My mind was more and more with my mother. What is she doing right now? Is she thinking of me? What could I do today that she’d like to hear about later?
At first, I loved the secrecy. I liked the yearning—how waiting to be together built to something almost unbearable. But something had changed. It began to prick at me—how our time was always cut short at its height. I’d become more reckless about seeing her, standing near her door midday, tiptoeing downstairs before I was sure Dad was asleep. I read the books she gave me in broad daylight, left my notebook of clues lying about. I was no longer satisfied seeing Momma here and there in the middle of the night; I wanted her in my daily life.
And I had a plan. Every time I passed Phil’s room and found it empty, I stole a coin from his silver dollar collection. I didn’t feel guilty about taking his coins because he no longer counted them or added any new ones. When I began taking them, the box was so full it wouldn’t latch. Now I could see the bottom.
I’D SPENT MOST OF my effort on the cover page of my report, and that was because reading Momma’s book had become painful. Even on the first page, I got stuck on words like “statisticians” and “Freudian sophistication.” The story picked up with girls eating chalk to stay thin—if I wasn’t already so skinny, I would have tried it myself—but after that, the book became dull again, so dull that whenever I opened it, the words swam around on the page, and I couldn’t make myself read them in the right order.
“Mr. Woodson?” I loved standing by his desk.
“What do you have there, Tillie?”
“The Feminine Mystique. It’s taking me longer to do my report than I thought.”
Mr. Woodson put his long fingers on the cover of the book.
“And I was wondering if maybe I can just do the chapter on ‘The Forfeited Self.’”
“Tillie.” He said it quietly. He didn’t say anything else for a long time. His brown shoes sighed up and down as his toes curled inside of them. “I was hoping you would choose a book that you could discuss with your peers. I wanted you to pick something all your own and have fun with it.”
“I’m having fun.” I showed him a smile, but was pretty certain it was the kind I gave the camera—a look that said, Quick! I can’t hold it much longer.
Mr. Woodson leaned over and put his elbows on his legs. His face was beautiful up close. I’d never looked at it straight-on before. “Please tell me who gave you this book.”
“My mother.”
“Your mother.” Mr. Woodson took a deep breath. “Tillie, I have never met your mother. Does she live with you?”
I said nothing. How could I? If I told about our time together in the middle of the night, if I told him how I snuck food to her and we spoke in whispers so Dad wouldn’t hear us, he might call my home. And if he did, Momma would be in danger.
Mr. Woodson breathed in deep again, held it there, and after a long while, his breath came through his nostrils, smelling like coffee. “Sometimes,” he said, “I feel like the Tillie I know doesn’t come to my class anymore.”
He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but he hadn’t asked a question, or not one that I understood, so I just watched him tap his fingertips together. I liked his hands, which were brown on the back and pink underneath. “Tillie,” he finally said, “don’t get lost. Don’t lose that thing you have.”
“Thing?”
“Forget the book report. What happened to your poetry?”
“You like my poems?”
“I think you’ll make a very fine writer some day.”
He palmed the top of my head like a basketball, and left his hand there as I counted to seven in my head. I wished he’d kept it there longer, at least so I could have counted to an even ten.
I SCOURED MY ROOM until I found the pages of watercolored poems I’d created two months earlier. I’d chosen colors I preferred more than real life: magenta skies, lime green trees, pink-and-orange checkered birds. I had written those poems the day I had my fever, the day I discovered my mother. I turned page after page of wrinkled papers and found where I’d ripped out the poem I’d given her about the moon.
The last page was a painting of the ladybugs I knew so well from the days Momma didn’t wake up. I knew all their shades of red—some deep, some faded like fabric left out in the sun. I knew how they could unlock their red shells and release the little wings that were sheer as black pantyhose. I must have drawn a hundred of them here: red blobs with the paintbrush, not bothering to make them into circles. The black spots were sometimes on their shells and sometimes just nearby, as if I’d been painting too fast to care.
At the bottom of the paper was an arrow. And when I turned the page over, I discovered a note from my teacher that I hadn’t noticed before: What I know about the young poet, Tillie Harris: She signs autographs. She knows about dandelions, Darwin, and Denmark. She laughs with her whole face.
When I read this, I felt the way I did with Momma—important, noticed—and I decided: This is the day. This is the day I’ll free my mother. We’d escape to who-knows-where, she’d read to me from her books, and tuck me in somewhere far from here.
• • •
Outside, Dad pushed the reel mower across our lawn, mowing squares inside of squares, with a rhythmic Cha cha cha. Cha cha cha.
In the old house, I’d sit on the porch while he mowed, and whenever he came close, I’d ask him a question: Why is the sky blue? Always, he gave a long, scientific answer before mowing another square. When he came close again, I had another: Where does the sky end and space begin? His answers, which I paid almost no attention to, made me giggle, simply because I’d found a way to get his attention. If the earth is round, why don’t the people living on the bottom fall off? And why aren’t they upside down? At some point, he’d call me “Pest,” and a smile would spread across my face.
When my father got to that final strip of grass, the very middle of all of those squares, he’d stop. That was my cue to hold the handle of the mower myself. And because I was not strong enough to push it without his help, he stood behind me, his hands on the outside edges of the handles, and we’d walk the last strip together. That was a long time ago.
I stood by the screen door, hands in my pockets, where I fingered the last of Phil’s silver dollars. My plan was almost ready. To my father, this was just a day like any other with ground beef thawing on the counter for dinner and a call placed to the dentist. He’d made an appointment for Phil to have the silver cap replaced with porcelain, something I was curious to see, but Momma and I would be long gone by then.
While my father mowed smaller and smaller squares, I snuck to his room and slipped his car key off the wicker table. Then, for no reason except curiosity, a good-bye, maybe, I opened his closet to see everything so tidy: shoes lined up in pairs, ironed slacks hung over hangers. I would be leaving behind this orderly world with rules for how everything must be done.
I rummaged through his drawers next, and beneath his socks I found handfuls of medals he’d won, and behind those, the pitiful doll I’d made for him last Christmas, along with old cards I’d written even before we moved here: happy father’s day, best dad. I didn’t know he’d saved them, and something ached where I didn’t expect.
As I stood back at the screen door again, seeing that Dad had finished mowing and now wiped the blades dry with a hand towel, I reminded myself: He wasn’t the same man. I felt the coins in one pocket, the key in the other, knowing I couldn’t stay in two worlds any longer.
21
Silver Dollars
PHIL, WHO NOW EXERCISED dutifully before bed, curled weights to his chest, fifty reps on each arm, grunting with every one of them. Dad washed the last of the dinnerware, closed the creaky door to the dishwasher, then emptied his pockets onto the wicker table beside his bed. These were the sounds to listen for as our family called it a day.
Sitting on my bed in the dark, I counted the silver dollars, passing them one at a time from my right hand to my le
ft, waiting for the quiet. My clothes pinched at the waist, and I couldn’t bend my knees very far because I’d dressed in layers—my biggest pair of jeans over pajama bottoms over shorts, and on top, a t-shirt and pullover sweatshirt—so when we made our escape, I’d have a change of clothes. I loaded the coins, my dad’s car key, and the butter knife into the pouchlike pocket on the front of my sweatshirt, and when I was certain Dad was asleep, I walked stiff-legged down the stairs.
Each step clanked, just slightly, but I was so jittery, I couldn’t slow myself down. I’d had enough of my father’s gray world. I slowed past his room, remembering the sock doll in his drawer, knowing that when I left him behind I would have to leave the good as well. I breathed in, held it tight, and kept going around the corner. Down the last flight of stairs, a coin dropped from my pocket and landed with a loud plink before bouncing to another step. I started to bend down to find it when I barely caught the others from sliding out the same way. I had to leave it and go on.
As always, I turned the knife in the keyhole, but this time I paused. The doubt had crept in: Phil calling me crazy the night I found Momma, Hope calling me a liar as we stood outside the secret room, Mr. Woodson telling me I had a tremendous imagination.
I’d been in trouble so often for talking to myself, for simply disappearing. An entire class could go by in school and I wouldn’t remember any of it. A knot formed in my gut as I wondered, Could I have imagined everything?
And then a tougher question: Could I possibly survive going back to my room, just lying there with my eyes on the ceiling tiles, letting tomorrow be the same as today?
More certain than ever, I turned the knife just a little more until I felt the lock release. I pushed on the door, entered the blue glow, and there she was. My muscles relaxed, and I let out my breath.
“Momma,” I whispered, closing the door only partway. “I have good news.”
She leaned against her usual side of the couch, but tonight she had a jewelry box and other trinkets spread across the cushions. “Try something on,” she said, holding out a satin-lined box filled with costume jewelry.
When I reached for bracelets and clip-on earrings, she dabbed perfume behind my ears.
“Take another,” she said, pointing to a bracelet. “When you dress up, your jewelry should make a little jingle.”
I grabbed the first thing I touched, anxious to get going. “I have a plan,” I said, trying to sit beside her, but my pants were so tight I couldn’t bend in the middle. I stood up again. “It’s something that’s going to make you very happy.”
“What’s this plan you’re talking about?” she asked, rummaging in a pile beside her, tossing colorful scarves, shawls, and hats my way.
The way she said “plan” showed that she didn’t understand. I wasn’t talking about a simple to-do list or homework strategies. This was about escape, about changing our lives. I pulled a silk shawl over my shoulders, feeling the coins shift to the other side of my pocket.
“Let’s just say it’s the best night of all for us to dress up.” In fact, it was perfect—making our escape a real celebration.
She smiled and put a beret on her head and a handful of bracelets over her wrist so they lined her entire forearm. She put on every scarf and necklace I passed her.
Once we were dressed, I paraded in my shawl, taking long, dramatic steps like a model. She laughed again, but it was the empty kind of laughter that meant she was tired. “I think it’s time for bed,” she said.
“No! My plan. Remember?” I pushed both hands in my pocket, searching for the key.
“Tillie, it’s late. We’ll do this another time.”
“But you don’t understand.” I fumbled more furiously, not feeling the key. “Wait,” I said, getting on my hands and knees, patting the floor for it. “This will just take a second.”
With poor lighting and impatient fingers, I felt along the ground, moving scarves and hats out of my way, when I heard more coins fall. I growled in frustration, and the silence that followed made me realize how very loud I’d been—and foolish. We’d have to hurry.
I recovered what coins I could, then patted the floor more frantically until I finally found the key, which I held up to show Momma. Her eyes were wet as if she suddenly understood I’d come to save her. It was the kind of beautiful moment to stop and enjoy if we had the time, but there wasn’t a minute to spare.
“Come on,” I said, reaching for her wrists, not letting the key go this time. I didn’t mean to shout, and didn’t mean to grab her so hard, but once I did, I wouldn’t let go.
“You’re hurting me,” she said as I walked backward, pulling her off the couch and toward the door, the key digging into my hand and her arm.
“We have to hurry.” I didn’t have time to explain and could hardly speak my teeth were chattering so much. We could talk in the car.
“Don’t be scared,” I said. It was an expression I knew people used when you have every reason to be scared—an attempt to trick your mind into bravery, though you hear footsteps upstairs.
We didn’t have far to go, but we had to be quick, and I needed her to walk with me instead of pulling back. I turned to give her a reassuring smile, one that said, Please don’t be nervous. I’ve thought this through. But beneath the beret and scarf and dangling jewels, the troubled expression on her face quickly grew to one of alarm.
I could feel the danger in the room, and turned to face the dark shape filling the doorway.
My father.
He stood there in his briefs and his thin undershirt, blocking the door. And a strange sensation worked its way from my stomach to my throat.
My ears thumped with the sound of my pulse as he stepped into the room and flipped on the overhead switch. The harsh light revealed a mess of open drawers, clothes, and soda cans thrown everywhere, and my mother in the middle of it all, white and startled. My father seemed to mouth, “Quiet!” And when the sound returned, I heard my own voice—high-pitched, desperate—and realized I’d been screaming the whole time.
When I stopped screaming, in the awful silence that seemed to go on and on, I reached for Momma, not sure when I had let her go. And standing just too far away, I swiped at the air, my bracelets clinking together. I tried again, finally grabbing hold of her sleeve.
“I found her!” I shouted. “I found her, and we’re leaving right now!”
More footsteps overhead, and soon Phil rushed down the stairs and stopped short on the landing, where he stood with his arms limp. There was no way to know what he was thinking or feeling except for it was a lot of something, and he was not letting it out.
“Tillie, you’re confused,” Dad said.
I shook my head back and forth until I felt lightheaded, hoping to shut out his words.
“Tillie, get a hold of yourself,” he said.
And I didn’t want him to tell me that my mother wasn’t here. He couldn’t take her from me again. He tried to grab my hand but I pulled it away, hysterical and thrashing. “Stop him, Phil! He’s going to kill us!”
Phil, on the landing, did not move. There was only the sound of us panting, until he spoke—only a whisper. “Someone tell me what Mom’s doing here.”
MAY 29, 1991, 2:30 PM
MY UNDERWEAR, SOAKED WITH amniotic fluid, drips in a trail until the nurse who’s been kind to me lowers me into a wheelchair. She spreads a blanket across my wet lap and we’re wheeling fast down a hallway, past the numbered rooms and lines of cranky, coughing patients.
A powerful contraction grabs my lower back and squeezes forward, but this time it stings so deep at the base of my spine I start to hyperventilate.
“Take a slow breath if you can,” the nurse says.
And I choke trying, my eyes watering with the pain.
“Slow breath out,” she says.
“I can’t have this baby!” I say, gasping. “I’m not due yet. You have to stop the labor!”
“I’ll take her from here.” This new nurse is all business
, and I feel the panic of losing my only sympathetic ear.
Before she’s gone, the one I like whispers, “I’ll check on you after my shift,” and I’m wheeled away, down another corridor.
“Please! I’m not ready. Someone listen to me.”
We stop at the closed elevator. “Honey, you may not be ready, but the baby is,” the nurse says, and drops a rubber band into my lap. “I suggest you tie your hair up while there’s time.”
The doors open, and we roll inside, my belly tightening again, and I start to pant.
“One slow breath,” she says. “Remember your Lamaze class. You practiced the breathing techniques, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I practiced them. When it didn’t hurt!”
What we’d prepared for sounded so peaceful. Almost romantic. Simon had planned to rub my back, and feed me ice chips. We were going to play classical music. We were going to pick out a boy’s name and a girl’s name. He was going to hold my hand throughout.
The nurse puts her hand firmly on my wrist, and I jerk my arm away from her, shouting, “I can’t have this baby! I’m not ready!”
Someone’s finger presses the number three, as if I’m just some crazy person talking to myself in the corner. When the doors shut, I hear the nurse whisper to another, “We may need the social worker on this one,” which is all wrong. She’s not understanding. Simon would never put up with people talking to me like this.
“Tillie.” My father’s voice comes from the back of the elevator.
“Oh, God, what are you doing here?” I crumble into tears.
“Tillie, don’t get yourself worked up,” he says.
Up from the Blue Page 16