“Mama,” I said, not wanting to speak but not able to stop the rush of that cry. I shuddered, and the word came out like a bird’s call, high and piercing. The sobs that followed were hoarse and ugly. I grabbed the front of Mama’s dress with my good arm, ignoring the pain in my shoulder as I pushed forward into her embrace. She caught me, pressing my face against her throat and whispering into my ear.
“It’s all right, baby. You just cry. You just go on and cry.” Her hands touched me gently, lifted, and came back down as if she were afraid she might hurt me but couldn’t keep from reaching for me again. “You’re my own baby girl. I’m not gonna let you go.”
Over Mama’s shoulder, I saw Raylene in the doorway, her face as red as a new apple. Mama’s hands stroked my hair back off my face, cupped my head, held me safe. I pressed my face into her neck, and let it all go. The grief. The anger. The guilt and the shame. It would come back later. It would come back forever. We had all wanted the simplest thing, to love and be loved and be safe together, but we had lost it and I didn’t know how to get it back.
The music stopped, and the sound of the river water filled the night. My crying eased and then stopped. Mama rocked back on her heels. A jaybird dropped off the porch lintel and streaked up into the darkening sky. The dog loped out to nose its track in the dusty grass. Raylene called Mama’s name softly, then mine, her voice as scratchy and penetrating as the chords of a steel guitar, as familiar as Kitty Wells or a gospel chorus. Mama looked back at her and shook her head. She straightened and gave my hand on the rocker’s arm a little pat. Her smell, that familiar salt-and-butter smell, almost made me cry again, but I felt empty. I just watched her.
Raylene had been right. I didn’t understand anything. But I didn’t want to understand. Seeing Mama hurt me almost as bad as not seeing her had.
There was an envelope on my lap. Mama had put it there. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek just below where Nevil had kissed me. The memory of his burning eyes startled me. He would not forgive. He was out there hunting. I almost cried out. Mama’s finger touched my lips. Her eyes burned into me.
“I love you, Bone,” she said. “Never forget that. You’re my baby girl, and I love you.” Her ravaged cheeks shone in the light from the house, her eyes glittered. She bent, kissed my fingers, and stood up. Aunt Raylene came through the door, but Mama backed away quickly, shaking her head again. We watched her cross the yard, heard her start the Pontiac in the darkness past the curve of the road.
“Damn,” Raylene cursed. Her fist drummed on the door-jamb. “Damn,” she said again, and dropped her hand as if she could think of nothing else to say, to do. I held the envelope and watched her shoulders. They were shaking, but she made no sound.
“Do you know where she’s going?” I asked.
“No.” The word was a whisper. Raylene lifted her hands slightly, dropped them again. She did not turn to me, and I knew she did not want me to see her face.
“California,” I said. “Or Florida, maybe. He always talked about taking us off there sometime, someplace where they grew oranges and a man could find decent work.” My voice sounded so rough and mean I barely recognized it. I felt old and chilled, though I knew the night was warm. I looked down my bandaged arm to the envelope. It was oversized, yellow, official-looking, and unsealed. I opened it.
Folded into thirds was a certificate. RUTH ANNE BOATWRIGHT. Mother: ANNEY BOATWRIGHT. Father: UNKNOWN. I almost laughed, reading down the page. Greenville General Hospital and the embossed seal of the county, the family legend on imitation parchment. I had never seen it before, but had heard all about it. I unfolded the bottom third.
It was blank, unmarked, unstamped.
I looked out into the dark night, past Raylene’s hip and the porch railing. What had she done? I shook my head and swallowed. I knew nothing, understood nothing. Maybe I never would. Who had Mama been, what had she wanted to be or do before I was born? Once I was born, her hopes had turned, and I had climbed up her life like a flower reaching for the sun. Fourteen and terrified, fifteen and a mother, just past twenty-one when she married Glen. Her life had folded into mine. What would I be like when I was fifteen, twenty, thirty? Would I be as strong as she had been, as hungry for love, as desperate, determined, and ashamed?
My eyes were dry, the night a blanket that covered me. I wasn’t old. I would be thirteen in a few weeks. I was already who I was going to be. I tucked the envelope inside my pocket. When Raylene came to me, I let her touch my shoulder, let my head tilt to lean against her, trusting her arm and her love. I was who I was going to be, someone like her, like Mama, a Boatwright woman. I wrapped my fingers in Raylene’s and watched the night close in around us.
COMPLETE YOUR ESSENTIAL EDITIONS LIBRARY:
Dorothy Allison
Bastard Out of Carolina
Julia Alvarez
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
J. M. Coetzee
Disgrace
Nick Hornby
High Fidelity
Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner
Jack Kerouac
On the Road
Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees
Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye
Mario Puzo
The Godfather
Carol Shields
The Stone Diaries
Bastard Out of Carolina Page 32
