rain.
But to my eyes, the place looked very different. For every girl or woman who entered there was another person, a spirit who entered right along with them. Some spirits were yelling, others were crying, and still, others begged and pleaded to no avail. We sat there in the car with the windshield wipers flipping back and forth. There was a leaf stuck under the wiper, so every pass made a grating sound. After a while, an angel spirit would leave the building with a bundle in his or her arms, and walk in the rain along the sidewalk until out of sight. The girls with teddy bears would come out in the arms of a mother or father or boyfriend later, crying or glassy-eyed. Doomed and shocked with what they’d done.
Mama watched. She shuddered. Her lip trembled. She felt her stomach and smoothed her hair back. I observed the steady stream of baby bundles floating down the street and saw the hopelessness of it all. Mama couldn’t see them. How would I ever be able to accomplish what no one else seemed able to do?
“What time’s your appointment?” asked Alisha.
“Right now. Three,” said Mama.
“It’s three after.”
“I know it.”
Swish, swish, the wipers went back and forth. The r
ain turned the road gray, the air gray, the building gray.
“It’s raining,” said Mama.
“Sure is. We better get out and go on in before it gets any worse.” “Mama. It’s raining,” I said. “Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for? To settle down? It’s a sign, Mama. You’re supposed to keep this baby. Don’t go inside. Don’t—”
But Mama was opening the car door and stepping out into the rain.
The door slammed closed and I pressed my hands and face to the window. “No, Mama, no!” But she couldn’t hear me. I banged on the glass. Some spirits turned and looked at me, but not Mama, not Alisha. So I did the only thing I could think of. I flipped the switch in our Police Interceptor, and the siren and flashers went off. Mama stopped and cringed. She darted for the car door. Women in the clinic came to the windows to see who was guilty of a crime.
Chapter Fifty-nine
FERVOR
“I don’t think I can do this,” said Mama. She sat behind the wheel, breathless after turning the siren off. The tears were beginning to flow. Alisha stood outside her window, thunderstruck. The rain was turning her newspaper soggy.
“What in the world happened?” she asked. “Has it ever done that before?”
“No,” said Mama. “Not on its own.”
“Car’s getting old, Priscilla. Real old. Now that you don’t have to pay rent, you’ll be able to buy a new car. Get rid of this old heap. I got another cousin in Columbia might be willing to take it off your hands.”
“Alisha,” said Mama, “be quiet. Please.”
Mama’s eyes were shut. She was gripping the wheel.
“Listen.” Alisha stooped down and put her hand on Mama’s leg, like she was helping. Like she cared. “You’re pregnant, you’re hormonal, I know how it is. In an hour, this’ll all be over. You’ll get back to Forest Pines, pick up Rainey, get on with your life. I know you’re scared. The second time’s always harder than the first ’cause you know what’s coming, right? Like getting a shot or something? But you’re having the anesthesia. It won’t be that bad. You do have enough money for anesthesia, right? If not, I can spot you.”
Mama nodded, eyes still closed.
“Good. Well, let’s get on in, then. I gotta be at work at quarter to six.”
Mama was stone-faced at the check-in window, and filling out her paperwork, and in the counselor’s room. She answered every question with yes or no. I held her hand and whispered in her ear. “I love you, Mama. Don’t do this, please.”
“Good luck,” said a sad old woman to me. She was walking a little bundle out the front door and sniffling all the way.
I closed my eyes and prayed that God would give me the strength to do this. I prayed He would tell me the exact right moment to tell Mama my name. I hadn’t heard anything from him yet, and we were getting closer, too close. Alisha sat in the waiting room, reading a magazine as if the world were not about to end. But I knew.
I looked around at all the waiting people. It was a quiet place, no chitchatting, no laughing. Solemn faces waiting their turns. I felt sick to my stomach. My mother was not a bad person. She wasn’t! How could she do something like this? How could she think it was all right to do?
A woman holding a clipboard came to the door of the waiting room and said flatly, “Priscilla?”
Mama looked up. She turned to Alisha, who smiled at her. I grabbed Mama’s hand and said, “Please, Mama, don’t go!” I tugged on her, but she didn’t budge my way. Instead, she walked like a robot with the woman holding the clipboard. She led her to a room on the left and told her to take her clothes off and to put on a little gown sitting on the table.
It was then I looked up and saw the window. It was near the ceiling tiles. It had wrought iron bars on it with a heart in the middle. As if love was in this room. There was no love in this room, except the love I had for my mama.
“Mama! I remember that window. I remember it! I was born here, wasn’t I? I died here in this very room! Oh, Mama, you can’t do this again. You just can’t!”
Mama paid me no attention. She undressed and slipped into her gown. She sat up on the table and slowly looked at everything, the tools, the stirrups, the window behind her. She saw the light coming in through the little heart in the wrought iron bars. A tear came down her cheek. “Oh, forgive me, please forgive me.”
She shut her eyes hard and held her breath.
“Mama, you have a real, live baby in your tummy. She’s a Macy, Mama. She’s my sister. Please don’t do this. You can’t do this again. I won’t let you!” There was an Us magazine on the counter, and I pushed it off. It flapped to the floor and Mama opened her eyes. She licked her lips and looked around her, the same way she’d done when I threw the picture of Poppy in the attic.
“Oh my goodness, oh boy,” she said over and over and over, arms folded tight in front of her. She was rocking forward and back.
The door began to open. The nurse was coming back in, holding a tray. “Hi, Miss Macy. We doing all right?” She was real happy and chipper this time, like she might be driving an ice cream truck.
Mama just sat there, frozen.
“Good,” said the nurse. “Now, we’re gonna get you all comfortable and feeling good, okay? Get you nice and relaxed.”
I saw the shot on the little tray. Mama eyed it too. That’s when I heard-felt something in my soul.
Heaven is forever, Lilly. Your mama needs you now.
I knew it was time.
“Mama,” I said, “in this very room, you took my life away eight-and- a-half years ago. But I am real, Mama. I’m a real child. You took my life, and I cain’t let you do it again. I just cain’t. My name is Lilly Gray Macy, Mama. Lilly Gray Macy! And I forgive you! From the bottom of my heart I forgive you for what you did to me.”
Mama pulled her chin up and almost looked in my eyes. I was standing in front of her, touching her knees. “I’m Lilly Gray Macy, Mama. Your real, live child!” I said again, praying she would hear me. Mama’s lips moved. Then she said in a quiet whisper. “Lilly Gray.” “Hmm?” asked the nurse, standing at the counter. She held a shot in her right hand.
“My child’s name is Lilly Gray Macy,” said Mama, stunned. She looked as if she’d just woken up and realized where she was. She turned and stared at the print of Meadow with Poppies by Gustav Klimt hanging on the wall. It was meant, I supposed, to make the place less scary, more flowerdy and happy, as if people didn’t die in this room. But I saw it as a sign from God, that Poppy was in heaven and watching over us, watching over Mama.
“That’s a pretty name, Miss Macy,” said the nurse. “Real pretty. Now this won’t hurt at all. But I’ll need you to be still for me.”
“No,” said Mama, crying now. “I can’t do this.” She slipped off the table, the paper crinkling underneath her.
“Go, Mama, get out of here!” I screamed.
“Oh sugar, I know you’re nervous, but this’ll do the trick.” The nurse moved toward her and touched her on the shoulder. “In just a minute all those jitters will be gone. Now, come have a seat for me.”
“No, you don’t understand!” said Mama, tears streaming down her face. “I’m not doing this! I’m not going through with it.”
The woman stopped and looked at her. She seemed annoyed with this turn of events, as if it was mucking up her schedule. “Let me go get the counselor for you, just wait right here.”
“I don’t need the counselor! I’ve made up my mind.” Mama grabbed her clothes off the chair and started pulling them on.
“Becky,” the nurse called out the door, “we need some help here.” Mama slipped on her shoes and grabbed her big brown leather purse and left the gown on the floor in a heap. I took her hand and we hurried past the nurse, but we were stopped by a woman and a man. One was smiling, the other was not. They took Mama’s arms and told her to calm down, it would be all right, and before we entered the hallway, I turned and looked at the room one last time. At the place where my life both ended and beg
an. At the window with the heart in it, where barely any light from heaven comes in. And I said a prayer for the next woman who chose to enter this room and for the child she carried who would never get a chance to choose anything at all.
And I prayed for all the lives that were destroyed here in an instant, women and children and men, for years gone past and years to come.
Chapter Sixty
RISE UP SHINING
I’ve always wanted to save the world. I once thought I’d go into politics or start my own TV show when I grew up, The Janie Doe Macy Show. No, that was too long. Maybe just Janie, like Oprah. Or, I thought I could be a teacher. I would teach kids to fight in this world—not with each other but for what they believe in. I’ve learned it’s all about what you believe in.
I believe every person—girl, boy, handicapped, healthy, white, black, old, young, everybody—has a little light in them. If it were up to me, I’d save the world by making sure all the little lights shine as bright as they can. That way, heaven could look down and actually see them. Not forget about them, like it seems sometimes. And I’d give everybody wings so they could rise up shining like fireflies and fly all the way to the moon and the stars if they wanted to, or all the way to heaven if they had the itching to go so far.
Maybe someday it will happen. It could.
By the middle of August, Mama was showing real nice. She had a soft little pooch she kept her hand on night and day. Her face began to fill out in a good way. She started with Rainey walking in the mornings for exercise. She began to laugh at Rainey’s antics again. She hugged her a lot more. She invited Fritz over for suppers. Far as I know, she didn’t speak a word of what happened in Fervor to him or anybody else. She didn’t call Alisha on the phone anymore, which was a good thing, if you ask me. She was trying to get her life in order, and for Mama, it began with the house. Mama scrubbed and cleaned. She was getting her nest ready for the baby to come.
