Learning to Breathe

by Janice Lynn Mather

  “You really didn’t know?”

  “Wh-wh-who? Wh-wh-who’s the daddy?”

  I swallow. “It doesn’t have a daddy.”

  He turns around to look out the window. From here, it looks like he’s staring at the tops of the lampposts, like they might dislodge themselves and start tracing out answers in the sky. “Y-y-y-you think I st-st-stupid? Every baby have a d-d-daddy.”

  “Some don’t even have a mummy.”

  “Wh-wh-who it is?” His voice grows louder with every syllable. “Wh-wh-who?”

  “Nobody.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Gary’s grip on my leg. Easy laugh. Nail pressing into my skin. Don’t cross me.

  “Y-y-you still care bout him?”

  “I never did.”

  Churchy turns around again, his gaze holding mine. His voice is lower again when he speaks. “You care bout me?”

  “What kind of question that is, Churchy?”

  “I s-say, d-d-do you care bout me?”

  “I like you as a person—”

  “Y-y-you tryin to trick me? Y-you take me for a dummy? Just cause I’s st-st-st-st.” The stammer stops him cruelly. “Cause I can’t talk so good? You think I st-st-stupid? Just cause I st-st-st-st-stutter?” He stands there, briefly victorious over the word.

  “I tellin you now, right?” I sink down onto the sofa, wishing the cushions would swallow me.

  He picks up the spatula, twirling it like a baton. He turns back to the stove. A pot sizzles. He begins again to stir. To lift lids. To reach for seasonings in the back. I wonder, did anything just happen? Did I imagine it all?

  “Give me some t-t-time. I got an idea,” Churchy finally says. “I c-c-could help you.”

  • • •

  Later, I let him drop me off at Aunt Patrice’s house. At the edge of the yard, he leans in and plants a quick kiss on my cheek. “Night, D-D-D. Night, Dee.” His eyes glisten, catching the streetlight’s glow. Dee. The syllable, standing alone, is soft and melodious. No one’s called me this before. Dee. The promise of something better. Short and sweet. It feels clean. Feels new.

  Inside, the house is quiet, except for the blare of the TV. I lock the front door and head for the bedroom.

  “Gary?” my aunt calls out as I tiptoe past her door. For this, she has the hearing of a bat. “Your shift finish early, ay?” I keep going, hurrying for Smiley’s door. “Indira.” Her voice is right behind me now. I turn around to face her. She’s wearing her housecoat, her wig off for the night, exposing the low-cut hair underneath. Her feet are pushed into beat-up pink slippers, despite the heat. “Where have you been?”

  “Out.”

  She shifts her hand to her hip. “With who?”

  “A friend.”

  “The same friend who you slept by last night?” Her voice is too loud for the hallway, for this conversation. If Smiley is sleeping, she won’t be for long. “Listen,” Aunt Patrice says in the way that tells you the rowing is just getting started, “I’ve allowed you to stay here, but I told your mother and your grandmother the same thing I told you. No slackness. No problems. No staying out. I know how your mother is. You and me both know. If you plan on following behind her, you can head for the door and leave your key when you go.”

  “I’m not like her.” I want to spit the words at her, but they come out mumbled.

  “Sleeping out. Coming in after ten. Ain even showing up to school. You want to be woman when it comes to man, but you don’t work, you don’t pay bills, who knows what you do all day long. You just like she was when she was your age. All you need now is to go get yourself pregnant and you could be her clone.” She looks me over like I’m something she didn’t buy, festering in the fridge. “Why you goin in Cecile’s room? She already asleep.”

  “I have to get my stuff.”

  “What stuff? You ain business having any stuff in there, you have a spot in the living room. You think I’d let you come from who knows what man bed, ten-thirty in the night, ain been to school, ain been home last night, then turn around and prance in my girl child’s room?” She’s right up in my face now, just a few inches away. I need to be someplace else, anyplace else. I want to fly at her, want to attack her, want to show her my belly stretching out, shout at her It’s your fault, your son did this! If you hadn’t made me sleep out there in the living room, with no door, no privacy—I’m a girl, what you think would happen with him lurking round? I’m sure you could hear him, you know so much about the world, about Mamma, and you couldn’t even stop to think what might happen in your own house? You couldn’t even see? But I can’t. Breathe, have to breathe through it. I need this place. For now, I have nowhere else to go. Do what you gotta do. I have to hold back. I need to be here.

  “I was out working.”

  “Working where?”

  “Tasty Spot.” It comes out too fast for it to sound convincing, even to me. It’s the first thing, the only thing, I can think of to say. “I got a job there. For a little extra cash,” I add. Maybe that’ll make her feel bad about those times she took the money Mamma sent me.

  “That’s a lie right there,” Aunt Patrice says. “I want know how you sick one minute and then working at a restaurant the next. And can’t be bothered to show up to school? Explain that. What? You lost your tongue now, ay?”

  I stare at the floor, swallowing back the words that threaten to burst out of me.

  “One time. I ga let this coming in late business slide one time. If you want drop out of school, that ain my problem. But I got my good child in this house, and you ain ga corrupt her, not on my watch. First you in man car, and now this? I catch you staying out again, and that’s it. Don’t care what your uncle say. You understand?”

  She glares at me, expectant, like she’s waiting for me to gush with gratitude for her letting me stay here, on the living room sofa. For letting me be under the same roof with Gary. I don’t have any choice but to be here right now, but I can’t be grateful for it. I can’t even say I understand, because I don’t. I don’t know how she can look me in the face, all hauled up and righteous. Maybe she really doesn’t know, though she never seems to miss anything else. Could she really be blind to this? I’m afraid to find out; I squeeze past her into the living room without a word.

  “And stay out there,” she calls after me. “I’m watching you.”

  I fumble through my bag, blinking back my rage. Draw the book out; hold it to my chest, like I’m holding on to Grammy.

  After a while, once my heartbeat has settled, mostly, the hallway light flicks off and the house is stone-silent. I lie there on the sofa until I hear Gary’s truck pull in, hear the keys in the doorway. I grab the book and run past Aunt Patrice’s room, to Smiley’s door. Turn the handle. She’s fast asleep on her side, doesn’t even stir as I come in. I close the door but stay with my ear pressed up against it, listening as Gary comes down the hall, humming to himself. I hear his bedroom door open, then shut. Any minute, Aunt Patrice could come check on me, come thundering in and order me out of Smiley’s room, maybe even out of the house. I can’t stay in here all night, not this time. I listen, but there’s no motion, not even a bedspring creak. I take a chance, step out into the hall. Tiptoe in the dark, toward the bathroom.

  I feel, rather than see, Gary step into my path. I press up against the wall, willing him not to touch me.

  “Thought I missed my friend in the living room,” he says. His bedroom door is closed; he’s been waiting out here this whole time, trying to set me up, to catch me. He reaches out and I twist away just in time, running for the bathroom, slamming the door louder than I should. Locking it behind me isn’t enough, I lean my whole weight against it. Quiet settles again; even with the noise, no one stirs. It might as well be just me and him in this big, empty house.

  “Night, Sharice,” he whispers through the door, laughter in his voice. His door opens and closes, and this time I hear him lie down on the bed. I curl up on the bathroom floor and wait. Only whe
n I finally hear him snore do I go back to the living room and let sleep come.

  12

  IT’S LUNCHTIME AT THE retreat. I’m ravenous, my stomach complaining. I step into the pavilion, glancing around, but I don’t seem to stick out; no one seems to notice me as I walk up to the buffet. I hang back, looking at the unfamiliar dishes.

  “What can I get you?” Maya asks, smiling.

  “What do you have?”

  “No macaroni or peas and rice, I could tell you that.” She lowers her voice. “Joe doesn’t go for anything with white rice or white flour.” Maya sighs under the burden of these restrictions. “Anyway, we got some spiced lentils here, quinoa-corn salad, roasted eggplant, and broccoli.”

  Despite her disapproval, it all smells delicious. My stomach growls. “I don’t know. What’s good?”

  “I would kill for some fried chicken right now,” she says, dishing up a plate with a little of everything. She hands it to me. “See what you think of that.”

  I take it back out onto the beach, sitting down in the shade. It’s seasoned right, and not overly peppery like Aunt Patrice’s cooking, or oily like the stuff from Churchy’s aunt and uncle’s place; it reminds me of Churchy’s food, brighter, lighter, and prepared with care. Farther down the beach, I hear someone coming and look over to see Susan carrying her own plate. She waves at me as she approaches.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Sure.” I finish off the last of the eggplant and get down to the quinoa-corn salad, tangy and sweet.

  “Dion tells me you’re working here now.”

  I nod, digging into the broccoli. There’s a nutty sauce drizzled over it; I wish I’d asked for more.

  “So when are you going to come to one of my classes instead of lurking behind the trees?”

  “Oh.” I put my fork down. “I didn’t think you saw me.”

  She smiles. “I’m sure anyone who’s paying attention sees you.”

  What does she mean by that? I carefully pull my shirt away from my belly.

  “You don’t have to be shy about it. You do yoga?”

  Maybe she doesn’t suspect me of anything more than a fondness for stretching behind shrubs. “I guess I tried couple times.”

  “How was it?”

  “It’s okay. Relaxing.”

  “It can be. It can be really hard work, too.”

  “How come you do it?”

  Susan takes a bite of her lunch and chews pensively. “It helps me manage certain things. If I can control my breathing, I can control my thoughts. If I can control my thoughts, my mind isn’t wandering and I can keep focused, and it’s easier to control my body.”

  That’s where we’re different; my body’s going down a path that I can’t seem to stop. “Sounds like you can do anything.”

  She laughs, setting her plate down on the sand. “Well, I can’t fly.”

  “Do you ever breathe and close your eyes and pretend something’s not happening?”

  “You mean when I’m in a hard pose?”

  “Not really.”

  “Like a boring class in school?”

  “Sort of, yeah.”

  “Well, the idea is to not be in a bad situation to start with. Not taking the boring class in the first place.”

  “Okay, but what if you have to take the class? What if you don’t have a choice? What if someone’s making you—” I stop. I can only imagine what she’ll think if I keep going with this. I wonder about Susan again. How much does she know about me, without me having told her? How much is it okay for her to know? “What if it’s something you didn’t choose but it’s happening and you still have to figure out what to do?” I notice her frown and add, “Like if a parent makes you do something.”

  She looks more comfortable with that. “I guess you could try to pretend something’s not happening. But you know what the idea of yoga is? I mean, the whole reason? To be able to sit still in meditation, without moving. All that breathing, all those poses, all that practicing, they’re all to get you ready to sit still, in peace. It’s about being where you are, not zoning out.”

  I lean back, looking out at the water. Sitting still. It all sounds a bit pointless to me. “I thought it was to stand on your head.”

  Susan laughs. “No, although that’s a benefit too. But choose carefully where it is you’re sitting still. If something’s that bad, don’t breathe to pretend you’re not there. Breathe to make the right moves to get out.”

  Later in the afternoon, as I’m walking from the dining pavilion to the bathrooms, Susan’s words play in my head. Breathe to make the right moves to get out. As though it’s that simple. I pause on the path, in that not-so-hidden spot behind the silk cotton tree. I can hear Joe up on the deck now, her voice musical and soothing, the way it was in the classes on Mariner’s Cay.

  “And inhale, reaching your arms overhead, fingertips reaching for the sky,” she says. Even put your hands up sounds magical here. I take a few steps back, then feel my mouth stretch into a smile. My arms lift, the spray bottle of vinegar and thyme lifting with them. “And now exhale, bringing your hands down to the earth. Inhale looking up, and exhale, big step back with the right foot, into a lunge.” I heave my foot back, and the spray bottle, still in one hand, sends a shoot of vinegar arcing into the air. I strain to see what they’re doing up there and find them already halfway through lowering from a push-up position straight down to the ground. No way I’m doing that. I pause, in that awkward straddle, waiting for them to get somewhere I can join in again. Then, suddenly, there are hands on my shoulders.

  “Gotcha!”

  I let out a yelp and jump about a mile high— it’s a miracle I don’t pee myself. The spray bottle goes sailing and lands with a thud, a few feet away from the deck’s steps.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Through laughter, Dion shushes me, although Joe’s already glaring in our direction while she leads the class into a balance pose. His chuckling is barely suppressed.

  “What wrong with you?” I scurry over to retrieve the bottle, not daring to look at Joe, and beat a hasty retreat down the path. Dion jogs to keep up.

  “Sorry, Indy. I was only playin. Why you didn’t go up on the deck and join the class?”

  I look down the length of myself—lumpy under my loose shirt and long, uneven skirt—then back up at him. “I look like I belong up there?” I hold his gaze. I dare him to laugh, to come up with some sunshiny retort. Everybody belongs in yoga. Why not? For a scary second, I almost want him to know. Want him to see, to really see. I realize, right then, that my time here is going to end soon. I’m going to get too big to hide it. No one wants a pregnant teenager around, don’t matter how she got that way. I’ll be out, same as Mamma. Moving homes every few months, every boyfriend. A new thought pops into my head: maybe Mamma didn’t want those men, only needed them. No. I push the thought out.

  When Dion doesn’t joke, doesn’t smile, just says, “You want to do some yoga with me, then?” I nod. We pass by the office, each taking a mat, then spread them out under a sapodilly tree by the parking lot. I’m thankful for its shade, for the breeze coming in off the ocean and between the buildings, finding its way to me.

  “I don’t think I’m made for this,” I say as he kicks his shoes off.

  “Oh, what, because of those sun salutations? They’re only the beginning. Only the warm-up. You know how many fun poses there are?”

  “My balance is horrible. And I can’t even touch my toes.”

  “Keep practicing, it’ll get easier with time.”

  I snort. “I don’t think so. Not in my case.”

  “What case that is?” His gaze is honest, patient, clear. If only I could tell him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, then. Let me show you something easy. And here’s the trick, if you can’t balance on your own, you just gotta hold on to something to help you out.”

  Dion starts to walk me through tree pose, since I’ve seen it and tried it before. Last time, I bobbed and
swayed, a palm in stormy winds. Now, when I start to teeter, Dion reaches out a hand.

  I hesitate. “I don’t want to make you fall.”

  “It’s okay, I’m stable.”

  I take his arm, wobbling.

  “Now you pick a point of focus for your drishti, your gaze. Pick something straight ahead, something that’ll stay put.”

  I stare out at the strip of ocean, my leg still shaking.

  “And now breathe. Focus on that, deep breath in, deep breath out.”

  While I cling to him with my right arm, my left arm flails, trying to keep me upright.

  “Bring that left hand to your chest.” He demonstrates, lifting his own right hand, tucked into its brace, to his heart in half a prayer. I bring my left hand up, thumb resting on my breastbone, my fingers pointing to the sky.

  “Don’t forget to breathe. You focusing?”

  I give the tiniest nod. My leg is wobbling less, less. Dion’s words fall away until all I can hear is his deep breathing, steady and easy. He pulls his arm away and I am upright on my own for one second, two, three, then tilting, tilting, and I’m down on the ground, laughing. Dion laughs too.

  “Good try. Let me stand on the other side of you, and we’ll try again.”

  The next side is just as tricky, slowly getting up, the one foot tucked up against the other thigh. I feel like a confused flamingo, but I keep going. Hand to chest, other hand holding on to him.

  “Okay, and now, don’t tense. You gotta relax into it. Breathe, remember? You ain fightin. You ain gotta hold your breath.”

  Ocean before me. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in. Gentle hand pulling away, my left hand finding the right, touch and touch. Breathing, standing steady, staying strong. It’s like being perfectly anchored and, at the same time, flying free.

  The sudden sound of fast wheels on gravel jolts me, making me plop my foot down, spinning around to face the parking lot. Someone whizzes through the entrance on a bicycle, kicking up a cloud of dust. Dion jogs off to investigate. I lean up against the tree and realize I’m breathing hard, a few droplets of sweat forming. Was I working that much? Didn’t feel like it. I’m letting my face catch the sun when I hear two sets of footsteps coming back.