Knowing

by Rosalyn McMillan

  Reach Out, I’ll Be There

  Bill pressed his forehead on the white sheets, in near shock. Below him, Kim lay unconscious in the intensive care unit of Henry Ford Hospital. The prognosis was touch and go. But the team of doctors in the emergency room said that Kim was lucky she had used such a small pistol. She might not have made it to the hospital otherwise. However, the angle of the bullet’s entry suggested she might not regain all of her memory, if in fact she recovered at all.

  “Mama,” said Ginger, horror still in her voice, “is she gonna make it?” They stood watching Bill fight for Kim’s life through the glass casement. He hadn’t left her side since they’d wheeled her into the emergency room.

  Telephones rang endlessly outside the small cubicle. Nurses and doctors swished by hurriedly in their starched whites. Gurneys screeched by noisily, bumping and scraping against automatic doors, leaving black scuff marks along the aisle. The whooshing and beeping sounds from the respirator willing Kim back to life made Ginger dizzy.

  “The mystery of death is God, just like the mystery of birth is God. Trust in him, Ginger, and pray for Kim. She’s gonna make it,” said Katherine, her voice strong and filled with conviction. But even as she prayed for her niece, she knew in her heart that the Bible was clear on the taking of life. What had prompted Kim to do such a thing?

  Katherine had elected Ginger to clean up Kim’s apartment. Bill was grateful. He’d been swamped with messages from the clinic, even though he’d placed Sheila Little in charge of the small hospital, much to the chagrin of the other male psychiatrists. She was more than capable, and their short-lived romance had done nothing if not assure him that she was trustworthy. Meanwhile, he kept a day-and-night vigil with Kim, going home only to bathe and change his clothing.

  Nearly a week after the incident, Ginger hired a cleaning company to come in and clean the carpeting. Even after they’d finished, however, shadows of bloodstains were still evident. The answering machine was full of messages — at least five from Randall. Ginger did her best to call and calm the well-wishers who knew Kim was in the hospital, though the family wasn’t disclosing the nature of her illness. They explained that Kim had fainted from exhaustion and was recuperating in the hospital. It was a believable story. Most of her friends knew about her going to law school and running her newly formed financial corporation from her home, while preparing an elaborate wedding. They understood and pledged their services if needed.

  Ginger managed to contact one of Kim’s friends, Mabel, who still worked at Pierce-Walker, and hired her part time to keep Kim’s business from folding. Next, she contacted Wayne State University and talked to Kim’s professor, who said Kim might have to take an Incomplete if she missed too much time. He was very upset that his A student wouldn’t be back for a while, having nothing but the highest praise for his young protégée.

  Katherine stayed at Ginger’s for a week, watching the children and doing the chores that Ginger was unable to do while getting Kim’s affairs in order. Secretly, Katherine counted her blessings for the excuse. Detroit Edison had disconnected her electricity back at home. Being a proud woman, Katherine couldn’t tell her daughter that she only had three dollars to her name until she received her Social Security check in two weeks.

  Something struck Ginger about her mother. She seemed older. Different. And it wasn’t just because of Kim’s comatose state. It was personal. Slamming the cabinet doors, Ginger was seething as she moved around the kitchen. Tired. Hurt. She’d been through hell the past couple of weeks.

  “Telephone, Ma,” said Christian, who held his breath, catching the authoritative voice on the other end.

  “Yes,” said Ginger with a what-is-it-this-time? tone in her voice. Leaning over the snack bar in the kitchen, she rested her elbows on the lavender Formica.

  “Mrs. Carter, I’m Detective —”

  “Mrs. Montgomery, thank you.”

  “Sorry. My name is Detective Ritz from the Thirteenth Precinct.”

  “Has Jason gotten in trouble again?”

  “Ma’am? I’m not sure who Jason is, but I assure you —”

  “Then why are you calling me?” Ginger said, venom in her words.

  “Your daughter, Sierra Carter —”

  Ginger’s body sprang erect like a Slinky. “Sierra. Yes, that’s my daughter.” Her words jumbled. “Yes. I’m her mother. I don’t understand.”

  “Slow down a moment, Mrs. Montgomery. I’ll just take a few minutes of your time. I need you to bring your daughter down to the Thirteenth Precinct to discuss a complaint filed against her and three other young girls.”

  “What!”

  “The complaint was filed by Mr. and Mrs. Noble. The parents of Candice Noble.”

  “I still don’t understand, Detective Reese.”

  “Ritz. Detective Ritz. If you could bring Sierra down at around three-thirty Friday afternoon, I’m sure we can clear all this up.” He hesitated, then said, “We’re taking depositions from the four other girls as to the amount of damage done to the Nobles’ home.” He gave Ginger a quick assessment of the damage.

  Ginger mumbled something to the detective. The word damage stuck out in her mind. She felt damaged, but how would the detective know that?

  Sierra, her petite little baby. There must be some kind of mistake. Sierra wouldn’t dare do any of those things the detective described.

  The Nobles had filed a complaint against five girls who entered their home without permission, allegedly cutting up and destroying two outfits of Candice’s, a pair of orange leather jeans, and a rainbow-colored sequined slack outfit. The kitchen and downstairs bathroom carpeting were flooded by stopping up both sinks. Eggs were broken all over the kitchen carpeting and Ajax was strewn everywhere.

  Sierra and the girls faced four counts: two counts of breaking and entering, one count of malicious destruction of a building, and one count of petty larceny.

  Ginger thought she was losing her mind. Her twelve-year-old daughter might be placed on probation for a first offense. When Ginger called Katherine to explain what had happened, Katherine was speechless. Ginger hadn’t expected her mother to be so upset. She cried so on the phone that Ginger began crying herself. Afterwards, Ginger ran downstairs, her breathing still ragged, and tossed a frozen roast in the sink to thaw for dinner.

  “Hey, baby,” said Jackson, pinching her buttocks and planting a wet kiss on her lips.

  Ginger stiffened. Jackson hadn’t been this pleasant to her since the wedding. She was certain that he wanted something.

  “Just in time,” Jackson finished. Yanking the last can of V8 juice from its plastic harness, he shuffled through the cabinets, making himself a tuna sandwich with onions.

  Anger shot from the tips of Ginger’s toes to the crown of her head. She slammed the cabinet doors shut. “It looks like a hurricane’s been through here.” Her teeth razored against each other as she attempted to control it. “Can’t you ever close the damn doors around here?”

  He rolled his shoulders back as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “Baby, I’ve got half the garden picked. Think you could wash and freeze those first, before I bring in the rest of the collards?” Peeking into the refrigerator again, he picked up a bunch of grapes from the colander, dropping them one by one into his mouth.

  Ginger spun around, her eyes ablaze. “I don’t fucking believe you can possibly think I have the time or the inclination to blanch and freeze vegetables after all I’ve been through. Did it ever occur to you that your wife might be tired?”

  Jackson caught himself before calling her lazy. She knew it was time to pick the vegetables. Each year they always put away the garden for the fall. He hadn’t told her to take on all the added work of Kim’s business. Why couldn’t Bill handle it? Kim was his woman. Jackson wanted his woman to take care of his business at home. And if she couldn’t, he knew a woman who would. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it,” he said.

  Ginger had turned her back, pret
ending to take her vitamins as she geared up for a confrontation. But then he surprised her. Changed the rhythm. Had she heard him right? Okay, bucko, I got your number. They hadn’t made love since all the ruckus had started. Nearly two weeks. They never went that long when they weren’t mad at each other. That was it, he wanted sex. “Whatever,” was all she managed to say before a knowing smile formed on her lips.

  Later that afternoon, Jackson caught her just as she was making herself a soothing cup of tea, spiced with a stiff shot of brandy. Coming in from gardening, he was in a good mood. His baby girl had cornered him just as he was clipping the last head of broccoli. “Listen, baby, I got a joke for you. Autumn just made it up this morning. I can’t believe how talented that girl is.”

  “Tell me the joke, Jackson.”

  “Here’s how it goes: ‘Your mama so fat, she sat on a quarter and squeezed a booger out of George Washington’s nose.’ ”

  Ginger didn’t smile. Didn’t laugh. Just sat staring at Jackson, watching him keel over laughing. He didn’t know Autumn was just mimicking a comedian from In Living Color the night before.

  “You didn’t think it was funny?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Wait, wait. I got another one for you. My uncle told me this joke twenty years ago, but I always liked it. Hold on. Give me a minute to get it right.” He scratched his head, thinking. “Two bulls were ambling along a pasture one summer day, and then, walking up on a hill, stopped to chat under a tree. The older bull was telling the young bull about the facts of life, when the younger bull happened to look down in the pasture and saw a herd of cows. He said to the older bull, ‘Let’s run down there, grab one, and fuck her.’ The older bull hesitated, took his time saying, ‘Let’s walk down and fuck ’em all.’ ”

  Ginger waited a few seconds, then burst out laughing. “Now that was funny. I might have to send a tape of you and your daughter’s comedic debut to Star Search.”

  They fell on the floor laughing, releasing the tension that had separated them for weeks. Temporarily, Ginger let her problems roll off her back like water over petroleum jelly. Ginger loved playing the hussy. She got into character, deepened her normal husky voice, gave Jackson a sexy smile and a quick bump and grind of her hip. The heat was on, and they both knew it. Resting her hand on Jackson’s knee, she faced him, the devilishness in her eyes speaking seduction. “Remember how Michael Douglas threw Sharon Stone against the wall in Basic Instinct?” She moved in closer, raking her nails beneath the bulge of his crotch. “And remember when Al Pacino threw Ellen Barkin against the refrigerator in the Sea of Love? Why don’t you throw me against the wall like that?”

  Jackson, sweaty from hours in the garden, knew the signals. He threw Ginger against the refrigerator as she had asked, kissing her hard. She winced from pain. A light laugh tumbled from her belly. They both slid down the cool surface of the icebox, laughing, as their lips parted. “Black people don’t screw like that.” Lying on the kitchen floor, they roared with laughter.

  Jackson was back in the saddle. He knew by the pleasure in Ginger’s face that Bronco Billy and Miss Lilly would ride the prairie by their lonesome tonight.

  When Ginger was finally alone, she basked in the peaceful silence. Sitting downstairs in the family room, nursing her toddy, she let her head fall back as she tuned in Oprah. The kids were riding their bikes through Palmer Park with their new schoolmates. Autumn had grown so tall over the summer; Jackson finally convinced her to join the basketball team. But the swim meets had begun first, and this particular afternoon Sierra had talked her into going to check out the competition. Namely, the boys’ team.

  “I went inside myself for three years,” a voice said from the TV. “I didn’t have the power to strike back at people when they ridiculed me.”

  “The painful part was when people looked at me,” another voice added.

  “People can be nasty. They give you dirty looks, and you wonder how to respond sometimes when people stare at you.” The pain in the woman’s eyes was shared by the rest of the panel on stage. Ginger was riveted to the set. “People wonder if it’s contagious. They mistake it as cancer. Think you’re undergoing chemotherapy treatments.”

  The only male on the panel talked about a neurolinguistic programming he’d recently listened to by Tony Robbins. He claimed that after listening to and implementing Robbins’s suggestions for breathing techniques to cleanse the body, he’d noticed a small growth of hair after four weeks. Ginger wrote down the name and immediately dialed the 800 number when the segment ended for a commercial break.

  There were all kinds of information for people like those on the panel who suffered from alopecia areata or its severe type, alopecia totalis. The TV screen flashed the number of the National Alopecia Foundation, but Ginger didn’t bother to write down the number. She’d spoken to them on several occasions throughout the years, only to find out that there was still no cure. Just theories.

  A dermatologist hired by the Oprah staff discussed the problem of hair loss, explaining that a growing number of Americans suffered from it. Though alopecia wasn’t a life-threatening disease, it did threaten the quality of life. A strong person could grow weak as a result of experiencing this mind-boggling disorder. In certain cases it was hereditary. Statistically, twenty percent of the patients who had it found that there was a history of alopecia in their family line. And if tuberculosis and diabetes were prevalent in a patient’s family history, some doctors argued that their chances of contracting the malady were greater. Some of his patients confided in him that their first reaction was that God was punishing them.

  A woman who’d taken off her wig, tears streaming down her face, moved the audience with her personal experiences. She’d almost committed suicide because she was so unable to bear the pain and humiliation. She felt as if she’d lost all of her femininity. Didn’t feel sexual at all. However, during her tearful confession she tried to make the audience understand the difference between female baldness and male baldness. She claimed that men looked sexy when they were bald. And they usually kept their eyebrows, while these women did not.

  Ginger thought about how sexy Michael Jordan was with his bald head. Yul Brynner had been another sex symbol. And she had a crush on the bald and sexy Charles Barkley. The woman was right. They all had their eyebrows, and mustaches if they so desired. Ginger touched the smooth surface where her eyebrows once grew. She felt a watershed of tears damming behind her eyes.

  A proud, bald Black woman from Detroit who frequented the same doctor Ginger did suddenly jumped into the conversation. She told the audience she’d never felt more beautiful. She refused to wear wigs, because she felt as though God had taken away her hair for a reason. Years ago, she’d had to accept the look on the face in the mirror that showed no distinctive definition, that was devoid of expression without eyelashes and eyebrows. She’d had to reconcile it all within herself, and make adjustments. She pointed out that hair follicles missing in her nose and her eyebrows were there for a reason. The nose hair kept your nose from constantly running. The eyebrows stopped the sweat from pouring into your eyes. These were small things that people seemed to take for granted — until they lost them.

  Later that evening, Ginger couldn’t shake the painful memories the women had shared with the audience. Still, Jackson hadn’t noticed that her mind was elsewhere when they made love. And she couldn’t confide in him how she’d felt after watching the Oprah show. He wouldn’t understand. No one would.

  But she’d bare her soul to Kim during her frequent visits to the hospital, knowing that her cousin was still in a comatose state, unable to respond. Ginger felt herself weakening. Memories of years of dealing with the trial of being hairless had broken her spirit, and nearly broken her.

  Ginger remembered a night when Jackson hadn’t been complimentary about her eye makeup, as he was the night of Gene Russell’s party. Jackson would probably never recollect the evening, but Ginger would never forget it. Jackson was helpi
ng her put on her fake eyelashes before going out.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  “Like this?” Ginger was sweating profusely, something she didn’t ordinarily do. But they were going to the Fox Theater to see Aretha Franklin. She wanted to look soft and feminine, and felt that wearing fake eyelashes would give her that effect. She and Jackson had been in the bathroom for nearly an hour, trying to secure the feathery things.

  As Ginger turned to look in the mirror, she caught her breath, shocked to see the wide-eyed, owl-like expression they gave her. She tore them from her eyelids, trying to make a joke of it, hoping Jackson wouldn’t laugh. But he did.

  Funny, Ginger thought, how relaxed she was being there, alone, watching Kim’s feeble form. Away from the house, the kids, Jackson, the office, and school, she felt a weird solace. Ginger lifted Kim’s limp hand, caressed it tenderly. Kim still lay motionless, her face expressionless, her skin a dull grayish brown. Ginger studied the bags of fluid seeping life into Kim’s veins. The clear liquid dripped soundlessly. She doesn’t feel any pain, thought Ginger.

  Sweet blossoms of freshly cut flowers filled the small room. Bill faithfully changed the arrangements weekly, whether they were wilting or not. Ginger remembered him saying that when Kim awakened, he wanted her to see the beauty of life, alive and new.

  Bending her head forward, she clutched both hands to her face, rubbing up and down, down and back, stretching her flesh. Turning toward the window at her mirrored reflection, she was repulsed by a woman wallowing in self-pity. Unwanted tears fell, dripping from her lashless eyes.

  The tears cleansed her troubled heart as Ginger felt the splendor of miracles slipping inside her. It was as though God were opening her eyes and explaining why. . . .

  Everything in life happens for a reason. And God humbled her by taking something she prized. Ginger thought to herself, I’ve truly been blessed and didn’t even realize it.

  For a moment, she forgot all of her sorrows and pain. The color, the fragrance, the sheer perfection of every bouquet surrounding Kim’s room somehow seemed more profound, more intense than they had just moments ago. And she came away full of love, knowing. . . .