Genesis Begins Again

by Alicia D. Williams

  But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even raise his head. He swipes his hand down his face and breathes out, “Naw, I got nothin’ to say.”

  Nothing to say? Nothing? Mama’s now looking at me like I’m the guilty one. Yes, it was wrong of me to go to Dad’s job. And yeah, it was stupid of me to lie about it. But she doesn’t even care why I went. And now, her eyes bear down on me, and I can’t take it. Doesn’t she see I was only trying to solve our problems? Doesn’t she see how tired I am of having to move and make new friends over and over again? So tired of keeping secrets—Dad’s secrets, hers, and mine.

  Well, I’m done with that. I’m not even aware of what I’m about to say, the words just tumble out. “And it was me who poured out Dad’s booze.”

  “I should’ve known,” Dad groans.

  Mama cocks her head, as if trying to decode what I just said. “You?” Then her face goes furious. “You let me go through all that with your father and didn’t say a word? Not one word?!?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I thought that if I got rid of it, then he’d stop—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Mama yells. “Can’t anyone tell the truth in this house?!”

  The truth? And then I can’t stop. If not for me, then for Mama. She’s dreaming of planting periwinkles and going back to school, and she’s clueless that Dad’s about to snatch those dreams away. Again. She deserves the truth.

  And Dad. He’s so mad, steam might as well be spouting from his ears. He’s going on about me being punished and needing to take responsibility. But him? When he gets in trouble, nothing happens. And I’ve covered for him. I didn’t say one word about him smoking inside the house, did I? Or about the notices from Todd. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. But Dad doesn’t deserve me keeping his secrets. Not any longer.

  “But, Mama?”

  Mama’s looking wild. “Better not say nothin’ that’ll get you in more trouble,” Dad warns.

  More trouble? I know he’s right; what I want to say will be trouble for us all. But Mama’s right too—it’s time for the truth.

  “Mama.” I try to be strong, I really do. So I blurt, “Dad doesn’t have a job. I found out when I went up there.”

  Dad’s eyes narrow. “Genesis, shut up now,” he orders.

  It takes all of twenty seconds for the news to register in Mama’s brain. Then she goes ballistic, swings toward Dad. “You don’t have a JOB?”

  “Baby, listen—”

  “You don’t HAVE A JOB?”

  “It’s not what you think—”

  “YOU DON’T HAVE A JOB?!” Mama screams, and I swear she’s about to throw something. “Where in the—what have you—when were you—” Mama can’t even get one question finished before another barrels up.

  Dad tries begging, but Mama’s not hearing it. “They gave that promotion to somebody else—somebody I trained! What did you expect me to do?” Dad’s excuses keep coming, until finally, he grabs his jacket and says, “I ain’t gotta go through this.”

  Mama and I stay where we stand until the engine’s roar fades. And without saying a word, Mama wraps her arms around me. Then everything—from this last month—hits me. Me pouring out the liquor, hiding Todd’s notes, Dad’s secrets, his sadness about Charlie’s death, Grandma’s sister, the brown bag, the lemons, the yogurt, and the bleach. So many secrets. So many. And I let go.

  Ever notice how crying wears you out? Like really, if you’ve ever cried hard and long, afterward all you wanna do is sleep. Maybe that’s why babies are always sleeping. And on Saturday that was me, like a baby, knocked out. Mama was dragging around drained too. And you can about guess that after walking out, Dad didn’t make an appearance for the rest of the weekend. You know what’s a trip? You’d think Mama would’ve drilled me with more questions, rehashing every single detail. But no, it was a lot of quiet in the house. Like, thinking quiet. No, a kinda scary quiet. The kinda quiet that made me keep questioning . . . What did I do? What’s gonna happen now?

  Needless to say, Monday morning I’m too distracted to volunteer to read my paragraph on what the author is emphasizing, yet Ms. Luctenburg calls on me. Then in PE, I’m too wiped to do push-ups, and I’m forced to tune out Coach’s barks to dig deeper. And by the time I get to math, well, you already know there’s no chance of me untangling an algorithm when my own mind is gnarled in tangles.

  And what’s also not on my mind is Yvette’s and Belinda’s offer. I’m reminded of it when I see them at their lockers. When they first asked, I was so hype imagining Dad seeing me onstage with them. Who knows if that’ll even happen now? Stop it, brain! Gosh, do I sound hopeless or what? Yvette and Belinda are laughing, smearing on lip gloss, and looking like nothing but rays of hope. Shoot, this might be my one chance ever to rock a stage with a crew. So I shove my funky mood aside, go straight up to them, and say, “I’m in.”

  “Cool!” Belinda smiles big.

  “Yeah, cool,” Yvette says, busy puckering her lips, snapping a selfie.

  And heck, why not go all in and do it big, right? So I ask, “Will you still do my hair?”

  “Well, yeah! We can’t have you in our group looking janky.” Yvette laughs at her own joke, which doesn’t sound like a real joke. “It’s going to be so stinking cute!”

  And you know what? I’m starting to feel a little bit excited again. I won’t have a shirt draped over my head—I’ll be performing, in a hot dress, hair swaying down my back, and fans screaming our names. Well, maybe not that. But close enough. Which is way better than nothing.

  When I meet up with Sophia after school, I gently break the news to her. Sure enough, she thinks they’re using me, just like Jason. But what she doesn’t get is that with them, I’m guaranteed to win.

  Sophia grasps my arm, stopping me in the middle of the sidewalk. “Did you even stop to think about it first?” She unzips her jacket.

  “It’s just so much going on, Sophe. And me learning a song and creating a routine, in, like, barely a week, well, it’s just too much.”

  Sophia zips up her jacket.

  “I wasn’t even going to audition in the first place,” I remind her.

  We continue on. She unzips her jacket.

  “Plus, it’s scary up there on that stage, with all the lights,” I say, regurgitating Belinda’s words.

  She zips her jacket.

  “Since I’m new they’re going to like, ease me into it, you know.”

  “Funny . . . ,” Sophia says at last. “I thought you were from big bad Detroit.”

  “I am. But it’s not like I was going to win, anyway.”

  “You don’t know that.” She unzips.

  “Yes, I do. You saw them; they were super good.” She zips. Then unzips. “Would you please stop with the zipping?”

  She stops. Her fingers hang loosely on the zipper. “I didn’t know it bothered you so much.”

  “It doesn’t. I didn’t mean it like that, Sophe.” My nerves are jangling. I calm myself before saying, “Call me stupid, but I thought you’d be excited for me.” Then I make my appeal to her. “Sophe, remember when we shared those secrets? And I told you the one about me singing in the mirror, with a shirt on my head?” Sophia nods. “Me, on the stage, looking beautiful and winning? That’s all I’ve ever wanted. But if it’s going to make you mad at me, then . . . then I’ll have to think twice about it, I guess.”

  Sophia zips her jacket up to her chin and stuffs her hands into her pockets. “If you’re joining them just to win, then yes, go ahead, join them. But I have to say, it’s people like Troy that you should learn from. He does it even though he knows he won’t win.”

  “Which is kind of silly,” I say jokingly.

  She raises one eyebrow. “Genesis, it’s not always about winning. You know that.”

  She’s right. It’s not always about winning, and yes, I know that. But Sophia can say that because she has a dad who takes her to carnivals, wants to sit beside her at dinner, kisses her forehead, and pays the rent. So I loo
k her straight in the eye. “Right now, for me, it’s only about winning.”

  twenty-six

  The oddest thing is happening at our house. Mama is in the front yard, planting flowers. We’re most likely getting evicted—and Mama’s planting flowers. I’m convinced she’s lost her mind.

  “Hey,” I say, standing over her. “Uhm . . . the flowers look good.”

  “Always wanted to plant periwinkles. Might as well do it now.” She pats the dirt around the stems. “Flowers, they don’t have to worry about a thing. They only need water, sun, pruning, sometimes a little talking to, and they’ll bloom so pretty.” She stands to face me. “You shouldn’t have worries either. Our grown-up mess has been your mess way too long. . . . You didn’t sign up for this . . . out here trying to be the parent, rescuing us. My baby girl, trying to rescue us!” Mama exhales. “How’d it get this bad?” She brushes her gloves off on her scrubs.

  I’m too stunned to utter a syllable. I finally say, “We’re moving, ain’t we?”

  She nods, vacantly. “Funny how you become what you fight so hard not to be.” Mama kneels back down to her flowers. “I never wanted to be one of those women who put their ‘man’ before their child. And you know, all this time I thought I was better than these types of women. I thought I was choosing family. Come to find out, I’m no different.”

  Mama just, wow, put it out there. ’Cause yes, I’ve been mad as heck for her seeming to always take Dad back so easily. I’m guilty of that too, to be honest. But truth, it means a lot to me that she’s had these thoughts swirling in her head. And just to clear my conscience totally, I apologize again. Because I am sorry. For lying. For hiding the late notices. For catching the bus to Dad’s job. Just sorry for a whole lot of things.

  Mama apologizes too, for not listening to me. And that I should be a kid, and let her be the grown-up, even though that means she’ll have to delay going back to school. “It’ll work out,” she says, digging a small hole. She points the trowel at me when the holes are a few inches deep. “You know, you’ve got guts, Genesis, getting on that bus like that. I had no clue you were that brave. . . . Guess you’re not a little girl anymore.” Mama squints up at me. “And I realize something . . . it’s time I stop being afraid.”

  Dad comes waltzing in after Mama and I already started eating dinner. We both look shocked when he asks, “What you cook?” as if he hadn’t been gone for nearly three days, as if this past weekend wasn’t out of control.

  “Beef stew,” Mama says, but she doesn’t rise to fix him a bowl.

  I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. I keep my eyes on my food.

  Dad goes to the sink, washes his hands, humming his mystery song, and I don’t care to even try to figure it out. He sets his bowl and spoon on the table and goes back for a glass of water. He sits, and out of the corner of my eyes I catch him watching us. I shift my spoon around in my stew, waiting. Because someone can’t take off for three days and come back without something happening. I wonder who’s going to go first—Mom or Dad.

  The beef stew isn’t spicy, but Dad’s forehead is sweaty. “Damn it, I can’t eat when it’s this quiet. Let’s get last Friday night straight. Genesis—”

  “Uh-uh, don’t you open a fresh wound ’less you’ve got a Band-Aid,” Mama cuts him off. “And there’s no reason to swear, either. If you wanna talk, talk, but don’t swear.”

  Clearly now speechless, he fills his gaping mouth with a spoonful of stew. Then he says, in between chews, “I’m just sayin’, it’s quieter than a graveyard in here. I come in, nobody asks how I’m doing or nothing.” He wipes his forehead with his napkin.

  Finally, Mama says dryly, “Fine. How you doing?”

  “Just dandy,” Dad says in a voice that says the opposite.

  Then Mama lays in. “So, you been going to those meetings or been lying about that, too?”

  Dad’s grip on his spoon tightens. “Those meetings ain’t for me.”

  “What do you mean those meetings ‘ain’t for you’? Who the hell do you think they’re for, Emory?” Mama’s no-swearing manners have left the table.

  “It’s for people who—how many times do I have to tell you, I don’t have a problem! Now, would you get off my back about it?” Dad’s really sweating now.

  “Are you serious, Emory?” She sets down her spoon, hard. “Every month we have to rob Peter to pay Paul! We’ve been put out four times! And now you don’t even have a job! How can you say you don’t have a problem?”

  “Okay, I messed up! But I don’t have a problem!” Dad shoves back from the table. The bowls jump. “It ain’t like I haven’t been trying. . . . You won’t even give me credit for getting this house!”

  “We ain’t got this house anymore,” I mumble.

  “Every time I turn around you nagging me about something.” Dad pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, slides one out, and goes through the ritual of tapping the end to shift the tobacco. He lights it, knowing that Mama’s asked him a hundred times to not smoke inside. “I’m telling you those meetings ain’t for me, and I don’t wanna hear no more about it.” He puts a final period on the conversation when he takes a long drag from the cigarette and blows out the smoke.

  “Fine.” Mama picks up her bowl, gets up from the table. Dad doesn’t hear Mama’s final period on the end of that word, but I do. She scrapes her food into the garbage disposal and turns it on. It’s not the grinding that sends chills through me, but Mama’s disposition. She kisses me on my forehead and tells me to clean the kitchen. Then she goes to take a shower. Dad doesn’t even go after her. He splits to watch TV. After I wash the last dish, wipe the counter, table, and stove, only then do I slip out to the back porch to sit on the top step. I want to be alone, but I’m afraid Dad’ll sneak up on me in my room again.

  Mama said she wished for a patio set for the summer. Wished. Grandma’s back porch ain’t too bad, I guess. Besides, it’s too quiet out here in stupid Farmington Hills anyway. No shouting, music, or honking. Nothing. Farmington Hills is missing all the friendly gossiping from the neighbors’ porches. The “What up, doe?” from the old men playing dominoes. There aren’t even any corner stores selling Better Made chips and Faygos out here. No Lou’s Deli serving thick corned beef sandwiches. Yeah, I’ll be okay going back to Detroit.

  I gaze at the sky. It seems like there’re a whole lot more stars out here than in the city. After a while, the back door opens. Then the flick of Dad’s lighter. Then the stink of his cigarette.

  “I was gonna pay the rent,” Dad mutters.

  Ha. More lies. Does he ever not lie? Earlier, Mama called me brave, but am I? If I were brave, I’d speak up. But it’s not in me to do so. Now my other self starts arguing. Brave. I am. So now I do use my voice. “Dad,” I start. “I want to . . . but I just don’t believe you. Not anymore.”

  Dad throws on his charm, as if he weren’t a roaring tiger last Friday. “Aw, don’t say that. ’Cause this time—”

  “Will you stop with the promises! I’m tired of ’em. We’re tired of ’em!” I say, throwing up my hands. They’re shaking, and I can’t get them to stop. Dad doesn’t attempt to sway me with more words. Does that mean he’s actually listening? After a minute I ask, “Why don’t you have a job, anyway?”

  He takes so long to answer that I figure he’s ignoring me, not listening after all. Then Dad puffs, blows, and says, “After all those years, now they talk like I wasn’t good enough for the position. Used words like ‘unreliable’ and ‘irresponsible.’ At the end of the day, I know the deal. It’s got nothing to do with me showing up late every now and then. It’s all about politics.”

  I almost get caught up in Dad’s anger, taking his side once again. And yet, being late, that’s being irresponsible, right? And he really hasn’t answered me, so I finally face him. “But why don’t you have a job still?”

  Dad stubs out his cigarette and immediately lights another. I swear people’ll think we lit the fireplace, with
all his smoking.

  “I told them to kiss my . . . well, you know.” He puts his cigarette on the edge of the wood railing and pulls out something from his back pocket. A bottle. I know the shape all too well. Crown Royal. He unscrews the cap and takes a long swig, then picks his cigarette back up.

  “You’re not gonna stop drinking, are you?”

  “Now, don’t you start,” Dad says exhaustedly. He tips the bottle to his lips and swallows. A lot.

  I won’t start. Not about that. Another question’s been lurking inside me, begging to know for five years now. It’s time to ask. Right now. “Dad? Why you choose alcohol . . . over me?”

  Dad doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even look at me. But he’s heard me, I’m sure of it.

  I stand up now, pressing, “Is it because I don’t look like Mama? Is that why?” He’s still not answering, but he hears ’cause I’m talking louder now. “You drink ’cause of me. Don’t you? You drink ’cause you hate me?”

  “I don’t!” Dad raises his voice, a little too loud for Farmington Hills. Lowering it, he continues, “It’s not that I hate you . . . but . . .” He starts to raise the bottle again but stops, and finally recaps it. “But it woulda been a lot easier. . . .”

  Easier? For what? To love me? Look at me? But he doesn’t finish. You wanna know the crazy part? I should be telling him about the talent show, and how I’ve been listening to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. He should be giving me advice whether to sing Jason’s hook. He should be making me feel like how Sophia’s dad makes her feel. But no, he just keeps right on smoking, and I go right ahead and tell myself I don’t care. Why can’t I not care?

  I can’t be out here another minute, not without breaking down. But I stop myself, because even though the tough inside me is crumbling—truth: I’m brave. I sang alone—onstage—and that means something, and doggone it, Dad needs to know that his daughter will be singing again. After all, he’s why I auditioned in the first place.

  “Dad?”

  “Genesis, I don’t know what else to—”