“God bless you,” Hope says again, as if Aunt Pearl has just sneezed instead of off and left us.
13
Mama won’t come out of her room anymore. Daddy says we should just do the best we can and take care of ourselves so he can care for Mama. He wants us to carry on as if everything is normal. Normal used to include Mama so it’s a hard thing to ask. Plus he put Joy in charge when he’s not here, making it even harder. When Joy told me to do the dishes tonight I wanted to throw a fit, but I said yes, even though it’s not my turn. I feel a little sorry for her. She’s got her hands full with Marilyn, which is a lot for a fourteen-year-old.
Chastity has been pouting all day, every day. Not only has she nearly lost a mother, she’s also lost her favorite sister, who now ignores her because she’s so busy with the baby. When Chas walks into our bedroom after supper and flops on the bed beside me I know she’s getting desperate. She opens a book and starts flipping through the pages.
“What’s Kotex?”
I tilt the cover to read the title. Oh brother. She’s gone and found the book about becoming a woman in the back of Joy’s closet. I can’t believe she had the guts to go in there, let alone crawl around where there’s bound to be dust.
“It’s a sanity pad. You hook it onto a sanity belt when you have your period.”
“What’s a period?”
“It’s what happens when you bleed from your crotch,” I say.
She gasps. “Bleed? You mean real blood?” She clasps the book to her chest.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt. At least I don’t think it does.” I grab the book out of her hands and turn a few pages until I find the picture I’m looking for. “See this? Blood fills up on the inside of a woman’s uterus—that’s the womb—so a baby has a soft place to live. If there’s no baby, then the blood comes out instead. That’s why you need a Kotex pad.”
Chastity wrinkles up her pudgy nose and groans. “Yuck!”
I point to another illustration titled Your Changing Body with a picture of a woman’s insides. Not a photograph—more like a sketch with parts drawn in. The woman has her arms up to show hair under them. She has squiggly hair on her crotch like Mama’s and Hope’s. And probably Joy’s, but she keeps her body covered ever since she started growing boobs.
“Don’t worry, Chas. It won’t happen for a long time. Not until puberty, which is still a few years away for you.”
Chastity sits up and drops her legs over the side of the bed, disgusted. “Not me. I’m not having it.” She stands up and glares at the book in my hands.
“Maybe you should ask Joy to talk to you about it?” I say.
“Forget it!” she says, and marches out of the room, leaving me with the responsibility of having to sneak the book back into Joy’s closet. I drop to my knees and slide it under the mattress just as Joy appears in the doorway.
“What’s the matter with Chas?”
“Nothing.”
“What are you doing on the floor?”
“Nothing.”
Joy walks over and sits on the floor next to me. The two of us stare at our reflections in the glass bookcases without saying anything. After a bit, she breaks the silence.
“I’m sorry I got you into trouble with that gypsy thing last year.”
It’s not like her to apologize, even when she’s wrong. Especially to me. Maybe this being in charge thing has made her more mature.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I should have known better.”
She nibbles on her index fingernail, takes it out of her mouth and looks at it, then moves to the next stubby finger.
“Is something the matter, Joy?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Well, except for this stupid assignment I have in Business Math.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Joy gets all As in every subject. Especially math.
“It’s too hard?”
“No, not really. It’s just . . .”
“It’s just what?”
She sighs and drops her hand into her lap, fingering the ironed crease down the center of her jeans. “It’s just that I thought maybe you could help me.”
Has she lost her marbles? Math is my hardest subject. “I don’t think so, Joy.” I laugh, which comes out like a snort. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
“No I’m not,” she says. She leans back against the bed and walks her feet up the glass, leaving sock prints smudged on the surface of the bookcase. She stares at my reflection and speaks to it instead of me. “We’re supposed to imagine we’re investors in the stock market. Each of us has a pretend sum of money to invest and at the end of the semester we’re graded on how well our stocks have done.”
“So what’s the big deal? It sounds like a fun assignment.”
She turns to look at the real me. “I need your help. I need you to use your powers to choose what stocks I should invest in.”
“You know I can’t do that, Joy.”
“I won’t tell.”
“No, I mean I really can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“It doesn’t work that way. It’s a rule that comes with the Knowing. I can’t use it for profit.”
She turns away from me. Spit hits the glass when she finally answers. “Oh please! Whose rule? Yours?” Back to the fingernails.
“God’s. It’s God’s rule.”
Joy leaps to her feet. “God’s? What kind of mockery is that?” She folds her hands across her chest. “You think you can just toy with people, Grace? You think you’re so special you can pick and choose who and how you help? That you can exclude your own family?”
“It’s not like that!” I say. “Why are you so upset?”
“I want to use my own money, Grace. I want to invest my money so I don’t have to be poor like Mama and Daddy. I figure if I invest it well now, by the time I graduate I’ll be sitting pretty for college.”
“I’m sorry, Joy. I can’t.”
When I start to cry she glares at me, breathing hard through her nose. “You know what? I was just making fun of you. I wanted to see if you’d go for it. You think I really believe in your stupid Knowing? The only thing you know is how to make this family the laughingstock of Cherry Hill.”
She stomps out of the room. Her words feel like bee stings over every inch of me. I move toward the closet, then climb into bed instead. Sad and sleepy, I pull the covers over my head.
* * *
In the dream I’m standing with a crowd of people in the parking lot of our church. Suddenly a silver spaceship lands in the middle of the street and who should crawl out but the devil himself. Two horns stick out from his red temples just above furry eyebrows. His tail points upward behind him like a hunting dog on scent. He looks around at all the people frozen in their places, then focuses his cat eyes directly on me. A pitchfork appears in his right hand as he starts toward me. I try to run, but it feels like I’m moving through honey.
Lucifer is closing in on me fast. With nothing to lose, I turn to face him.
“What do you want with me?” I scream.
“Your Evil Eye, my dear.”
He strokes his Snidely Whiplash mustache as he says it. I’m so scared I feel like I might pee my pants.
“My evil eye?”
“The one that sees. You’re a little demon-child and you belong with me.”
I look toward heaven, begging God to tell Satan I’m not evil, that I’ve been saved. But God’s either busy or not listening, so I have to use my smarts instead.
“My eye can see that you’re going to be swallowed up by a tornado,” I say.
As soon as the words are out of my mouth a huge twister comes swirling across the horizon and sucks up the devil right before my eyes. His pointy red tail pokes out of the funnel cloud as it whirls past me. The crowd gathers around, amazed by my power but at the same time looking very afraid.
“Move it!” someone shouts, before they all r
un away.
“Move it! Everybody up!” Daddy raps on the wall at the foot of the stairs until he’s sure no living thing could possibly be asleep.
I untangle myself from Chastity’s legs and roll to my side of the saggy mattress. Pippy purrs beside my ear. I must have slept right through the night after Joy’s hissy fit. Chastity tumbles out of bed, blond locks framing her pale face as if angels spent the night arranging them around her head. My crazy hair sticks out every which way like bent straw.
Each of us got one good thing from Mama. Hope got her perfect complexion, Joy got her smarts, Chastity got her wavy locks, and I got her intuition. On mornings like this I would trade my gift of Knowing for Chastity’s beautiful blond hair in nothing flat. Untamed is the way Mama describes my frizzy red mess. “I don’t know where you got that wild hair of yours, Grace Marie,” she once said. “But no more use trying to tame it than you.” She meant it to be kind, like taking my side against all those unruly hairs. I think she likes my wild parts. I’m a lion compared to her other lambs.
Chastity pokes me in the leg with her finger. She’s already up and dressed in a jumper and penny loafers. “Grace, get out of bed! Can’t you smell it?”
I take in a big breath through my nose and smile. CoCo Wheats.
When we get downstairs, Daddy is at the stove in his work pants and a loopy undershirt. The outline of his belly button pushes against the thin cotton like when Mama was pregnant with Marilyn. He carries the pan of CoCo Wheats around the table and plop-plop-plops a spoonful into each of our bowls.
“Daddy,” Chastity whines, “they’re lumpy.”
“Hush up,” Joy hisses through her teeth. She turns back to Marilyn and spoons another tiny teaspoon of strained apricots into the baby’s mouth. Marilyn grins so big at my sister that the orange goo dribbles out of her mouth and runs down her chin.
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are?” Daddy says to Chastity.
Uh-oh, here comes the Starving Children in India lecture.
Chasity interrupts. “But, Daddy—”
“You sit there and eat every bite, young lady. And you think about how many children aren’t even going to get breakfast today.”
Chastity quietly spoons the lumps out of her bowl and hides them under her napkin. I miss one of the lumps and gag as I bite into a squishy ball of mush. I quickly shove a piece of peanut-buttered toast into my mouth followed by a gulp of milk, wiping up the drips with the back of my hand. Daddy’s busy scraping the dark parts off the next batch of burnt toast as if the bread won’t still taste like charcoal. By the time he finishes, the sink is coated with blackened crumbs he’ll probably try to use in tonight’s casserole.
It’s no secret that Daddy’s a cheapskate. He talked Mr. Norberg into giving him a clergy discount at the grocery store. Ever since then he’s had to do the food shopping because Mama was too embarrassed to go down there anymore. Daddy cuts coupons out of the Sunday paper that he gets for free on Monday because it’s a sin to buy anything on the Lord’s day. He takes the whole wad with him to the store. One of his favorite things is to brag about how much he saved on top of the ten percent clergy discount.
About the time the rest of us are finishing breakfast, Mama wanders into the kitchen wearing her light blue nightie and sits glassy-eyed at the end of the breakfast table. Her big, brown nipples stare at me through fabric that’s worn thin from too much time in bed. Daddy plants a kiss on her sleepy cheek and sets a cup of coffee in front of her. She smiles at us from very far away.
* * *
After I’m sure Daddy has left for his office I run up to the closet and close the door. The dream is still fresh in my mind.
“Isaac?”
Yes?
“Is there really a devil?”
Not with horns and a tail, no.
“But Daddy says . . .”
Your daddy is just passing on what he’s been taught. There’s no such thing as a pitchfork-wielding demon, if that’s what you’re asking.
“Then who is Satan?”
It’s more of a what than a who.
“I don’t get it.”
Satan represents all the evil in the world. It’s the dark side in all of us, our temptation to serve ourselves at the cost of others. You can probably think of some good examples.
“Like war? And stealing?”
Those two are usually the same thing, aren’t they? Most wars are started over greed, someone taking what’s not theirs. Satan is just the human personification of evil. People need a picture, something scary that they can relate to.
“Satan, demons, the devil . . . they all scare me. Sometimes people call me a devil for having the Knowing.”
You’re not evil, Grace. You’re human and all humans have the capacity for good and evil, but you’ve chosen to serve the former.
I pause, worried about the next thing I want to ask. If Isaac’s right it’ll be okay, but if not, I might get struck down just for thinking it.
“Is God . . . real?” I flinch as soon as the words are out in case lightning is about to hit.
Very real.
“Have you seen him?”
It’s not like you think, Grace. God is in you. God is in all of us. To people like your daddy he is human-looking. Others recognize God in a river or a tree.
“But Jesus is the son of God, right?”
We’re all children of God.
“I’m so confused.”
I know it’s difficult to understand. That’s why we create so many myths around God. What matters is that you experience God in the way that feels true to you.
“The closest I ever felt to God was before we were born.”
God is love in all its forms, but there is no greater love than a mother for her children.
“Even before they’re born?”
Even before they are conceived.
“I feel like my head might explode.”
Understanding God is one of life’s biggest questions. Always has been and always will be. God exists in the wondering. The fact that you’re asking just means you’re normal.
“I would never call myself normal.”
You’re right, you’re not normal, Grace. You’re exceptional. One day you’ll know how extraordinary you are, a blessing to the world.
“Ha.”
I mean it, Grace.
I can tell by the way he says it he does. I’m just not sure if I believe it myself.
14
It feels as if we’ve lost Mama for good. The pills she takes for her sadness keep her in a world nobody can reach, not even Daddy. She mostly stays in her room reading magazines or pretending to read them. Sometimes she just turns the pages. Today it’s more than I can bear. She’s propped up in bed with her bare feet crossed at the ankles, staring at a photo of Grace Kelly. She points at the magazine.
“We should give you a pixie.”
I lean in and look closer at the photograph. “I don’t think I’d look good in short hair, Mama.”
Mama has always trimmed our hair, but when she started taking the medicine for her condition we all ended up with crooked bangs. The last time was a disaster. When she pinched my jaw in her hand I squeezed my eyelids shut, fearing one of those blades would miss their target. I heard a crink, crink sound and when I peeked open one eye Mama was scrunching up her nose, looking at the scissors.
I gasped. “Those are pinking shears!”
“Oops.”
“Oops?” I shook loose from her grip and ran to the bathroom mirror. My bangs looked like one side of a zipper.
“Mama!”
“Don’t worry, I can fix it,” she’d said, following my wails into the bathroom. Behind me, her face drooped in the mirror, like the nursing home residents Daddy calls on. When I turned around she was holding the regular scissors.
“Be careful, Mama,” I whispered, as she crunched through my bangs again.
“Ta-da!” she cheered after her second attempt, meaning to shove the scissors in her a
pron pocket but missing by an inch. I jumped out of the way before the point could hit my bare toes. When I turned back to the mirror a neat edge of bangs traveled up one side of my forehead, exposing only my right eyebrow. Mama smiled behind me, obviously pleased with herself. I decided not to make a fuss since if my bangs were any shorter, I couldn’t really call them bangs anymore. And I vowed never to let her cut my hair again.
I give Mama’s hand a squeeze before climbing off the bed. “I’ll think about it, Mama.”
But she’s gone again, to wherever she goes when she stares at you without really seeing. I back out of the room and head for the kitchen, where Joy sits at one end of the table sorting bank checks and piling them into separate stacks. Marilyn is propped in a plastic walker, delicately picking through a tray of stale Cheerios. Her toes barely reach the floor and the only way she can scoot is backward. When I stop to grab an apple from the bowl on the kitchen counter she grins, a soggy Cheerio stuck to her cheek.
“What are you doing, Joy?”
Miss Busybody doesn’t even look up to answer me. “Helping Daddy get ready for his tax appointment.”
“How come?”
“Because he’s too busy. I do all his banking now.”
“But you’re only fourteen.”
“It so happens that some of us mature faster than others.” With one foot, Joy hooks a leg of the walker and pulls Marilyn, who has flopped like a drunk to one side, back to the table. She adjusts Marilyn’s position and tucks a blanket on each side to help keep her upright. “Besides, I enjoy it. It’s like being the banker in Monopoly.”
Everyone knows Joy lives for numbers, especially when they have dollar signs in front of them. A couple years ago she shoved a wallet in the back pocket of her jeans, just like a man does. Ever since Mama got sick Joy’s started walking heavier on her heels, like she has somewhere important to go.
“We should ask Daddy to take us to the roller rink,” I say. “We were supposed to go on my birthday, but I think he forgot.”
She stares at me through straight bangs that hang over her serious eyes. Joy cuts her own hair.
“I said I have to sort the checks for Daddy. Why don’t you call your hippie friend?”
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