She watched Tish kiss the mink on its snout and tell it happy birthday and Neena was partly agitated, partly embarrassed, partly overtaken with a wave of sisterly love. That’s when Neena heard a pinging sound outside of the window and she would have assumed it was an alley cat scampering up and down the fire escape the way they sometimes did, but Tish let go a gasp as she stood there facing the window, the shadowed outline of her small face frozen in horror.
“What is it, Tish?” Neena called as she unshrouded the stiff muslin top sheet from around her and ran to where Tish was pointing wildly and letting go a series of uh, uh, uh’s, trying to work herself up to a full-scale scream.
Neena pieced through the scraps of light that hung in this alley, leftover shimmers from the streetlamp on the corner. She didn’t know how in the half-light of the alley the mouth was the first thing she recognized on the face that was pushed close in against the screen, squinting to see inside. But that’s the first thing she saw, it was her own mouth, Tish’s, Nan’s, the one feature they all shared. She cupped her hand over Tish’s mouth then so that Tish couldn’t scream.
“Shh, shh,” Neena pleaded, as Tish tried to pull Neena’s hand off of her mouth. “Be quiet please, Tish, please don’t bring Nan in here. Don’t you know who that is? Shh. Don’t you know Tish? That’s Mommy out there. Uh! I can’t believe it. That’s Mommy.”
The shock of it made Tish go limp against Neena and Neena used the opportunity to collapse the foldable screen and pull it out of the window so that her mother could navigate a couple more rungs on the fire escape ladder and then climb through the window into the bedroom. She tipped the bench under the window and tripped over several of Tish’s stuffed animals and landed right against Tish’s feet and that brought Tish back to life, who started shaking and jabbing her finger in the darkened air toward Freeda. “I’m telling,” Tish said. “You can’t come in here, you can’t come around us. You’re dead to us. I’m going to tell Nan.”
Freeda was halfway to standing, but stopped right there on all fours. She almost looked like the grown-up on some children’s show the way the stuffed animals were dispersed all around her. Almost looked comic except that her back was going up and down and Neena could see that she was crying. A rage moved through Neena then and she grabbed Tish by the collar of her pajama and got in her face. “I swear to God you say one word to Nan, you even raise your voice louder than a whisper right now, and I’ll kick your ass. I’ll kill you, Tish.” Neena’s own voice was shaking from crying herself. “You call yourself a Christian. You’re a hard-hearted little bitch. I swear, you let Nan know she’s in here—” Now Neena couldn’t even talk. She was gagging on her sobs and she didn’t even realize that Tish was gagging for real, that she had tightened the collar of the pajama completely around Tish’s neck. Until she felt Freeda’s hands pulling at her own hands. Freeda’s hands so cold and thin, such a hungry needy feel about them.
“Let her go, baby,” Freeda said in Neena’s ear. “It’s all right. Whether she yells for Nan or not, it’s gonna be all right.”
Neena gasped then and let go of Tish’s neck and pulled Tish to her crying that she was sorry, she didn’t mean to hurt her, honest to God she didn’t. “But please don’t tell Nan, Tish. She’s our mother, our mother, our mother,” Neena cried, struggling to keep her volume to a whisper.
Freeda pulled them both to her. She mashed their faces into the frailty of her chest and swayed. Her blouse was polyester and smelled like bug spray and yet Neena didn’t want to move, just wanted to stand there all night with her head against her mother’s chest. Not Tish though—she wrenched herself free and scooped up her largest stuffed animal, an oversized panda. She threw herself onto her bed and muffled her sobs with her pillow and clung to the panda with such force that had it been a living, breathing thing, she would have cut off its air.
Freeda pushed back from Neena and Neena could feel the longing moving through her mother’s arms as Freeda just stood there watching this shadowed version of Tish cry. “I had a feeling it would be like this,” Freeda said into the bedroom air so that it sounded as if she was talking only to herself. “I had a feeling she would hate me by now.”
“But I don’t,” Neena said. “Honest to God I don’t.”
Freeda moved to the lamp closest to Neena’s bed and fumbled with the switch. “I don’t look so good under the light these days, but God knows I got to see you under the light before I leave. I thought it would be enough just to hug you, but darn it, I’ve got to see you too.” She found the lamp switch and the dark bedroom air gave way to yellow. Her voice was staggered as she looked at Neena. “Lord Jesus, Neena, you pretty as you want to be. And you’re sixteen today. That’s so incredible. My firstborn sixteen. Whew.” She sat down on the side of her bed and fanned herself. “This is overwhelming, you know, processing this. But it’s gonna be all right. No matter what happens to me now, it’s gonna be all right ’cause I’ll always know I laid eyes on you the day you turned sixteen. Sweet sixteen.”
Neena felt her eyes burning. They were burning now on the steps of Young’s. She shook her head back and forth to shake her eyes dry. Fixed on a bright green van moving back and forth trying to be parallel parked across the street. Her mother’s shirt had been shades of green in a psychedelic pattern. Neena was afraid to take her eyes off the shirt. Afraid to look at her mother’s face. Hadn’t even allowed her eyes to go much beyond her mouth. Such a pretty mouth. Now she did take in her mother’s face. Not so bad, she thought. The way she would tell herself that her mother didn’t look so bad even as her eyes were taking on that hollowed-out stare. Her eyes weren’t hollowed out now though. There was a vibrancy to the dark intensity, Neena thought. A joy. It was hard for Neena to look at the joy. Freeda should be with them if she was holding on to joy. So Neena looked at Tish instead. Tish’s sobbing had settled down to loud irregular breaths and now Tish just rocked herself, still clutching the panda, face still burrowed in her pillow. “Come on Tish,” Neena whispered, “sit up so Mommy can look at you. I’m sorry I choked you. Please sit up.”
Freeda clicked the lamp off then, and Neena took that as a compassionate act of motherhood. It was as if Freeda sensed that the joy Neena saw was breaking her heart.
“Don’t try to make Tish come to me,” Freeda said. “Believe it or not, I know what she’s going through. It’s all gonna be all right in the long run. What were you getting ready to do? Were you in bed? I’m not gonna keep you up? I know Nan got y’all on a fixed schedule. She’s good that way. Everybody can’t fit their life to her schedule though, but let me tell you, if you can, shucks, what you talking? I’m talking, whew, you gonna be making your way in the world. Always try to stick to a routine, you hear me, Neena. A good routine’ll save your life.”
Neena was sitting on the bed next to Freeda now and Freeda took Neena’s hand in her own. She rubbed her hand and squeezed it. “Like I said, I just had to be near you ’cause you turned sixteen today. I better get on back out of here the same way I came in before Nan comes in here and all hell breaks loose.”
Freeda started to rise and Neena yanked her arm and tried to talk through the storm of sobs moving up her throat. “Don’t go, Mommy,” she begged in an irregular cracked and soupy voice. “Nan’s asleep by now. Please don’t go.”
Neena guessed that it was the crying, the calling her Mommy that made Freeda sit back down. She did sit back down and Neena leaned her head against the polyester shirt and Freeda rocked her back and forth. Neena soothed now by the rocking, Freeda had always rocked her to a beat, a da da da da da da duh rhythm. The same rhythm Neena used on herself, the rhythm she used now sitting on the steps of Young’s. Her mother rocked her and she nestled into the feel of her mother’s heartbeat against the side of her face. And now her words bouncing from inside of her as she began talking, words pouring out of her as she asked Neena question after question and then didn’t even give her a chance to answer. You got a lot of friends? Watch those girls ’cause
you’re cute and girls can get right petty. How are your grades? Keep them up, you hear me. Don’t let those no-count boys get too close to you. I know Nan got y’all in church, you sing or usher? Ushering is nice, so humble, you not trying to be a star when you usher, you serving people, they say the secret to happiness is to serve others in need. Who is they, you ask? Probably the same person who told me to be thankful for what you got. Even if you don’t have a pot to pee in, be thankful that you’ve got the ability to pee. Your pee back up on you and you’re really gonna be dealing with something. You happy, Neena? It’s probably better to put your energy into trying to be good than trying to be happy. If you’re good sooner or later, happiness will find you. But I haven’t been either in so long. I’ve been sick, Neena. I didn’t quit on you and Tish. I didn’t put y’all down. Your mother loves you, she’s just sick. Just sick. My mind, Neena. My mind is sick. But you still got Nan. I want you to listen to Nan, you hear me. I know sometimes it probably feels like Nan’s goal in life is to make your life miserable. But I know where she’s coming from. She was a good mother for as long as I had her. Not long enough. No matter how long you have your mother, it’s never long enough.
Neena nodded even as she hated Nan for not being a mother still to Freeda. Freeda continuing to talk, jumping subjects like lightning bugs until she heard faint rhythmic snores coming from Tish’s bed. Freeda lifted Neena’s head and stumbled in the dark over the stuffed animals muttering “Poor baby” as she unclutched Tish’s hand from the panda and then put Tish under the sheet. She tucked the sheet gently under Tish’s chin. She put her finger to her lips and touched Tish’s forehead.
“Where’d she have these?” she asked Neena as she held the panda up in the dark and then bent over and started picking up the other stuffed animals.
“On the window bench,” Neena said, getting up to help her. “She lines them up by size.”
“How did I know that,” Freeda said as she started with the panda and then Neena handed her each stuffed animal in order. She walked Neena back to her bed when they were finished. And before she could form her mouth to say that she was leaving, Neena was begging her all over again not to go, and even segued into asking Freeda to take her with her.
Freeda told Neena she’d make a deal with her then. “I’ll lay down with you ’til you fall asleep and I’ll think about whether I should stay, or whether I should take you with me or what. I am a little tired anyhow.”
Neena agreed and Freeda put the screen back in the window so that the mosquitoes wouldn’t suck their blood dry, she said. Then Neena nestled against Freeda and Freeda went back into her plethora of questions that she both asked and answered and her voice was like silk to Neena. But her chest, the arms she had around Neena were so frail and it occurred to Neena that her mother might need food. “You hungry, Mommy?” Neena asked her. And Freeda didn’t answer at first, which Neena took to mean yes. She eased out of bed then. Moved like lightning through the dark quiet of the house and mixed up leftover chitterlings and rice and greens in a small pot and put fire under the pot, almost hopping up and down as if to hurry the heat along. Grabbed a fork and pulled the warmed-up pot from the stove and lightning again as she crept back into her room, her eyes closed at first because she wouldn’t be able to bear it if Freeda was gone. The shadow of her mother was still there sitting up in the bed and Neena had to stop herself from squealing as she handed Freeda the pot and the fork and then squeezed in next to her. Freeda saying, “Mnh, oh my God,” as she held the first forkful in her mouth as if she couldn’t believe how good it was. Her hands started shaking then and Neena could see that she was crying so she grabbed the pot before Freeda dropped it. She told her mother that it would be okay and then she fed Freeda. A forkful at a time. Slowly, until she was scraping the bottom of the pot.
Freeda was quiet then so Neena talked. She told Freeda about school, didn’t mention that she didn’t have any friends, Tish was the one with the friends. Told Freeda that the guidance counselor said that she was college material, and that she would be eligible for grants. She talked nonstop as if her talking was holding her mother there. And then it did hold her because Freeda fell asleep and Neena snuggled against her mother and noticed that the polyester blouse that smelled of bug spray had now taken on the airy scent of the freshly laundered sheets. That was so reassuring to Neena.
The driver of the van had finally gotten the vehicle into the parking space and a train of people filed out. The Young family on their way to open their store. The four doors of the van closed in quick succession and Neena remembered that’s how she felt that morning, as if a series of doors were banging shut when she woke to a banging silence that sounded like absence. Before she even looked at the window and saw the hastily tossed fold-up screen, Tish’s animals in disarray again under the window, the empty pot on its side, she knew that Freeda was gone. Neena sat up then all at once and patted around the bed. The sheet was soaked down to the mattress. She hit against her pajama bottom; her own bottom was dry. Freeda had peed in her bed, peed in Neena’s bed and then left her. “Mommy,” she whined into the light of day. “Mommy. Why did you leave me? Why?”
She wrapped her thumb around her ring finger the way she’d been doing since yesterday afternoon. Her finger was bare. She held her hand up to the light of day. Her finger had a pulled-on redness and now it even throbbed. The ring was gone. The solid gold ring with the diamond chip centered in her initial that her grandmother would be paying on forever was gone. She pulled at her hair and clutched at her chest and tried to keep the hysteria from barreling down on her as it made its approach like a fast-moving train. Her mouth was wide open but she wouldn’t let the scream out; the scream stayed locked in the back of her throat as if this was all she had left of Freeda, a scream that wouldn’t come.
Then she felt Tish all over her, bouncing up and down all around her on the bed. “It’s better, Neena. It’s better that she left. She had to go. Please stop crying, Neena. It’s better that she’s gone.”
Neena was choking. She couldn’t get air in or out and her mouth was frozen in an outstretched O. Tish ran out of the room hollering for Nan. “Something’s wrong with Neena,” she yelled. “Mommy sneaked in here last night and now Neena’s choking ’cause she left.”
“What? Your mother did what?” Nan gasped as she bounded into the room on Tish’s heels. “Lord have mercy, Neena! Neena!” Nan wrapped her arms around Neena with such force that she lifted her up and away from the bed. She pressed her fists into Neena’s back and shook her, the whole while shouting for Neena to breathe. “Let it up, spit it out. What’s caught? Lord have mercy, Neena, whatever it is, spit it up!”
Neena didn’t spit up. She swallowed instead. The scream lodged in her throat and ricocheted through her with the force of a cannonball falling back to earth, caged and locked now. Internally bound.
She felt as if she was choking all over again sitting on the Youngs’ steps. Surrounded now as they looked at her, pointing.
“We not open yet,” the mother said. “You come back, come back after nine, we open then.”
“Dude, is she like sick or something?” said the son. “She’s like totally weirding out.”
“She need tea.” This from the grandmother who reached down to help Neena stand. The grandmother was half Neena’s height and had to reach to pat her back. “Quick, open store,” she said to her son. “Make her tea,” to her daughter-in-law. “No charge. Okay, baby girl,” she said to Neena. “Tea from me to you. No charge you for the tea.”
Chapter 18
JUST AS WELL that Neena spent the next hour sipping tea with the Youngs who owned Spruce Health and Beauty because Nan wasn’t home anyhow. Nan was on her senior transport bus to visit her dearly departed Alfred. Alfred wasn’t dead, but Nan sometimes thought of her trips to the Springside Nursing Home as a pilgrimage to a loved one’s grave site where she’d place flowers and pull weeds and dust off the marble headstone. The nursing home was an hour outside of Phil
adelphia. She visited once a week like she’d been doing for the past twenty years after the sanitarium where Alfred had lived closed its doors because otherwise Alfred had no regular visitors. Neena came when she was in town for longer than a day, which had been rarely. Tish visited no more than once a year because the sight of Alfred in his paralyzed state cast her in a blue mood that lasted for days. And Nan had never insisted that they visit since they had no memory of their grandfather in the fullness of his life.
Nan made polite conversation with the young woman driving the senior transport van. Asked her if she had children, if she had a church home, because her church had a wonderful youth fellowship if she didn’t. “I do, yes, ma’am,” the young woman replied as she tapped her mile-long crystal-laden fingernails against the steering wheel and then shifted the van into neutral because she was stuck behind a newspaper delivery truck double-parked and taking up more than its own lane. The van rocked from side to side as it held there and the young woman, SHAKANNA, her name tag read, began whispering into her shirt and Nan realized she was speaking into a hands-free cell phone. Just as well, Nan thought, though she wondered if Shakanna was breaking a company policy using her cell phone while on the clock. And those nails, how’d they let her drive the van with those nails. That would have been Nan’s next question after the one about the home church; she didn’t intend to be so critical; knew that side of her sometimes pushed people away; couldn’t help herself though when she saw something that needed correcting.
Trading Dreams at Midnight Page 27
