by Byrne, Leigh
“Where’s your daddy?” Barbara asked.
“He’s gone to the grocery store.”
“Tuesday, what is your mother doing right now?”
“She’s crying and holding the pills.”
“Hand her the phone, tell her I want to speak to her. If she won’t talk to me, you’re going to have to run next door and get a neighbor for help while I call an ambulance. Now tell her everything I just said.”
I did as Aunt Barbara instructed. When I’d finished talking, Mama jerked the phone from my hand. As soon as she got the receiver to her ear, she said, “You don’t know how it is to lose a child. You don’t know, and you don’t care. Why do you act like you do?”
Right about then, I heard the front door open. Daddy was home. He walked into the bedroom carrying a white fast-food sack in one hand, and my milkshake in the other. “What’s going on in here?” he asked as he handed the milkshake and food to me.
“Mama is going to swallow all her sleeping pills!” I said.
He walked over and took the pills from her. “Tuesday, go to the kitchen and eat your supper with your brothers.”
THE STRANGER
IN MAMA’S
CLOTHES
10
It was Sunday morning, and Mama was still in bed. Daddy had gotten up early and driven to Nashville to go to church with Grandma Storm. I was at the kitchen table, in a morning daze, shoveling Rice Krispies into my mouth.
Nick was sitting across from me, slicing a banana over his cereal. “You look like you have popcorn balls in your cheeks,” he said.
“Who, me?” I asked, glaring at the sunlight reflecting off the silver flecks in the linoleum tabletop.
He pointed the butter knife he had in his hand at Jimmy D., who was beside me. “No, him.”
I looked at Jimmy D., his cheeks bulging with cereal. Milk was oozing out of his lips and running down his chin. “You do look like you have popcorn balls in your cheeks!”
Jimmy D. got tickled, and blew milk and bits of Rice Krispies through his mouth and nose onto Nick’s face.
I cracked up.
That’s when I heard Mama calling out from her bedroom. “Tuesday!” she yelled in her gravelly morning voice. “Tuesday!” she called out again, this time more insistent. “Come here now!”
I put my spoon down beside my bowl of cereal, wiped the milk from my mouth on the front of my pajamas, and ran down the hall to her bedroom.
When I got there, she was sitting up in the bed. She had just woken from a hard sleep. I could tell from the deep creases in the side of her face.
I bounced up to her and sat down. “What do you want, Mama?”
“I don’t know what you’re so happy about, young lady, because you’re in big trouble!”
Springing up, I started backpedaling and searching my memory for something I might have done to upset her.
I couldn’t remember doing any of the usual things that got me into trouble, like running in the house, or fighting with my brothers, and my school grades were good. But it was obvious she was mad about something. I could see the rage in her face, hear it in her voice.
I stood before her, nervous, and suddenly cold from the wet spot where I’d wiped milk on my pajamas. “Why, Mama, what did I do wrong?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, girl! You know exactly what you did!” she said in a growly tone she had never used with me before. “As punishment I want you to stand in the hallway with your face to the wall.” From her bed she pointed to an area between two doorways right outside her room. “Stay there until I say you can move.”
While I stood with my face to the wall, I continued to try to figure out what mysterious bad thing I had done. And all I could come up with was the time I’d let Audrey chew my bubblegum. I knew if Mama found out there was a possibility I’d given Audrey the flu that killed her, she would certainly be mad. But there was no way she could have found out, unless Audrey had told her before she died.
Suddenly Mama leaped from her bed and ran into the hallway where I was. She grabbed me by both of my shoulders and spun me around, facing her. “Why did it have to be my angel?” she screamed. “Why Audrey?”
“I don’t know, Mama,” I screamed back at her. “I don’t know!”
She shook me back and forth. “Tell me! Tell me why, why, Tuesday, why?”
It was the last time she ever said my name.
11
I thought my face to the wall punishment would last only a few minutes, and then I would go back into the kitchen and finish my breakfast. But a few minutes turned to hours, and I ended up staying there for the rest of the day, until it was time for me to go to bed.
The next day the radical change in Mama’s attitude toward me continued. She went from asking me to stay by her side, in a seemingly protective way, to demanding I be within her sight at all times, as if she didn’t trust me. And she no longer wanted me close to her, by her bed, but rather in the hallway outside her room, positioned so she could watch me.
She wouldn’t tell me why she was angry. She would say only that I had done something so horrible, she couldn’t even bear to talk about it, and that I needed to be punished for what I’d done. She said the punishment she had chosen was to stand with my face turned to the wall in the hall outside her bedroom door, and not to speak unless she asked me a question.
As soon as I got up every morning, she ordered me to stand in the same place, in the same position, and that’s where I remained until it was time to go to bed. I ate my meals in the hall. If I had to go to the bathroom, I asked for permission, and she went with me. When she felt well enough to venture out of her bed and do a few things around the house, she took me with her. She said she had to make sure I didn’t do anything else.
Once Nick passed by me on his way to the bathroom, and asked me what I was doing standing there. “I don’t know,” I told him. “Mama said I did something bad, but I can’t remember what it was, and she won’t tell me.”
“Leave her alone,” Mama shouted from her bedroom when she saw us talking. “She’s being punished.”
Nick didn’t try to challenge her. Since her accident, he and Jimmy D. had trod softly around her and indulged her every whim, no matter how outrageous. I was afraid to say anything too, afraid she would lash out at me again, and ask more questions about Audrey, questions I couldn’t, or didn’t, want to answer.
With each passing day Mama isolated me from my brothers more and more. It got to where whenever one of them passed by me in the hallway, they promptly turned away like they were afraid if they looked too long, or got too close, they might catch whatever it was I had that made me different, made me bad.
Somehow they were able to separate the way she treated me from the world they lived in with her. Every now and then I caught Jimmy D. staring at me with something resembling pity in his eyes. It was a far-removed emotion, though, the way one might look at a poster of a starving third-world child. Like he felt sad and guilty to see my suffering, but there was nothing he could do about it. I sensed he wanted to help me, but his sympathy and good intentions were always overshadowed, both by his fear of Mama and his great love for her.
Staring at the blank wall, I listened to my brothers’ distant voices as they played, straining to hear fragments of their con versations, to in some way remain part of their lives. I wanted desperately to be near them, but it was impossible because now I wasn’t allowed speak to them, or to even look their way. Mama had become adamant about this rule. She warned us—no communication at all, and we knew she meant it. We could see it in her eyes; if we disobeyed her, there would be fiery hell to pay.
12
When it was time for me to return to school in September, I was sure my life would get back to normal. But it didn’t. Every day as soon as I got home, Mama met me at the door and ordered me to go to my usual spot outside her bedroom, and stand with my face to the wall.
One afternoon she decided she would get up and prepare a fried chicke
n supper for the family. She had me follow her to the kitchen, and stand behind her, across the room facing the wall.
When I was sure she was busy at the stove, I took a chance and turned around so I could see her. I knew I’d be in trouble if she caught me, but I loved watching her cook. To me, it was like wizardry when she lifted the lids from the pans and the puffs of steam rose. She could perform wondrous acts in the kitchen, like turn grease into gravy, or put a liquid batter in the oven, and minutes later pull out a cake.
She looked good that day, almost like before her accident. She had changed out of her gown into snug black pants and a simple, peach, button-down blouse that she’d tied up in a high knot around her waist. She could get by with dressing a bit on the sexy side, because even after four kids, she had kept her tiny waist and her full, taut bottom.
Daddy said she’d been built even better when they first starting dating. “I could put my hands completely around her waist with room to spare,” he had once said proudly, as he formed a circle in the air with his long fingers. “I was the envy of every man in town. Every guy I knew wanted to go out with Rosie, but she picked me.”
The air in the tiny kitchen was dense with steam, and rich with the scent of Mama’s cooking. I inhaled deeply and took in her every movement. She jabbed a chicken leg with a fork, suspended it above the frying pan to allow some of the grease to drain, and then transferred it onto a plate lined with paper towels.
She made the best fried chicken. It was super crunchy with a hint of sweetness, and the batter had a spicy kick to it. Daddy claimed it was the best in Spring Hill, if not in entire the state of Tennessee. She used a family recipe passed down from her grandmother, to her mother, to her, that was so sacred, no one had ever written it down. She’d let me help her make chicken before, and I knew she dipped it in buttermilk, and double-battered it, but even I didn’t know the secret spices. She had promised to tell me someday.
Piece by piece, she pulled all the fried chicken from the pan, and then she scraped the crusty bits of batter that had stuck to the bottom, preparing to make the gravy from the drippings. She scooped some flour out of a canister and sprinkled it into the pan, and the hot grease hissed. When she added cold milk, it purred.
While the gravy simmered, she whipped up some cornbread batter and then dumped it into a cast-iron skillet. As she was bending over to put the cornbread into the oven to bake, something, possibly a small sound, or maybe the curious, uneasy sensation you get when you think someone is watching you, made her turn around.
Quickly I turned my face to the wall again. But it was too late; I had already been caught. I heard the oven door slam, and in the next instant, felt the hair on one side of my head being pulled. I saw the brown specks in the floor rushing toward me, and then my cheek smacked hard against cold linoleum.
“Weren’t you supposed to have your face turned to the wall?” she asked.
I didn’t answer her; I was too stunned from the fall. But when she started for me again, I somehow found the words. “Yes, Mama! Yes!”
She reached down and grabbed me by the hair again, this time with both her hands, one on each side of my head, and lifted me up from the floor. I could hear my scalp crunching as she drew me in to her, close, until my nose was almost touching hers, until I could feel her breath, hot and moist on my skin. “Well, then, why were you watching me?”
“I love you, Mama! Please don’t be mad at me anymore!”
“Since you like watching me so much, do it now!” she screamed. The veins in her temple turned purple and bulged, as if they might burst at any minute.
As she held me there in front of her, with my face less than an inch from hers, my legs dangling, I looked into her amber eyes, and they reminded me of the eyes of a lioness. I was so scared I began to shake all over. “Let me down!” I pleaded. “I’m sorry, Mama, I won’t do it again!”
She dropped me to the floor. “You’re damn right, you won’t do it again.” she said, plucking strands of my hair from between her fingers.
She stood and stared at me for a minute, and then said, “Do you want to know what you really did wrong?” Her voice was husky, and her jaw was clenched so tight she had to squeeze the words through her teeth. “You were born, that’s what!”
She kicked me in the side, and a wave of nausea shot through my body. I saw her pull her leg back to kick me again. I coiled into a ball, tucked my head and knees in to my chest, and tensed all my muscles.
“On top of that, you were born ugly!” She kicked me and screamed, “Go away! Why won’t you just go away?”
With every thrust of her foot, my body rocked, and then slid, rocked and slid across the kitchen, inches at a time. Finally, my back hit the table, toppling a bowl of wax fruit onto the floor. Apples, pears, and bananas bounced all around me, sending hollow echoes through the room.
All of a sudden, she spun around on one heel, and marched toward the back door. I pulled my body in tight, into the hardest ball I could manage and watched, as in a single, swift motion, she lifted the flyswatter from its hook by the door, and with the wire handle first, reared it behind her head, and made a running lunge for me.
Instinctively I brought my hands up to protect my face. I felt the wire slice across my forearms. I pushed one hand forward to block the next blow, leaving part of my face exposed. The wire hit my mouth, and I screamed.
As if my screaming had enraged her even more, she broke into a barrage of blows. The flyswatter came at me from every direction, landing on my shoulders, back, and arms. I rolled from side to side, trying to find some padding to put between me and the wire, but I was a skinny kid, and no matter where it landed, it hit bone.
The blows tapered off. She gave the last two everything she had left. “I hate you!” She spat the words as if they tasted bitter on her tongue. “I wish you’d never been born! If you’d never been born, my angel would still be alive!”
Finally, there it was—the reason for her anger toward me. I uncovered my eyes. “What?” I asked.
She stood over me looking at the flyswatter in her hand, now bent in half, as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there. “You heard me. Now get out of my sight!” she yelled. “Go to bed…and stay there until I say you can get up!”
I scrambled to my knees and scooted across the kitchen toward my bedroom. As I bent forward I felt something wet and warm oozing through the crevice of my lips. A red drop splattered the floor in front of me. I wiped it up with my hand, and caught another before it landed.
When I made it to my room, I stood and ran to my bed and got in. Mama slammed the door shut behind me.
With my fingers I gently explored the tender, puffy tissue of my mouth until I found the source of the blood, a small slit in the fleshy part of my upper lip. I wiped my face and chin on the inside of my shirt collar until the bleeding stopped.
As I lay there, I tried not to think about what had happened in the kitchen. But every time I shut my eyes to sleep, my mind deceived me. Mama’s angry face, and the sound of the wire thrashing against my bones, flashed through my head over and over like scenes from a scary movie.
I tried to reason it away, to convince myself that she was only angry, and hadn’t meant it when she said she hated me. Since the accident, she was more easily riled. I had grown accustomed—we’d all grown accustomed—to her frequent fits. I calmed down by thinking her rage had spurned her hateful words, not her heart, and that she would never say such mean things to me again.
Had it not been for what she said, I may have stored the entire incident away somewhere deep in my subconscious, unprocessed. With time it may have even faded into history. But what she had said changed everything. It was proof she thought I was the one to blame for Audrey’s death, and the reason why she had been punishing me.
I defended myself, to myself. I wasn’t the only one in the house who had the flu. How is she sure it was my fault Audrey got sick? Does she know about the bubblegum? If she does, how did she find out? Did she
see it on the nightstand and figure it out for herself? Did Audrey rat on me before she died?
I tossed and turned in bed. None of it matters anyway because even if I did kill Audrey, it wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t know for sure I had the flu. When Mama gets over her anger and pain, she will realize the truth and forgive me, like she did with Jacque. But what is the truth? Is the truth that I wanted Audrey dead, and then made it happen? That whether I meant to or not, it’s still because of me that she’s gone?
Mama called out that supper was ready, and the boys ran past my room on their way to the kitchen. I heard their chairs drag across the floor when they sat at the table. Daddy would not be eating with the family, because he was working late. His job as coach of the Spring Hill High School football team often called him away at night to attend ball practices and games.
Soon I heard forks scraping against plates, and ice rattling around in glasses, as Mama and the boys ate their supper. I pictured the platter of fried chicken piled high with crispy wings, thighs, and breasts, glistening with salt and grease, and the mound of mashed potatoes with creamy milk gravy. My stomach ached and rumbled, begging for food.
To get my mind off of eating, I looked around my room, and was struck by how empty it had become. For the past couple of weeks, since Mama had become mad at me, I had noticed my toys had begun to disappear. My Barbie dolls were the first to go, then one by one my troll collection.
As the room darkened, my eyes were drawn to the few glints of sun escaping the blinds of the window. I stared at the slivers of light and watched them grow dim and then finally disappear. Gradually the smell of Mama’s fried chicken was gone too, and I knew with it went my chances of getting anything to eat.
In the dark I listened to all the usual sounds the family made in the evenings: Mama gathering and washing the supper dishes, my brothers scuffling around in their bedroom.
