Patsy

by Patsy (retail) (epub)

  At this point, Patsy has done everything—cook, clean, wash, stand on shaky ladders to feed birds, walk dogs, empty cat litter, supervise visiting elderly parents—all but feed and wipe a baby. Until Esther gives birth in the bathtub to an eight-pound sixteen-ounce baby girl, whom she names Sky. Patsy had cleaned the tub to prepare for the event. The midwife handled the rest. The baby’s father was also there. Patsy has only met him once—a man who introduced himself as Christof when Patsy came to clean one day and found him sprawled on Esther’s bed in the middle of the day with no clothes on. He’s a thin man, as lithe as Esther, with nice hair that he wears in a bun on top of his head. He looks like Jesus when he wears it down, which might explain Patsy’s instant dislike for him. He owns the yoga studio where Esther teaches. Christof and Esther didn’t marry like white people tend to do when a baby comes unexpected. Instead, they decide to “cohabitate”—a word Esther uses constantly when friends and family ask her whether or not she’s engaged. “We don’t believe in marriage.” Christof now lives in the brownstone that Esther’s parents bought.

  One day, Christof wasn’t around and Esther was stuck with the crying baby. Patsy had come to clean and found Esther disheveled on the couch in her robe, crying. Her hair looked unwashed and messy, and gone from her face was the healthy glow she carried during her pregnancy.

  “She doesn’t want my milk,” a tearful Esther said to Patsy.

  Patsy looked into Esther’s large brown eyes, wide and bloodshot from lack of sleep. She didn’t know what Esther wanted her to do about it. Patsy had hoped that the new mother would figure it out by the time she was done cleaning, but she didn’t. The baby cried and cried and an exasperated Esther put the baby in Patsy’s arms, sobbing. “I’m so bad at this.”

  Patsy blinked, her outstretched arms suddenly weighted with the squealing infant.

  “Please—” Esther said, holding herself. “You gotta help me. Please, Patsy.”

  Patsy looked from the crying infant to the weeping mother, then back to the infant. How did she wind up being responsible for another life? The baby started to wiggle in Patsy’s hands. It was clear that the infant was losing patience. Esther, who must have picked up on Patsy’s immobility, said something. “What did you do when yours cried like that?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You have children. Right?”

  “Why?”

  “Because—I dunno—” Esther shrugged and wiped each flushed cheek with the palm of her hands. “I—I just assumed. You strike me as a mother, like most Caribbean women I meet here—”

  Patsy shook her head and quickly handed the baby back to Esther. “I’m not most Caribbean women.”

  “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to say that. I—I don’t know what I mean! Please, I don’t want to be alone with her,” Esther cried.

  Patsy wasn’t sure what exactly had made her pause right then. Perhaps it was the way Esther was standing there looking like defeat itself, with slumped shoulders, rings underneath her eyes, and wild hair—a far cry from the confident, glamorous woman Patsy had first met. Or maybe it was the terror that she saw in Esther’s eyes, the same terror she once felt as a new mother. The moment gave Patsy an opportunity she barely understood as it was happening, a realization that she had a power that she thought she lacked and that she could use this to redeem herself. She took the baby and walked calmly to the kitchen, where she had seen formula line the cupboard. She bounced the baby against one shoulder and used the other hand to mix the formula, settling into a chair to offer the furious baby her bottle. After what seemed like hours of crying, the baby, bright-eyed and satisfied, quieted in Patsy’s arms. From that day on, Patsy cared for Sky, providing her with food, daily baths, and, though Patsy didn’t want to admit this to herself at first, love.

  PATSY BEGINS TO WORK AS A LIVE-IN NANNY FOR ESTHER. ESTHER offers her extra to take care of the baby in addition to her housecleaning work, and Patsy gladly accepts the job for what it is—a job. The thought of facing Tru ever again after caring for a newborn baby in America made Patsy lose a lot of sleep during her first few weeks of being a nanny. But the money is a lot better than what she used to make, and she still doesn’t have many other options without a visa. Also, now she has a room of her own with her own bed. Sometimes, when it gets too quiet, she misses Fionna’s nighttime chatter and contagious laughter. But most nights Patsy snuggles in her new bed with a smile, thinking how much her life has changed in just a few months.

  Esther gives her instructions and she follows them, feeding the baby every two hours. Esther doesn’t appear as distressed with Patsy around. Patsy is the one who wakes to feed the baby at night—something she doesn’t mind, since she’s been finding it harder and harder to fall asleep anyway. She’s also the first to wake up to check on the baby inside the nursery, which used to be the room where Esther once stored clothes and shoes. Patsy walks around the brownstone singing Jamaican folk songs with the baby to her chest. “Carry me ackee guh ah Linstead Market not a quati would sell.” The baby gurgles when Patsy sings to her. Sometimes Patsy accompanies Esther to the yoga studio. Patsy holds the baby up to the glass so that she can see her mother bending and twisting every which way, and her father bustling about, putting up schedules for new classes.

  Patsy bathes the baby and dries her in clean, fluffy towels that she washes in the machine, then douses her with baby powder. Sometimes she takes her on strolls to the Brooklyn Promenade, delighting in seeing the water and the sunset above the skyscrapers through her eyes. The Twin Towers look resplendent in sunlight.

  “Mama . . .” Sky says when she first starts to talk.

  Patsy doesn’t correct her.

  When her brother, Blue, is born a year and a few months later in the spring of 2001 with the same bright eyes, Patsy is delighted. Esther is not as frightened of the boy as she was at first with Sky. He nurses easily and cries less. When he cries, it’s only to be with Esther. Patsy had to work a lot harder to win him over, carrying him on daily walks to the Brooklyn Promenade too when he refuses to lie quietly in the stroller. Somehow, this baby likes sunsets. Maybe because he was born on a Wednesday evening in Esther’s bathtub, which gets a lot more sunlight in the evenings. But when the planes hit the towers that fall, Patsy had stopped going to the Brooklyn Promenade for a while.

  It’s been a year now since 9/11. It’s odd to look at the skyline without the Twin Towers there. It’s even harder to look out and not remember that horrendous day when the city was engulfed in smoke. Patsy had never felt such dread and panic, thinking that the country she had fled to for freedom was under attack. She had hugged Fionna, who had visited her in Brooklyn Heights, hoping she was all right, and cried. She also had never felt more a part of her new country, conversing with strangers on the street about the tragedy. It was as though the smoke had erased any barriers between them. For a while, at least. Because of Baby Blue, Patsy has learned to live without the towers, just like the rest of New York City.

  The words Patsy could never say to Tru at that age flow from a small opening inside her at the sight of these children who aren’t hers. All the love she has never known pours out of her now. At night she gathers the babies in her arms and rocks them till they fall asleep. No Jesus figurines peer down on her, judging. No smell of rosemary oil stifles her. No familiar dark eyes gaze up at her, convicting her of everything she’s done and everything she has failed to do.

  27

  THOUGH THE NEWNESS OF TRU’S ARRIVAL HAS DIMINISHED, IT IS not forgotten that her needs can shift the whole house like Marva’s belly, which looms large again.

  “Dis child g’wan run us to di poorhouse!” Marva cries if Tru leaves food on her plate, busts open her forehead jumping out of trees, catches a bad cold, or comes home with a teacher’s note about a class trip or extra lessons that may cost money. Tru cannot do anything without a price tag associated with it—everything is tallied. With the new baby on the way, Marva works hard to ease the worry of bad mind and ill will.
She walks around with garlic and crushed coal tied in a knot around her waist to protect the baby against evil.

  Shortly after Tru’s tenth birthday the dark flow of blood put a stain on everything. That year, Tru’s newly developing breasts raised a shade of suspicion in Marva’s eyes: “You’s no more a likkle girl, but a woman. Look how yuh filling out.” Her breasts made Roy a bit uncomfortable when they first appeared; he locked his eyes on his tools to build another room in the back of the house so that Tru could be away from her brothers. In private Tru constantly rubbed her breasts until pain coursed through her body. Though they were no bigger than the round oranges she spied on Iris’s chest when she saw Iris naked in the outdoor shower, they had begun to assume the weight of unfair misery. It was around then too that her hips started to widen, the coarse hairs appeared underneath her arms and between her legs. A shadow began to spread across her face, deepening her complexion and sculpting her features, and the hair on her head grew thicker. Marva saw fit to straighten Tru’s hair. She washed it and anointed it with a chemical that smelled like roach spray. She lovingly combed through Tru’s hair with a fine-toothed comb, admiring its length. When Tru’s head started to feel like it was on fire, Marva rinsed out the chemical with eucalyptus leaves. Now Tru’s hair shines like the sea in morning light, flat against her head in great abundance. The sight of her changing self frightens her.

  Marva buys packs of Stayfree pads and shows Tru how to use them and how to move and sit with the bulkiness between her legs. She takes care, filling the hot red water bottle for Tru to alleviate her cramps. She acts as though she has spent her whole life preparing for this moment, pleased to have taken on this new role. She knows exactly what to do. She dutifully soaks Tru’s soiled sheets and even cleaned the mattress when Tru bled through to it. Eventually, she sits on Tru’s bed. In a confessional tone she says, “Yuh can’t be jumping out of trees or tumbling ’roun wid boys no more. Yuh must close yuh legs. Cross dem at di ankles like so.” She shows Tru. “Try to walk like a lady too. Boys don’t respect yuh when yuh g’long like a hooligan. Yuh must be a lady in di streets at all times. An’ besides, yuh soon sit yuh GSAT exams to get into high school. So is good dat yuh get a head start wid how to behave,” Marva says. Since Tru has skipped a grade, she’s already in grade six, set to take the Grade Six Assessment Test to begin the transition into high school. She hasn’t even begun to think about the high school she wants to attend. Marva continues, “At home, yuh g’wan have to help out more. You’s no longah a likkle girl. Dis is di age yuh learn fi be a woman.” But Tru turns her back to it, her heart refusing to beat.

  Gone is Tru’s time playing soccer with her friends or climbing trees. The pain of her immediate isolation is as sharp as the one inside her womb. It’s as though someone has taken a knife and is wedging it along the inside of her lower belly like a coconut being gutted. Her mother’s old Christmas card calms her. The glitter has long rubbed off, the color faded, but she keeps it close to her on the bed where she lies. She stares through the curtains, which bellow in the breeze, at the sliver of blue sky and the stream of sunlight. Her toes curl underneath the sheets, her back pressed against the cool, hard surface of the wall each time the unspeakable ache splits her in half.

  ONE DAY, SHORTLY AFTER HER CONVERSATION WITH MARVA about becoming a woman, Tru spots a group of Wilhampton girls while sitting on the sunny side of the veranda by herself, shelling gungo peas for Marva. Tru’s school had let out early for Easter holiday and Marva needed her help with dinner. Her eyes follow them. She wonders what they’re doing in Rochester, given that it is rumored that only rich girls go to Wilhampton—ones that live up in the hills of Upper St. Andrew. Girls in Rochester and neighboring Pennyfield tend to go to Roman Phillips Secondary. Even if they pass exams for other high schools in Kingston, Roman Phillips is more convenient, affordable, and sensitive to any violent upheaval that sometimes prevents students living in Pennyfield—like Tru’s best friends Sore-Foot Marlon and Albino Ricky—from going to school. Pennyfield has become a name that Kingston schools and employers alike shy away from, denying applicants with that address. Nobody wants to deal with extended absences and the sob stories. No principal wants to be bothered with looking into the eyes of children who have seen sad stuff, bad stuff, the things-that-are-better-watched-on-the-news stuff. Tru decides that the four Wilhampton girls are probably taking a shortcut. Two workmen, cotching on cement blocks being used to build the house next door, whistle at them. But the girls don’t give the men the satisfaction of an exchange when they throw recycled come-ons at their heels: “Pssst. Come yah, baby. Oonuh sweet like angel. Beg yuh a wuk off yuh good body, nuh?”

  They are beautiful girls who walk like the world belongs to them; their performed aloofness is as captivating to Tru as the way they float down the street, their books pressed to their chests. They create their own breeze, their blue uniforms fluttering between their legs, the back hems trailing. Just then the sun peers brighter through the branches, the light adorning the landscape. Tru stares long after the girls round the corner, licking her lip sweat. In that moment, Tru, with the blood bursting inside her, her breasts forming, painful and private, and the heat bearing down on her like the weight of Marva’s words—”Dis is di age yuh learn fi be a woman”—decides that the quiet desire, which rose up above all desires in the soundlessness that day when she sat in the ackee tree watching the boys play, isn’t as easy as a wish.

  Months later, when Tru, only ten years old, sits the nationwide Grade Six Achievement Test for high school and passes for Wilhampton Girls’, Marva scans the Jamaica Gleaner, which prints all the names of successful students, and stumbles upon Tru’s name. “Well, dis is nice,” she says. “Wilhampton. An’ where’s yuh mother to pay fah dis?”

  Book IV

  JANE DOE (2008)

  28

  PATSY COUNTS YEARS IN SEASONS, SOMETHING SHE NEVER HAD to do in Jamaica, since there is only one season year-round—well, except for the cold fronts in December and January that give Jamaicans a chance to wear sweaters displaying foreign logos on them; or spark excitement from women selling in the arcades downtown, who claim the cool blast of air from abroad gives them the fair, “air-conditioned” complexion foreigners have, which no bleaching cream can achieve. Patsy has yet to see her complexion change from brown to beige in America, though she has experienced ten winters. And even if her complexion were to change from brown to beige, she has learned that every black person in America is looked at in the same way by white people. Just like she has learned that each season has its own unique color, sweeping whole months and landscapes with warm amber, which fades into brown, then gray, and then a bold green dotted with pink blossoms before the full bloom of sunflowers. Patsy imagines them as four women drifting through the sky. They make their rounds, their skirt tails blowing in the wind, heavy baskets on their heads to pour sunrays, rain, or snow.

  A total of ten years have whisked by in America like the hairs fallen out of Patsy’s head, so thin and light that they go unnoticed until masses of them gather around Patsy’s feet or on her pillow, dead. Once she struck the match to burn them their burnt smell hovered, and continues to hover, with the dark cloud, the weight of the sky. Patsy’s visa situation has draped itself like a thin gauze throughout the years and she is caught in its mesh. For the most part, she has learned what to avoid. She knows, for example, to never mention her visa status to anyone—not even to a priest; how to only rent rooms from landlords that take cash; that she should scream for help in crowded areas to avoid calling the police herself and risk deportation; that it’s best to go to the emergency room when she’s sick, since it costs way more to see a regular doctor without health insurance; how to store the money she’s been saving for Tru—finally able to put aside a little bit—in a Danish butter cookies tin, which she keeps inside her closet since she doesn’t have a bank account, too afraid to open one without the right documentation. When she can, bit by bit, she stores away a few dollars.
It’s something.

  Now she sits in the emergency room at Wykoff Hospital in Bushwick on a Saturday morning, among the wounded and suffering. Her right leg shakes as she waits to be seen by one of the overworked residents darting in and out of sight in green scrubs. This, she cannot do on a weekday, since the wait could be an entire day, depending on the severity of the case. When the receptionist asked her what she’s there for, Patsy told her cancer, hoping she’d get seen immediately. But she has been here for three hours. She should’ve told the woman chest pains, though her initial response isn’t far from what she suspects is the truth. Why else would her hair be falling out if it isn’t cancer?

  It’s already three-thirty. Half her free day is gone. Saturdays are the only days Patsy has to herself to run errands. She doesn’t get many days off with the Rhinebecks—the family she currently works for, babysitting their three-year-old son. Patsy has worked as a nanny for toddlers for nine, going on ten years. She stops working for the families as soon as the child turns five—an arrangement that has been agreed upon in advance with each family. Most mothers want her to stay since she’s so good with their children, but it’s too painful for Patsy to see the children grow past age five—the age Tru was when Patsy left her.

  Just as she’s about to gather her things to interrogate the receptionists—both of whom take too many pauses between being rude to patients and gossiping about this, that, and the other—Patsy hears her name.

  A young Indian doctor who looks like he’s still in high school greets her. “Miss Reynolds?”