by Diana Welch
I felt my mom’s eyes on me as we headed back to the airport. I breathed fog on the window and made a trail of tiny baby footprints by pressing the pinky side of my fists against the glass, then making toes with my fingertips, starting with the big toe, my thumb. It was a trick I learned when I was a kid, from Amanda’s friend Sue.
“I guess that would be good,” I said quietly to the passing trees, avoiding the dark eyes in the mirror.
AMANDA
I PICKED UP the phone in my bedroom upstairs. It was Nancy. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoken to her. Our only contact was through the mail; the trust had been paying Diana’s tuition at Rippowam this whole time. Nancy sent me the tuition bills, and I wrote checks. I don’t think she’d ever called me. After the usual pleasantries, she said, “Diana would like to come down to visit you for spring break.” The next thing I remember was Nancy giving me Diana’s flight information. There was no “Oh, do you mind? Is this okay with you? Will you even be around?” It was completely out of the blue. I didn’t know what had changed, and I didn’t think to ask. I was just like, Diana’s coming for a visit? Awesome!
Then I started to panic. Not because I was nervous about seeing Di, more that I had no idea what to do with a twelve-year-old for her vacation. Young girls should have fun on their spring breaks.
DIANA
AS AMANDA CLOSED the hatchback on her beat-up beige Volkswagen Rabbit, I noticed the remnants of a “Jesus Saves” rainbow sticker that somehow had melded to the rear window. “I tried really hard to get that off,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I scraped and scraped.”
Amanda told me that Dad’s Mercedes had finally died earlier that year, and since Liz had killed her Saab, she had to buy this clunker. The car’s interior was dusty red velvet, coated in a thin layer of animal hair. There was a mix tape in the tape player, songs I recognized from long ago. As I rode shotgun, Amanda asked if I remembered her quizzing me about songs on the radio. “You’d be in your car seat with your pigtails and glasses, and I’d say, ‘Who’s this?’” She laughed. “And you’d be like, ‘Start Me Up’ by the Rolling Stones!”
I didn’t remember playing this game and told her so. I did, however, remember this woman sitting next to me, my sister. Back when I knew her, she wore eyeliner, spiky hair, and rubber bracelets like Madonna. Now her hair was long and straight. In place of leather pants and a giant paisley button-down knotted at the hip, she wore black leggings and a big white T-shirt. She used to be mean to me because I annoyed her. I didn’t annoy her now. When she turned to me, her big greenish eyes were timid and searching at once, I saw Mom in their shape, and in the shape of her nose, too. She was beautiful. She was familiar. She wasn’t scary at all.
And her farm house wasn’t a dive, either. The way my mom talked about it, I was expecting swinging, bare lightbulbs and rats. Separated from the paved rural road by an eight-foot boxwood hedge, her house was big and white with black shutters. Amanda planned on painting the house gray with forest-green shutters. “Like the old house,” she said as she led the way through the rusty chain-link gate, down the path of cracked slate. Inside, the place was big and drafty, filled with things I remembered: the grandfather clocks, the painting of Mom. Even the couches were the same fabric. The big brass bed I slept in that night was our parents’ and so was the stained Oriental rug beneath it. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt at home.
Even the pets were familiar: Bentley was there and so was Ralph. Amanda loved animals and often took in strays. There was a cat named Maybe, a bunny called Harold, and a giant black Great Dane named Banana, whose ears pointed up and out, at right angles. The woman who had bred her had cut her ears and taped what was left to Popsicle sticks. Amanda called it barbaric and told me that the first thing she did when she got Banana home was to remove the splints.
AMANDA
DIANA SHOWED UP with this ridiculously short haircut and these big horn-rimmed glasses. It could not have been more unflattering. I mean, she was adorable, the same goofy kid, but she seemed a lot more self-conscious. She was polite the whole time, timid at first but more and more comfortable as the week wore on. At the same time, she was very Diana, open and free and interested in trying new things, up for an adventure. We spent a long weekend at my friend Jean’s cabin in West Virginia, hiking and swimming in the river. Diana was surprisingly good with Jean’s baby and seemed relaxed, like she was having a great time. It was nice.
Then, when we were at the airport waiting for her plane to board, she started acting all nervous and fidgeting in her seat. Finally she said, “Um, I was supposed to talk to you about coming back down and spending the summer, if it’s okay with you?”
And I was like, “Of course it’s okay!” But inside, I was fuming. I couldn’t believe that bitch would make Diana ask me, but what really pissed me off was that Diana felt it might not have been okay. It killed me to think that she had thought there was even a remote possibility that I would say no.
DIANA
ONE AFTERNOON I came home from school to find the Chamberlains’ door locked. This had never happened before; I didn’t have a key. I knocked. Nothing. Figuring no one was home, I went around to the backyard and sat on the stone wall behind the swing set until the woman I called “mom” shouted from the kitchen window. “Hey!” Her tone was pleasant. “What are you doing out there?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” I shouted back as I jumped down from my perch. “I knocked!”
It was too bright outside to see her face in the window. I could only hear her voice. “Oh, I must not have heard you!” she shouted in the same pleasant tone. “I was on the phone with your Aunt Barbara!”
With those words, things started to fall into place. My mom had locked the door to keep me out so that I wouldn’t get to talk to Aunt Barbara. Why else would she have locked the door while she was home? Over spring break, Amanda had backed up Liz’s version of reality, the one in which she and Liz had wanted, even tried, to come see me the whole time I had been here. Amanda said that this lady I was calling “mom” wouldn’t let them come, that being separated wasn’t up to them, that they all three had wanted me in their lives, always. Amanda said that she had called, even though I had never heard about it. And she assured me that she wasn’t a drug addict, either, and that Dan wasn’t a thief.
I still didn’t understand why this lady would want to keep me from my family, but, suddenly, I understood that she did.
LIZ
I SPENT A disastrous spring break in Tunisia. I decided to go there because it sounded exotic, adventurous, more exciting than, say, Germany or Spain. But then, in the taxi to the hotel in Tunis, the driver asked me to marry him. Then another man followed me from the cab to the hotel, hissing, then grabbed my arm and asked if I was looking for “a boyfriend,” and I wondered if I had made a mistake.
I headed to Djerba, thinking the mythical-turned-touristy island would be less lecherous, and wound up getting chased by a band of furious teenage boys, one of whom hurled a rock at me. I think it was because I was wearing a T-shirt and not a long-sleeved shirt as my guidebook recommended.
My trip to Khartoum left me in tears until I accepted an offer from a shy bellhop in his midtwenties who offered to be my guide. I quickly learned that as long as I was with a man, I was okay. No more hissing or tongues unfurled and wiggling between parted lips. This man showed me the walled city, had his sister escort me to a women’s bath house, and invited me to his home, where his mother hennaed my hands and then led me to a candle-lit bedroom where a feast had been laid out on the floor. And then my guide appeared, strumming a guitar. He began to serenade me as his mother slowly backed out the door. He motioned to a pillow on the floor. I sat down, dumbfounded, my mind racing. He finished his song and then knelt beside me, so close I could see the space between his two front teeth and how his black mustache covered the top peaks of his upper lip. He picked up a fig and pressed it to my lips, and I panicked. “I can feed myself,” I
said, leaning away from this suddenly scary man. When I balked, he shook his head and said I must learn to be obedient if I were to be his wife. I felt trapped and bluffed my way through the couscous course before feigning a stomachache. “I need to go back to the hotel,” I said. I checked out early the next morning.
I kept moving—across the desert, where I saw a Bedouin tribe, to the oasis town Nafta, then back to the coast. On my last day, I decided to go to the beach. I wanted to get some sun. I sat on the white sand and rolled up my pants and long sleeves and tilted my head back. I began to sweat. The searing heat tightened my skin. I was glad for it. I wanted to bring something else back from this trip besides horror stories and a hand-loomed rug. As the sun’s rays cooled, I started walking back toward my hotel, sun-dazed and sleepy. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a man emerge from behind a bush. I felt his hands on me, tugging my shoulders backwards and down. I screamed. He pulled, tearing my shirt. I started to swing and scratch. My vocal cords strained to the point I thought they might snap. I fought with all my might and managed, I’m not sure how, to get away. Back at the hotel, I collapsed on the bed, spent. I was incapable of tears. My throat felt raw and shredded as if I had swallowed broken glass. I could not wait to get back to Scotland.
DAN
WHEN I TURNED eighteen that March, I stopped getting Social Security checks. Before the school year ended, Karen had told me that I would need to pay her eight hundred dollars a month if I was planning on staying with her for the summer. I couldn’t believe it. It just reminded me that she wasn’t really family; that’s not what family would do. Of course, I now understand that Manhattan was expensive and she needed the money, but back then it was like getting kicked out all over again. Frankly, I preferred to be on my own. I ended up sharing a house in Rochester with a few friends that cost me only one hundred sixty dollars, and I got a job waiting tables.
That summer, I started really missing Lisa. Then, out of the blue, she called. She was living with her parents and wanted to see me. I was so excited; I was going to win her back! My buddy had a car, so I asked him to drive me down to Manhattan. We met Lisa at a place in South Street Seaport. She was as gorgeous as ever, but I could tell something was wrong. I could see it in her eyes; she was annoyed that I brought my friend. Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.
When he finally left to go to the bathroom, Lisa said, “I have something serious to tell you.”
I have no idea why, but I said, “It’s not like you were raped.”
She nodded. After hearing the details, I got so angry I kicked a hole in the wall of the restaurant. “Who was it?” I asked. I needed to know because I was going to kill him.
Lisa refused to tell me, and to this day she still won’t. But I swear to God if she had, he’d be dead and I’d be in prison. And I’d be happy about it.
By then, Lisa and I had gotten up to go outside. I asked if her parents knew, and she said her mom did. Her mother had asked Lisa if we’d had sex and was actually relieved that Lisa had lost her virginity with me.
But then Lisa told me she thought it was God punishing us for having premarital sex. I had always felt I was bad luck for people, but this was too much. I made a decision, unconscious at that point, never to fall in love again. Bad things happen to people that I love. My childhood might have knocked me down, but Lisa being raped kicked me in the teeth.
When I went back to Rochester, I started having a recurring nightmare: A motorcycle gang was tattooing a deflated balloon of Mickey Mouse on my foot, but I couldn’t move because they’d drugged me. Then they put Lisa on top of me and began raping her. All I could see was Lisa being raped and me being helpless. I couldn’t do anything to protect her.
After that, I started going to bars every night and picked fights. If a guy walked up to me, I’d just wallop him. No chest bumping, nothing like that, just bam! I’d hit him. And it felt good.
LIZ
THE SCHOOL YEAR was coming to an end, and most of my friends were headed back to their homes, even my two South African friends. They talked excitedly about how things were changing now that Mandela was free. Their joy was palpable and contagious. I wanted to see this hopeful new land.
One of my Edinburgh professors mentioned that a former student was running an orphanage outside of Harare, and I figured Zimbabwe was close enough. I wrote a letter to the Matthew Rusike Children’s Home offering my services in exchange for room and board and received one back that simply said, “Ms. Elizabeth Welch, you are most welcome. Signed, Mr. Mangobe.”
Not until I landed in Zambia did I realize I had no idea who was meeting me, if anyone at all. Waiting for my connection from Lusaka to Harare, I got nervous: I was arriving at 10 p.m. What if no one was there? Where would I sleep? Mr. Mangobe’s letter had only a P.O. box for an address. As I collected my bags from the sole carousel at Zimbabwe’s international airport, my mind was racing. Throngs of people were waiting outside. My eyes scanned the bazaar-like bustle—teary reunions, hustling taxi drivers, bored airport employees—and then snagged on a large white banner, framed by ten dark faces: “The Matthew Rusike Children’s Home Welcomes Ms. Elizabeth Welch.” Within moments, a fleshy fortress of hugs and high fives, small hands and big smiles, surrounded me.
The orphanage was a series of low, sprawling concrete buildings in Epworth, a suburb of Harare. I was shown to my own room in the girls’ dorm, where I fell asleep to the sound of crickets chirping in the quiet dark. The following morning, at breakfast, I met all one hundred twenty children as well as Lucy, another volunteer.
Mr. Mangobe asked Lucy and me to open the nursery, a small one-room structure that hadn’t been used in over a decade. We swept, scrubbed, and aired out the place, preparing it for the dozen or so preschool-age orphans, most of whom spoke only Shona, Zimbabwe’s national language. Mr. Mangobe wanted us to teach them English. Before we started classes, though, he suggested we read their files.
“So you know why they are here.” He spoke as if he was taking a breath between each word, soft Shona sounds clipped by a formal British accent.
Lucy and I spent that afternoon going through a stack of manila files. I learned that Portia, a quiet five-year-old with a lopsided smile, was a recent refugee from Mozambique. She survived a machete attack. Her mother did not. That explained the scar that began at her temple and ended at the curve of her lip. Nedson’s mother abandoned him as a toddler at the brothel where she worked. Now four, Nedson was weaned on moonshine, which had stunted his speech but not his infectious laugh or the sparkle in his mischievous brown eyes. Titus was found wandering the countryside with his mentally deranged father, and Artwell was found herding goats, a nomad at age seven.
“These kids are amazing,” I said to Lucy. She nodded, clenching her lips tight so as not to cry.
School began and our students were hungry for words, for games, for attention, for affection. Lucy and I learned Shona, too. “Mangwanani” meant good morning, “masakati” meant good afternoon, and hearing “murungus” saying such words elicited hysterical laughter from the orphans and staff alike, as did our eating sadza—the thick corn porridge served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—with our hands. I relished their laughs, their language, their customs. I felt comfortable in this totally foreign place. I felt more myself than I had in years.
Then, one day at lunch, one of the kids came running into the kitchen, breathless.
“Ms. Liz,” he said, bent over, his hands on his knees. “There’s an urgent phone call for you.”
His words shocked me, and a dull buzz coursed down my limbs. Before I could answer, I started to run: out the kitchen, across the packed-dirt front lawn, and down the dusty road toward Mr. Mangobe’s house and the nearest phone. Someone was hurt or sick or, worse, someone had died—Dan, Amanda, or Diana. My lungs burned as I sprinted. In the distance, I saw that Mr. Mangobe’s front door was open and he was standing in the foyer holding the phone toward me in his outstretched hand. “It’s your sister calling from Am
erica,” he said as I raced up the stairs.
I grabbed the receiver, expecting sobs or shouts or wails. Instead, I heard a hearty chuckle. It was Amanda.
“Hey, Liz,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”
Then, above my panting breath and bass-drum heartbeat, I heard an unmistakable voice.
“Hey, sis!”
It was Diana.
DIANA
VISITING AMANDA THAT summer was even better than camp. She and Dennis were both so welcoming; they made me feel right at home. They referred to the bedroom I had slept in during spring break as my bedroom, and they encouraged me to decorate it however I wanted. Amanda and I painted the kitchen floor red and splattered it with yellow and gray paint while she explained to me who Jackson Pollock was. I helped her sponge the cream-colored living-room walls with varying shades of red and gray. In between projects, Amanda and I spent hours sitting on the floor of her living room, going through old family photos, as she patiently answered my unending series of questions. She identified people I didn’t recognize, told me some things I remembered in a shadowy way, and described some things that had happened before I was born.
Amanda was a lot like Dad, I soon found out. One of her favorite things to do was to sneak up on me while I was reading and grab my kneecap and squeeze it hard, causing me to flail and squeal and beg her to quit over the loud boom of her laugh. It was a little trick she learned from Dad, she explained, who loved to do it to Mom while she drove.
