A Day Late and a Dollar Short

by Terry McMillan

  "Mama, George has never hit Shanice. She's been lying about a lot of things lately. She's just being dramatic."

  "Oh, really. What about her hair? How dramatic is that?"

  "The doctor said some kids do this."

  "Have you at least confronted George?"

  "Of course I have. Mama, look. George is a good man. He loves Shanice like she was his own daughter. He's done everything to get in her good graces, but she has never really cared for him, so this is just another desperation move on her part to get him out of the house once and for all."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "Look. Why don't you send her on home?"

  I took a few more puffs off my inhaler, then slammed it down on the counter. I changed ears. "I'll tell you something. A home is where a child is supposed to feel safe, protected."

  "I know this, Mama, and she should . . ."

  "Apparently, your daughter don't feel this way."

  "Are you about finished?"

  "No. I'm just getting started. I'll say this. You better watch that motherfucker like a hawk, 'cause he doing more than hitting her. You may be blind, but I ain't. And I'll send her home when I'm good and damn ready!" And I hung up.

  My granddaughter ain't no actress, and them tears was real. Since she run track and had a big meet coming up, I sent her home, but promised her I would look into this. I told her to dial 911 the next time he so much as bump into her. I just been patting my feet, trying to figure out what to do about this mess. Cecil told me to mind my own business. I told Cecil to kiss my black ass. This chile got my blood in her veins.

  The more I think about it, I'm beginning to wonder if we ain't one of them dysfunctional families I've seen on TV. A whole lotta weird shit been going on in the Price family for years. But, then again, I know some folks got some stuff that can top ours. Hell, look at the Kennedys. Maybe everybody is dysfunctional and God put us all in this mess so we can learn how to function. To test us. See what we can tolerate. I don't know, but we don't seem to be doing such a hot job of it. I guess we need to work harder at getting rid of that d-y-s part. I just wish I had a clue where to start.

  I won't lie: none of my kids turned out the way I hoped they would, but I'm still proud to be their mother. I did the best I could with what I had. Cecil worked two jobs back in those days, which meant I had to do everything: like raise 'em. I tried to teach 'em the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, being honest, having good manners, and what I knew about dignity, pride, and respect. What I left out they shoulda learned in Sunday school. Common sense is something you can't teach, which i s w hy there's some tilings kids should blame their parents for and some shit they just have to take responsibility for on their own.

  I still can't believe they all came out of my body. Grew up in the same house. I tried my best to spread my love around so none of 'em would feel left out. Even lied to 'em so each one would feel special. I've tried to steer 'em in the right direction, but sometimes they just didn't wanna go that way. They had their own destiny in mind, which was okay, except when ain't no clear path in front of 'em you kinda wonder where they headed.

  I've watched 'em make all kinda mistakes over the years. Been scared for 'em. Worried myself gray. Frayed like a beggar. But I done finally learned that you can't carry the weight for everything that happen to your kids. For the longest time I have. But not no more. I'm letting go of the coulda- woulda-shouldas and admit that I was not the perfect mother, but I broke my neck trying to be a good one. I'm tired of mothering 'em. It's time for them to mother themselves. I can't do no more than I already have. And from now on I'm standing on the sidelines. I've made too many trips to this hospital from worrying about husbands and kids, which is why from now on the only person I'm worrying about is Viola Price.

  That's me.

  I'm pushing fifty-five. Twenty-three more days and I'll finally qualify as a senior citizen. I can't wait! April 15. A day don't nobody want to remember but can't nobody forget. Hard to believe that me and Charlotte was born on the same day. Them astrologers don't know what they talking about. We different as night and day. All I know is when I get outta here this time, thyigs gon' be different. I'm about to start living. I can't wait to start doing some of the things I've been meaning to do but never have for one reason or another. The day after my birthday, I'm going straight to Jenny Craig so I can lose these thirty or forty pounds once and for all. When I look good, maybe I'll feel good. By then, maybe I can figure out what I'm gon' do with the rest of my life. Selling Mary Kay ain't exacdy been getting it. I just did it to get away from barbecue and smoke-to stop myself from going completely crazy being home. As hard as I tried, I couldn't take the smell of all that perfume they put in their products, and at the rate I was going it woulda took me about twenty years before I ever sold enough to get me one of them pink cars.

  That phone could ring. Paris shoulda told Charlotte's evil ass by now, and I know she called Janelle first, and somebody shoulda put out a SOS to Lewis, and Cecil of all people should know I'm in here. I just heard it through the grapevine that he over there living with some welfare huzzy who got three kids. He must really think he John Travolta or somebody. But his midlife crisis done lasted about twenty years now. Hell, he pushing fifty- seven years old. I can't lie. Cecil was driving me nuts after he took early retirement from bus driving for the school district, and on top of that, he had to quit putting in time at the Shack altogether, 'cause his sinuses took a turn for the worse. We had to hire strangers to run it, and we didn't need no bookkeeper to see that they'd been robbing us blind. Cecil didn't know what to do with so much free time on his hands. Vegas being a desert, and where our litde stucco house is, ain't no grass to cut, no hedges to trim, no weeds to pull, no pool to clean, so this is when he started hanging around the crap tables and at the same time discovered he could still drive his truck: ram it into some litde dumb cunt, who probably thought she'd found herself a genuine sugardaddy. Unfortunately, Cecil's truck ain't had no pickup in years so what this chile is getting I don't know.

  In all honesty, I really ain't missed him personally, but what I do miss is his presence. That raggedy house feel even smaller without him in it. Like all the moisture been sucked out. I can't even smell him no more. Ain't nothing to pick up. Or hang. Ain't washed but once this past week, but even that was only a half a load. And plenty of leftovers. Never learned how to cook for just two people, let alone one. If I thought about him long enough, I guess I could miss him.

  He stopped by last month to pick up his litde pension check, looking all embarrassed, and, boy, was he surprised when he saw all his stuff stuffed in old pillowcases and balled up in old sheets and stacked on top of each other in the storage closet right off the carport. The spiderwebs was already starting to do their business. I only did it to impress him. I wanted him to think I can live without him. I'm sure I can, I just ain't figured out if I want to or not yet. He didn't mention nothing about coming home, and I didn't bring up the subject either. I can't lie: right after he left, I was relieved, like I was getting a much-needed vacation. It was like the part of me that used to love him had been shot up with novocaine. I didn't shed a single tear. I been numb too long. Even still, another part of me is scared, 'cause I ain't never lived by myself. Always had him or the kids here: somebody.

  "How you feeling, Vy?"

  Well, look who's here: Cecil! At first I pretend like I'm already dead. I want the guilt to eat his ass up. But he can see the oxygen coming through this mask, hear me breathing through these tubes, see that monitor zigzagging with my life in green. He take my hand and I snatch it back. When I open my eyes, he look like a bear. He smell like curl activator. Cecil will not cut off his Jheri Curl to save his life. I told him a thousand times to look around: this "do" ain't been in style for years. But he don't care. He think, 'cause he dye it black, it makes him look younger, which ain't hardly true. He think he still "got it going on," as Dingus would say. To set the record straight, Cecil look l
ike he about four months pregnant. He wearing his exciting uniform: them black polyester pants that don't need no belt, his Sammy Davis, Jr.-pink shirt without the ruffles (thank the Lord), and those lizard shoes he bought at the turn of the century, when we still lived in Chicago. He look like a lounge singer who just got off work. But other than this, I'd say he still might be handsome, all things considered.

  "I was worried about you," he say like he mean it. "You doing all right?" If I ain't mistaken, them look like tears in his eyes. I know how to do this, too, which is why I ain't the least bit moved by this litde show of--what should I call it, emotion? I open my eyes wide-like a woman who done had too many face lifts-grab the litde notepad from my tray, write, "Take a wild guess," and hand it to him. He look somewhat hurt and sit down at the foot of my bed. The heat from his body is warming my right foot. I feel like sliding both feet under his big butt but I don't. He might get the wrong impression.

  "Is everythang all right at the house?"

  I nod.

  "You want me to bring you anythang?"

  I want to point to my mouth but I don't. I shake my head no. My friend Loretta promised to bring me my teeth, which I know is somewhere on the dining-room floor, 'cause I heard 'em slide across the wood when the paramedics picked me up and slung me onto that stretcher. But her car's been in the shop. Loretta is my next-door neighbor. She's white and nice and a brand-new widow. She even trying to teach me how to play bridge. I just hope she watering my plants and got the rest of that stuff out the refrigerator, 'cause I was cleaning it when I first felt my chest go tight.

  "You looking good," he say. If I had the strength, I'd slap him. I look like hell froze over and he know it. My hair is still in these cellophaned burgundy cornrows, 'cause they won't let me put my wig on. Cecil just sit there for a few minutes, looking like a complete fool, like he trying to remember something only he can't. I guess the silence was starting to get to him, 'cause he take a deep breath and finally say, "So-when you get to come home?"

  I hold up three, then four fingers.

  He stand up. "You need a ride?"

  I shake my head no. __

  "I can come back and see you tomorrow."

  I shake my head no. He shake his head yes. "After I get off work."

  My eyes say: "Work?"

  "Just a litde security job. Part-time. It's something."

  I'm wondering if it's at Harrah's or Circus Circus or Mirage: his second homes. I write the word "shack" down.

  "Shaquan got robbed again, so we boarded the place up. I can't take the stress no more."

  No more barbecue.

  "I'll stop by the house to check on things," he say and bend over and give me a kiss on my forehead. Either he still love me and don't know it or he feel sorry for me. I don't much care right now, but all I know is that his lips is the warmest thing I've felt touch my body since I was greasing Shanice's scalp and she fell asleep in my lap. I hate to admit it, but Cecil's lips sure felt good.

  I turn my face toward the window and close my eyes. I'm hoping these tears can hold off a few more minutes. I hear the soles of his shoes squish against the tile floor. The door opens. A shot of cold air comes in, and then the click of that door. I look at the clock. Cecil was here for all of eight minutes. When that door pops back open, I turn, thinking he done come to his senses, done had a change of heart, wanna say something mushy to me like they do on All My Children: something that gon' make me feel like I got wings and can fly outta this hospital bed straight into his arms, where I can sink against his soft chest and he'll hold me, rock me like he used to, and I'll be able to take one deep breath after another.

  But it ain't Cecil. It's a nurse. Finally bringing me my lunch. Some thick green soup and mashed potatoes and it hurts when I swallow, but I don't care: I'm starving. I eat every drop of my tapioca, even though I can't usually stomach smooth-and-creamy nothing. I drink my apple juice, wishing all the time it was a beer. When I push the call button so they can take my tray, something metal hits the floor. They're Cecil's keys. Ha ha ha.

  I musta dozed off for a few minutes after they picked up my tray and the doctors checked my numbers. I know I'm in bad shape. I hate having asthma. I wasn't even born with this shit. I was forty-two when Suzie Mae called me at four-thirty in the morning to tell me that Daddy's sixteen-year-old grandson by his first wife, who he had took in, had stabbed him thirty-six times and killed him 'cause Daddy wouldn't let his girlfriend spend the night. I had a anxiety attack and couldn't catch my breath. The doctors treated me for asthma, and I been on this medication ever since. Each time I try to stop taking it, I have a attack, so my feeling is the doctors gave me this damn disease. I can't win.

  And I can't lie. This attack scared me. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking: Is this gon' be the one? In a split second you remember everybody you love, and in the next one you ask yourself: Did I do this thing right? Did I do everything I wanted to? What would I change if I could do it all over? Did I hurt anybody so much that they won't be able to forgive me? Will they forgive me for not being perfect? I forgive myself. And I forgive God. But the n y ou feel your eyes open and you realize you ain't dead. You got tubes coming outta you. Lights is bright. Your heart is thumping. You say a long thank-you prayer. And you lay here thinking about everything and everybody, 'cause you got another chance to live. You ask yourself what you gon' do now. My answer is plain and simple: I'ma start doing things differendy, 'cause, like they say, if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. Ain't that the truth, and who don't know it?

  So this is the deal, Viola. First of all, if I don't do nothing else, I'ma get this asthma under control, 'cause I'm tired of it running my life. Tired of grown kids and husbands running my life. Tired of being smart but ain't got no evidence to prove it. I wanna get my GED. I don't see why not. It ain't never too late to learn. I just hope what they say about the brain being a muscle is true. The way I see it, I figure I owe myself a cruise to somewhere before I hit sixty, especially since I took Paris, France, outta my dreams a million years ago. Hell, I ain't been nowhere. How I'ma get the money is a mystery to me, but I'll get it. If it's meant to be, it'll be. I should try to get some decent dentures: the kind that fit and don't look false. But if me or my kids ever hit the lottery, I'ma get the kind that don't come out. Paris and Janelle think playing is a waste of time and money. Paris say only emigrants and legitimate senior citizens ever seem to win. But Charlotte play Litde Lotto three times a week, and Lewis, whenever he get a extra dollar, which ain't all that often. Both of 'em promised that if they ever hit, they would split the winnings with me. I told 'em I'd divide mine three ways if I didn't win but twenty dollars, and I would.

  The first thing I would do is buy myself a house that don't need no repairs, and walk around barefoot, 'cause the carpet would be just that thick. Hell, a condo would do the trick, as long as I had a patch of dirt big enough to plant some collards, a few ears of corn, some cherry tomatoes, and hot peppers to pickle for the winter. And I'd like to know what it feel like to drive a brand-new anything. I know I'm dreaming, but deep down inside, when you know your life is at least 80 percent over, you ain't got nothing left to live for but dreams.