“You mean, Mr. Warren, Mr. Warren?” Mr. Warren, her favorite patient?
“Yep. Mr. Warren, Mr. Warren.” I had never seen Mr. Warren, but in this moment, I wondered what he looked like back then. Probably real tall with big crusty hands, a rough beard, a beanie on his head or one of them old-men hats with the kangaroo on the back. Maybe even chewing on a straw or a toothpick, a fat wallet in his back pocket, full of receipts and no money. Something like that. Like Coach, if Coach had hair on his face and was a janitor. And was tall. So . . . maybe not like Coach. But . . . yeah.
“Mr. Warren’s been the sweetest old man alive since back then,” Momly continued. “He’d let me show up for work with him after school, and he’d say I could sweep here, or scrub there. Light work compared to what my mother had me doing, but it was all I needed to make me feel like I was honoring her, y’know, and like I wasn’t completely taking a handout.”
I nodded. All of this made perfect sense to me. “But where was your mom?”
“We had to put her in a home. I went to live with an older cousin who’d moved to the city for college. She was really too young to be taking care of me, but we didn’t have any other family, so . . .” Momly shrugged.
“Yeah.”
“But I saw my mom on weekends.” Momly picked at a cuticle, gave it a tear. “Then one day I showed up after school ready for my daily task, and Mr. Warren said that he didn’t have anything for me. And when I asked him why not, he said because he didn’t have a task nearly as important as the one I was avoiding. Wait . . . that’s not exactly what he said. What he really said was”—Momly held her finger out and screwed her face to imitate an old man—“ ‘Folks who try to do everything are usually avoiding one thing.’ ”
“And was he right?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
“Was he right?” Momly picked up the last two glasses from the counter, held them up to the light—no spots—then put them up in the cabinet. “He definitely was. But I didn’t know it at the time. I mean, I was twelve, and couldn’t figure out how to deal with the fact that my mother wasn’t the same, y’know?”
“Yeah.”
“And guess what? That old man is still teaching me stuff. Even the other day, when he was sort of out of it, going on about buffing the floor”—Momly’s face brightened, laughter trapped behind her lips—“all I could think was that he thinks he can do things that he just . . . he just can’t anymore. In his mind, he’s strong enough to push a buffer. But you know? If he really wants to clean that floor, we can do it together. And that’s okay.”
TO DO: Get there (there’s nothing else I can do)
THE NEXT MORNING Momly dropped me off, but only me. Maddy had spent the whole ride telling me how milking cows didn’t scare her, and how if the milk don’t come out like it’s supposed to, she’ll just pick the whole cow up and shake the milk out of it. Yep, farm day had finally arrived.
“Have fun,” I said, climbing out of the car at the exact same moment Becca was walking between Momly’s car and the car in front of us. We did a weird wave thing, and then I turned back to Maddy. “You getting up front?” I asked, not really serious, but Momly cut me off anyway.
“No, Patty, she is not,” she said with an unusual snap. Momly ain’t have no funk in her. No sit down. No finger point. No talk-through-teethness. None of that. But she didn’t do the Maddy-in-the-front-seat thing. Maddy could kick the front seat all day, every day, could put a hole in it and everything, and Momly would be cool. But not this.
“Come on, Momly. Please? I did it yesterday,” Maddy begged. Momly turned around in her seat, looked Maddy in the face.
“You’re not old enough yet, sweetheart.” That little bit of snap was gone and she was back to sweet Momly, even though she was still saying no.
“Patty!”
“What you want me to do?” I shrugged. “Look, you’ll be up front soon enough, and then all you gon’ do is wish you were in the back. So chill, and enjoy your limo ride to the farm, Waffle.” I tried not to laugh while closing the door and throwing up the peace sign.
This is gonna sound silly, but when I walked into school, the hallway seemed different. Just knowing that Momly used to clean the floors of Chester, used to make it shiny every day just so it could get all scuffed up and dirty again, the same way she did our house, her car, and everything else, had my mind doing flips, thinking thoughts it never thought before. I was looking down at the floor, the light shining off it. Looking down like usual, but for a different reason today.
At my locker, Becca was waiting for me, wearing a weirdo smile, holding a piece of paper.
“Hey,” I said, surprised she was there.
“Hey. So, last night I was looking for more cool stuff about Frida, and I decided to just do something silly and Google Frida Kahlo and space, just to see, y’know? I wasn’t really expecting nothing, but listen to this.” Becca held the paper up and read, “ ‘A constellation that exists only on paper is useless.’ ” She slapped the note down to her side. I gave her a blank stare. A so what face, which is when Becca yipped, “Frida said that!”
“But what does it mean?”
“I have no idea. But she said it!” Me and Becca laughed. “And I’m going to think about it, because maybe we can use it for the project.”
I nodded, smiled. “Then I’ll think about it too.”
“Sweet. By the way, your little sister is the cutest.” Then Becca held up two fingers like Maddy and said all corny and awkward, “Peace.”
Peace. That’s the opposite of what came knocking on the door at the very end of homeroom. Mrs. Stansfield had taken roll, and the morning announcements happened, which was usually about permission slips and the day’s lunch menu. Sesame chicken—yes! One of my favorite things to eat. My stomach started growling as I heard those two words come crackling through the intercom. So excited. And then Jasmine Stanger made her own morning announcement, that she had to take her belly button ring out. She lifted her shirt. Her belly button had turned into an alien. And my stomach stopped growling.
After the announcements and before the bell rang, the intercom speaker came buzzing back on.
“Mrs. Stansfield?” Ms. Durden’s voice came growling through. Ms. Durden worked at the front desk in the office. Had a face like a baby doll and a voice like a car engine.
“Yes?”
“Can you please send Patina Jones to the office? Her uncle’s here to pick her up.”
My uncle? To pick me up? Why? What? I jumped up, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door. As I walked down the hallway, I could see Uncle Tony pacing back and forth.
“Uncle Tony?”
When he turned toward me, his face looked like there was ice under his skin. “Patty!”
“What you doing here?”
My heart was pounding even before he said what he said. The thing you never want to hear. Something I’d heard before, and never wanted to hear again. “Something’s happened.”
Something’s happened.
Something’s happened?
The bell rang.
“What? What . . . happened?” I asked, already heading for the doors as my classmates poured into the hallway, homeroom over. My legs felt heavy and my body was doing what it does when I run, but I wasn’t running. I was walking, but it didn’t really feel like I was doing that, either. I was just . . . moving.
“I’ll tell you in the car.” Uncle Tony grabbed my hand, squeezed it as he led the way.
“Is it Ma? Is something wrong with Ma?” There was something about him holding my hand, something about that moment that made everything around me fade into streaks of yellows, browns, and pinks. The hallway muted in my head. I could only hear my uncle.
“We’ve gotta get to the hospital,” he answered, steering me toward his SUV. He broke into a jog.
We have to go. We had to go. To the hospital. To the HOSPITAL.
Unmute. One second of teenage noise explosion before barreling through the do
uble doors.
“The hospital?!” I cried out. “Uncle Tony, what’s going on? What’s wrong with Ma?” But he didn’t respond until we were in his SUV. He jammed the key into the ignition and pulled away from the curb. And before I could ask again, he looked me square in the face.
“Your mother is fine,” he confirmed finally. And I could breathe. But only one breath. Because then Uncle Tony said, “But Momly and Maddy were in an accident.”
“What . . . wha . . . do . . . whattayoumean, Momly, and . . . and Maddy? What are you talking about?” It was hard to find words, because it was hard to find breath. My whole body felt like it had been emptied out. Like I ain’t have bones or blood or nothing inside.
Uncle Tony repeated. “I don’t know how else to say it, Patty. They . . . they were in a car accident.”
Like I said—the opposite of peace. Well, not really because the opposite of peace is war, and I wasn’t at war. But there were definitely cannons going off in my brain, just like Mr. Winston had been talking about. To the left and to the right. And all over. Cannons shooting exploding cannonballs of worry. Explosions of, Is Maddy okay? Please let Maddy be okay. And Momly? Is she hurt? Is she . . . Boom. Boom. Boom. All Uncle Tony knew was he’d gotten a call from the hospital, not ten minutes ago. He was just leaving for work. That all they said was there was an accident. That he didn’t know much more than that. He kept one hand on the wheel, and with the other he reached over and took mine again. Squeezed tighter this time, like trying to squeeze some it’s gonna be okay in me. Trying to squeeze his own scared away the same way I do for Maddy sometimes. Oh, Maddy. No one was kicking the back of my seat. Maddy. Maddy, please, just . . . Momly, please, please, just . . . be . . . just be . . . breathing.
“Have you called my mom?” I asked as we pulled into the hospital.
“Not yet.”
I immediately pulled out my phone, but Uncle Tony patted my hand down as he wheeled the SUV into a parking space.
“Let’s, um . . . let’s just wait until we see what’s what, okay? Y’know, get a diagnosis.” He turned the key, killed the engine.
My heart lurched at diagnosis. There’s “die” in that word.
TO DO: Be there (and stop Maddy from going there)
MOMLY WAS ALIVE. The nurse at the front desk told us she was banged up pretty bad, and had a mild concussion and a broken arm.
“And what about Maddy?” I asked before she’d even finished saying “broken arm.” My heart had turned into a frog trying to jump out my throat. My brain thinking bad things only. I’m sorry, but she didn’t make it . . . No. No, no, no. Don’t think that. Don’t think that. But I couldn’t help it. What if Maddy was . . . I tried not to think what I couldn’t stop myself from thinking. That Maddy, my mini-me, my Waffle, was . . . hurt. Was . . . gone. I tried to speak clear, my voice balling up like a piece of paper. “I mean, Madison. Madison Jones.”
“The little girl who was with her,” Uncle Tony made plain, his voice sharp. Almost too clear.
“Ah.” The nurse’s face brightened up. “Baby ain’t have a scratch on her.”
All the breath in my body left, and then came rushing back in. Filled me up with a bunch of thank goodness. The cannons stopped firing. And the boom-boom-boom became the beep-beep-beep coming though the crack in the door of the room Maddy and Momly were in. It was as if me and Uncle Tony had teleported there.
“Hello?” Uncle Tony cried out as he tapped on the door and crept in like we didn’t belong there, like we were afraid the doctor who was also in the room would think we had come to steal our family back.
“Patty!” Maddy jumped up from a chair and crashed against me. She squeezed, not like she was trying to lift me up, but like she was trying to melt into me. And I squeezed back like I was scared to let go.
Uncle Tony darted to the bed where Momly lay. Maddy and me weren’t far behind him. The first thing I noticed was Momly’s face. It was puffed up, so much purple on her pale skin. Bruises and lumps and knots, worse than a Barnaby beat-down. And then I noticed her arm. The broken one. It was swollen up to the shoulder, making the skin look like it was being stretched too tight. Compared to the other arm, it looked more like a leg, at least the top part did. The bottom part they had in some kind of sling-contraption thingy, to keep it from moving. But I could still see the imprint in the fabric where the bone jutted out, like a second elbow. Looked like it hurt like crazy.
“Come on in, y’all.” Momly’s voice was all grog. She waved us toward her with her good arm—her right arm—like she was hosting a party. “Dr. Lancaster, this is the rest of my family. Patty, and my husband, Tony.”
“Nice to meet you,” Uncle Tony said, immediately shaking the doctor’s hand.
“The pleasure’s mine,” Dr. Lancaster said, smooth. “Me and Maddy are just here making sure Mrs. Emily doesn’t fall asleep while she’s concussed.”
“What happened?” I asked, because how does someone who drove as safe as Momly, someone who didn’t even listen to music in her car, get in a crash?
“Yeah, Em, what in the world happened?” Uncle Tony followed up, gently stroking Momly’s hair.
Momly’s eyes were half-open, blinking super slow like windshield wipers on the low setting. Like when it’s just drizzling. “Someone ran a red light. Smacked right into us and kept going.”
“A hit-and-run?” Uncle Tony asked, his voice hardening in a way I’d never heard.
Momly nodded. “Yeah.” She tried to shift in the bed but was in too much pain to do so. Every little inch up or to the side made her show teeth. A pain smile. “But I’ll be fine,” she was telling us now, stroking Uncle Tony’s arm. “Right, doc? Concussions and broken bones heal. I’m just glad the strongest girl in the world’s not hurt.”
Maddy’s arm tightened around my waist. Down, tears. Down! Hold it together. You are Patina Jones. Daughter of Beverly Jones. No junk. No punk.
“I know,” I said, forcing a small smile and resting my cheek on the top of Maddy’s head. I figured I’d better put my face down somewhere before it split down the middle. Then Maddy reached over and took Momly’s hand, her chest heaving as she worked to fight back her own feelings, even though she had been there the whole time. It was like now that me and Uncle Tony showed up, she could let herself be scared.
“It’s okay, Maddy. I’m fine. I swear. It’s just a broken arm. Remember when Cotton broke her arm? She was better in no time! Nothing crazy.” Cotton broke her arm trying to prove she could do a handstand on the bathroom sink at Barnaby Elementary, but she slipped. She was lucky. Could’ve broke her neck. Or broke her life. But that would’ve been her own fault. This was different. “Hey . . . hey, Patty, I won’t be running any relays anytime soon, huh? No handoffs for me.” Momly was trying to lighten the mood, but it fell flat. I forced a fake laugh, because I got what she was trying to do. But jokes were Uncle Tony’s thing.
“But . . . but . . . I just don’t want them to anfiltrate it!” Maddy wasn’t distracted at all by the corny comedy. Momly refocused.
“They’re not gonna amputate it, baby. They’re gonna fix it,” she assured her. That voice, the one that usually only a mom has, even though . . . well, she’s our mom too, kicked in and seemed to calm the whole room down. But I knew Maddy. I could look in her face and see that she wasn’t so sure that things were going to be fine.
“Maddy, they’re not gonna take it,” I echoed. Then a better idea to chill Maddy out sprouted up in my mind, and I walked to the other side of the room to grab one of the two chairs that were there.
“We’re definitely not,” the doctor confirmed. And while he explained how bone healing works, and Maddy started getting into how our mother had had her legs cut off, I bent down and pretended to try to move the chair. I started grunting like I was constipated or something, just to draw attention. “Ughn . . . ughn.” I turned around and Maddy was still going on about how for our mom, first it was a toe, then it was a foot, then her legs—none of which she actual
ly remembers—and how for Momly, what if it starts with one part of the arm, and the next thing you know half her body is cut off.
“What if she can’t drive with half a body?” she asked the doctor, who at this point looked somewhere between amused and confused.
“Maddy, can you come help me, please?”
“Help you what?” she asked, her voice still quavering.
“Help me move this chair. It’s too heavy.” The chair really was more like real furniture. Not some flimsy fold-up. Of course I could’ve moved it if I really wanted to. But I bent down again with a huge, “Ughn!”
“It’s just a chair, Patty,” Maddy said, skeptical but coming to my side anyway.
“Yeah, but I think hospital chairs be heavier for some reason.”
Maddy frowned, but then she grabbed the chair by the armrests and yanked it forward. I widened my eyes as Maddy backed the chair across the room, inch by inch, until it was at the foot of Momly’s bed.
“That one’s for Uncle Tony,” I said as she slapped her hands together like, light work. “But I need to sit down too.” I pointed at the other chair. “And then you can sit on my lap.” Maddy trotted back to the other side of the room to get the other one, Uncle Tony plopping down in the first.
“Thank you, Maddy,” he said, winking at Momly.
“No problem. They not even that heavy for me,” Maddy boasted.
“Of course not,” I agreed, watching her lug the next chair. When she’d parked it beside the other, I sat down. “Girl, I’m so glad we got somebody strong in this family.” I patted my thighs, beckoning her to come take a seat so we could continue on with the visit and put the tears and scary stuff behind us. But, in true Maddy fashion, she wasn’t ready to sit yet. Oh no. I got her going. Got her all revved up. Next thing I know she was now explaining to the doctor that she was one of the strongest first graders he’d ever seen.
“It’s true,” Momly gurgled.
And when Dr. Lancaster asked, “Is that right?” Maddy ran up on him like a maniac, threw her arms around his legs, and tried to lift him!
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