“I wanna see my kid. Don’t you wanna see her? She yours too.”
I did wanna see her but not with the same hardness that he did. I got the feeling if he ain’t see her in about ten minutes he would go on a rampage, checking each one of the hospital rooms for her. I don’t know if he thought somebody had stolen her or what, but I just nodded. When they finally brought her to us silence filled the room. It was like watching some kinda miracle. He ain’t wanna give her up. He wrapped his sweater around her like the blanket wasn’t enough and grinned like a man gone insane.
“She look like me, don’t she?”
“I don’t know. I can’t really see.”
“She look like me. Look at her. She got my hair. My lips.” He dug around in the blanket a bit and lifted his pointer finger to show me the tiny hands that clung to it. “And she got my hands. Fighting hands. She’s a fighter, just like her daddy. Ain’t that right, Mya? Open your eyes so I know you hear me.”
“They don’t do that right away.”
“She gone do it. Come on, girl.”
“Ricky, come on. Let me hold her.”
“Not until she open her eyes. I’m gonna be the first person she sees. She’ll do it. Watch.”
Only I couldn’t. All I could see was his sweater and some blankets. He walked toward me like he might just give her up but stopped when they were still outta reach. The nurse came back and gave me a sympathetic look. I’d get her soon enough, or least that’s what I thought. As soon as she started crying he’d hand her over. He was like that with Nikki. Couldn’t stand the sound of a baby crying. I yawned and suddenly the hospital bed felt just a bit more comfortable. I moved around until I found a good spot.
Next thing I knew the sunlight was tickling my eyelids. Ricky was in the chair, still holding her. I guess the nurses decided it was easier to give him his way and let him keep her.
“Hey, you awake. Look, look she opened her eyes. And she smiled at me. You believe that?”
Surprise
THE FIRST FEW WEEKS I tried real hard to be good to her, just like any mama would. Tried to get her to take my milk but she wouldn’t. She’d fuss and fuss until we were both tired out. Doctor said she wasn’t getting enough nutrition so he put her on formula. I remember standing in the examining room, watching him say it. She was still on the scale, crying so much Ricky finally picked her up. It should’ve been me to pick her up but I couldn’t move. The doctor had this high voice that sounded like he was talking outta his nose. And he was saying it like it was something he said a hundred times a day.
“We will just put her on formula then. It’s the same.”
But it wasn’t to me. What I have tits for if they weren’t to feed my babies? I loved my babies. Loved them like I just knew my mama ain’t love me. She probably never even thought to nurse me.
“I can do it. I wanna keep trying.”
“Pecan, let it go. Now the doctor already done said it’s the same.”
So it was the same. I told myself that over and over, watching Ricky stick a bottle in her mouth. She took it every time. Took the bottle over me. On top of that wasn’t nothing about her like me. She was a beautiful baby and smart too, everybody said it so I knew it was true. Other babies was just holding their heads up but not Mya. By six months she was scooting around and getting into everything, and I mean everything. When Nikki was a baby she always stayed close by, checking to make sure I was watching but Mya acted like I ain’t even exist. If I put her down for a second she’d take off and end up somewhere we couldn’t see her. But she was polite and all. She’d let me hold her, play with her a little, and then she’d take off again. I got to thinking maybe it was my fault since I’d tried to wish her away to begin with. Maybe she knew. By the time Ricky’d come home she’d be all pooped out so she’d just lie in his arms. I’d watch from a safe distance, hating him. She was my baby, or she was supposed to be anyway.
“Pecan, come on in here!”
Nikki’d already gone down but Ricky liked to stay up and watch TV with Mya. It was their alone time.
“Yeah?” I stood next to the television set, working a towel around a bowl to dry it. “Want me to put her to bed?”
“N’all I’ll do it later. What’s this here red mark on her foot?”
“I don’t know.”
He rested her tiny foot back onto his thigh and glared at me. Somehow I’d let something happen to his baby. I backed up through my day. What did I do? I baked a cake. Nikki had helped me with the batter.
“How you not know? What kinda mama don’t know?”
I made a cake and then what? Then what? Ricky lifted her leg again and this time she stirred in his arms and for a second I thought he might get distracted but nothing could ever distract him from something like this. I wanted to get closer to get a better look, maybe get some clue as to what caused the mark, but my legs wouldn’t move. My hands neither, they just held onto the towel and the bowl. I might as well have been a statue.
“Look like a splinter. Bring me some tweezers.”
I did as I was told. I couldn’t risk being still if he was going to give me a chance to redeem myself. I handed him my manicure set and watched real close as he eased the sliver of wood out. So gentle she ain’t even wake up. I didn’t know he could be that gentle.
“Where her socks? Why you ain’t put no socks on her?”
“I…I did.”
“Don’t see them.”
“She took them off.”
He ain’t believe me. If Mya could’ve talked he would’ve asked her if that was really what happened. Like I was making it up, lying just to cover up the fact that I was a bad mama. The sports announcer said something interesting so Ricky went back to watching the TV. I loved the TV. It gave me some peace and quiet. Ricky could sit in front of it for hours. Some nights that’s all he did.
During the day I kept busy with chores and the girls and sometimes I’d run into other housewives at the grocer’s and we’d chit-chat. Comparing notes on recipes and our kids. That’s how I met Paula. She had two kids too and she was young like me. Paula and Helen, with her long legs and in your face make-up, were my only links to the outside world. If I ain’t have them I don’t know what I would’ve done. But Paula was more happy than the rest of us. Her husband worked at a bank and he was into backyard barbecues and stuff. Him and Ricky ain’t really get along. But me and Paula’s carts stood side by side and our kids giggled up and down the aisle as we caught up on what had happened in the last week. Mya was just about ten months by then and she started whining from her seat in the cart. I could tell she wanted to get down and run with the others. She was still too young but she kept at it until I took her out.
“So, I asked Harold about going dancing. You and Ricky should come with us this time. There’s this real nice piano bar called Tuesday’s.”
“Tuesday’s?”
“Yeah I know. It’s kinda a weird name but they got live music. It’ll be fun!”
“I’ll ask him. Ricky like dancing and all but I don’t know if he’s gonna feel like it after training all day.”
The sudden crack of bone against tile went through me something awful. I knew it was Mya before I even looked down the aisle. She was hollering up a storm and the other three kids stood around her in awe. Screaming bloody murder she was and the lump on her forehead grew with each passing second. The store manager came around and wanted to know why I wasn’t watching her. I told him I was just right over there, that I was watching. He made a point to say that the floor wasn’t wet and they weren’t responsible and then asked me to make my purchases and leave.
“She just fall.” Nikki said as we headed home. “Mama? She just fall.”
I wasn’t blaming her but she felt the need to defend herself. I’d explained to her that she was the big sister now, that she had to look out for the baby. I figured that way I could keep bad stuff from happening to Mya. But sometimes kids just fall.
I set the table for supper but a
in’t really expect Ricky to be home in time. I’d hoped I could get Mya down before he noticed the bump on her head. I was wrong. She ain’t appear to be in any pain but he took one look at the red knot and chased me from the dining room to the kitchen to the living room.
“It was an accident! She just fell!” But he ain’t wanna hear it. He’d made up his mind. I was a bad mama and I needed to be punished. “She’s okay! Look at her, she’s okay! Ricky, please—” I saw his fist pull back and I was desperate. So desperate that I told him the only thing I could think of. “I’m pregnant!” And I was.
A light might have went on somewhere behind his eyes but it wasn’t enough to stop him. Twisting and turning to get out his reach, I landed right on the coffee table. Or right through it really. It was the type made of glass. The whole right side of my body was in hell and covered in tiny bleeding cuts. I tried to get up but my knee kept scraping on something sharp so finally I just gave up. I’m not sure how long I laid there before he got me up.
“YOU WANT ANOTHER TABLE? I just sold you one what...nine ten months ago!” Helen thought it was hilarious. “And what’s with the shades, girl? There ain’t no sun out. This is Chicago in November!”
I should’ve waited until she went on lunch and had someone else help me but I didn’t. I strapped Mya into a stroller and told Nikki to stay close. I thought I could cover my limp by wearing pants but a few folks gave me curious looks already and now my best friend was. Maybe I wanted her to know.
“Can I get the same one?”
“Why you wanna get the same one? What’s the point in that?”
“It broke.”
“Oh well, girl, why you ain’t just say so? You know they’ll replace it or fix it or whatever. Just tell me what part broke.”
“All of it.”
“All of it? How you go and do that?”
I wanted to tell her I had help. That I had bruises and cuts that would never heal. But I didn’t.
WHEN I GOT HOME Ricky was waiting and he wasn’t alone. Aunt Clara was his daddy’s sister. She was short and round but spoke her mind and spoke it clearly. She used to have a beauty shop back when she lived down South but it closed a few years before Ricky sent for her. She hugged the little ones first, making sure to comment on how much Mya looked like Ricky then came in to hug me.
“Pecan, don’t like to be hugged, Auntie.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“She just don’t. She’s going upstairs to lie down.”
That was my cue. I took my time going up the stairs but tried not to wince too much. It was nice of Ricky to have his aunt come stay with us. I don’t think that at the time he thought too much about what it would really mean. Aunt Clara never had kids, never got married. She said men were too much trouble. On top of all that, she wasn’t the kinda woman to take no stuff neither. Thinking back on it, Ricky must have been real desperate to have an extra set of hands around the house.
Taking off my coat was such a chore I decided to lie down with my clothes on. I set my shades on the nightstand so they looked back at me. My left eye was swollen shut so I couldn’t see outta it. Ricky had a way with the front door, a way of closing it and opening it that let me know it was him. And I knew he had to go to the gym so the sound of it clicking shut made sense. I lied there, listening to Aunt Clara playing with the girls and dozed off. When I woke up I smelt the most delicious smells.
“Hungry?” She stood at the door holding a tray of steaming food.
“Um...” I nearly broke my neck trying to get my shades back on.
Aunt Clara just set the tray on the foot of the bed and walked out. She came back when she was sure I was done, this time she brought a dishtowel soaked with ice cubes. “Let’s take these off,” she said, removing my shades. “What you really need is some meat but I’m gonna put this on your eye for a little bit. It’s cold, now, so don’t be shocked.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to say something. “Thank you,” squeaked out.
Aunt Clara was a gift from God. I’m sure she ain’t know it but I did. I never missed having a mama, not really, not until I had Clara. The missing part ain’t last too long, though, because I learned how to be a mama from watching her. Even though she didn’t have kids she had a real mothering kinda way about her. Everybody around her couldn’t help but feel loved. Folks in the neighborhood flocked to our kitchen door, asking for advice or just wanting somebody to pray with them. Clara would make them some coffee and light herself a cigarette at the kitchen table. Me and Nikki watched while she saved women from nosy neighbors and cheating husbands and bosses that treated them like they were made of steel. These women would come in crying or so angry they couldn’t sit still. Clara had her way and they left just as calm as could be.
She had that effect on me and Ricky too. Over the next few months everything changed. Ricky ain’t lay a hand on me except to be real loving. He made a point of taking me out a few times a month. Sometimes we’d go dancing. It was a real sight, me as big as I was. But he ain’t seem to care so I ain’t care. It was fun. Fun that we should’ve had before we got married. Yeah, only took a few months before Aunt Clara was a full-fledged member of our family and we were all loving on her. She had no plans to leave, not that we would’ve let her. She was teaching me to make butter beans the way Ricky’s grandmama did and telling me all about the good old days when I came up with the name.
“Jackie.”
“Jackie what, hun?” She always called me hun. Not honey, just hun. And sometimes she’d call me Pecan girl.
“I’ma name her Jackie.”
She shuffled around the kitchen with a cigarette dangling from her lips, chuckling in the way that she did when she found something sorta funny, not all the way funny. “You done with them onions?”
“You don’t like Jackie?”
“I likes it just fine. I see you done named Nikki, Nikki not Nicole. Jackie ain’t a proper name. Jacqueline. Now that’s what you put on the papers. Spell it real fancy like with a q.”
I nodded. It was settled. I patted my belly, thinking about the little person that would soon be coming out. Wondering if she’d look like me or Ricky. I ain’t really care I just wanted to be sure she would love me. I think I loved all my kids the same. Well I tried to anyway. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t all love me the same. I just wanted one that I knew loved me. That ain’t make me feel like I was inside out. I shut my eyes and tried to send all my love to my belly. If she felt it, maybe when she came out she’d be ready to give some of it back.
“Now how you gone finish chopping onions with your eyes closed?” Clara laughed at me and I felt warm all over. I was funny. I ain’t know I was funny until Aunt Clara laughed at me. “Pecan girl, I tell you...God must have been feeling real good the day he made you.” She exhaled a ring of smoke and her eyes danced all giddy like at me.
“Why you say that?”
“Because it’s true. That’s something my mama used to say when one of us did something particular that she found funny. I tell you about the time Ricky’s daddy—my brotha—decided he was gone catch himself a chick-en?” I shook my head and waited for the story to begin. Nikki was sitting on my lap but she slid down to the floor, giggling at Clara’s face, how she pronounced every syllable of the word. “Well, see, we lived on a farm. We had chick-ens but daddy said those was his chick-ens and he meant to sell them. Bobby Lee ain’t like that. He got it in his head that he was going to have his own farm with his own chick-ens. Pass me them onions since you done with them.” I met her at the stove and offered up my part a the meal. “Just go on and dump them in there.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah, whatcha wanna save them for? Now Bobby Lee call himself sneaking into the chick-en coop to get an egg so he can have himself a chick-en. He got in there and all the chick-ens go crazy, flapping and quacking, feathers flying everywhere. They start attacking him with they sharp little beaks and he come out screaming, calling on Jesus to save him. Know
what happened?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Daddy came outside, saw what he was up to, and he was about to get Bobby Lee good but he figured the chick-ens had already got him. The next day Bobby Lee went back to the chick-en coop. He said they were introduced now so there wasn’t gone be no problems. Know what happened?”
“They attacked him.”
“Yeah. Damn near put his eye out. My brotha wasn’t too bright. And he sure was hard-headed.”
“He went back again?”
“Mama had to finally tell him, she say...Bobby Lee, you got to know when enough’s enough. He couldn’t ever tell when enough was enough. Did everything too much. Drank too much. Ate too much. Had too many women. Sung too damn loud. And he never hit the right keys!”
“Too bad Ricky never knew him.”
“Who said he ain’t never knew him?” She shook her head just once and flicked the stub of her cigarette into an empty soda can. “They ain’t lived nothing but a few blocks from each other his whole life! Ricky mama and Bobby Lee was sweet on each other something terrible. Since they were real little. Hell, all of Biloxi knew that! Bobby Lee just ain’t wanna sit still, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh.”
“He my brotha, the only one I got so you know I ain’t gonna lie on him. He was the first one of us to...go on. Mama and daddy ain’t know what to do. Ain’t no parent supposed to bury their child.”
“Guess not. Wish I could’ve met him.”
“Yeah...” Clara gave me a firm kinda smile. “He would’ve liked you. You’d probably liked him. Wasn’t many people that ain’t like Bobby Lee.”
“Ricky like that.”
“N’all he not.” Clara shook her head twice for good measure then went back to the beans. “They ain’t nothing alike—Ricky and his daddy. For all his faults Bobby Lee was sweet.”
How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) Page 4