“So, how’d your first day go?” Johnathan Bryer was a tiny sorta guy with big speckled glasses that took over his face. He was mostly bald with peachy kinda skin, one of them white folks that ain’t look real real white. And he ain’t sound how he looked. He had a big voice that kinda reminded me of my daddy. “Mrs. Morrow?”
“I did alright, I guess. Sold two shirts. Took me a while to figure how to ring them up, though.”
One side of his mouth went up in a grin and he stopped tapping numbers into the calculator on his desk. “Mrs. Morrow, don’t you know you’re supposed to lie to the man who signs your checks? When he asks you how things are going you just smile and say everything’s great.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Where’s the smile?” I did my best. It couldn’t of been that bad because he let out this laugh that made the pictures on the wall shake. “Well no one’s going to accuse you of playing fast and loose with the facts. If you don’t like the sales floor we can move you into the office.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow. Would you like security to walk you to your car?”
“Don’t have one. I’m on the bus.”
“That doesn’t sound too safe. This time of night. Why don’t you ask one of the other girls—”
“I’ll be just fine. Thank you, Mr. Bryer.”
Couldn’t nothing else happen to me. If I could make it through a whole week living under Ricky’s roof after trying to leave him a second time, I could make it to the bus stop. On the ride home I sat by the window and watched my life go by. When I was a little girl I used to like chasing butterflies. They’d fly all crazy like, had me running in squiggly circles. Seem like the very next day I was grown with a man and a baby, still running in crazy circles. Couldn’t go back but I thought maybe I could go somewhere. Somewhere where nobody looked at me like poor Pecan. Where I ain’t feel like her neither. Maybe I’d take the girls to go see Clara for a bit. They’d probably like the South. Then I saw it. Chestnut. Just hanging right there over the sidewalk like it was asking me to come for a visit. We rolled on past and I turned to watch it rock forward and back from the chain hanging off the stoplight. Wasn’t like I knew where the woman lived exactly. Or even if Ricky was there. Didn’t matter no way because when I got off the bus I knew something was wrong. Mya and Jackie was waiting for me at the bus stop.
“Nat sick, Mama! She real sick! Nikki say she got a fever of one oh five!”
“Um...” They took both my hands and led me down the block. Given how cold their hands felt they were probably waiting for a while. “How long...when her fever get that high?”
“I don’t know.”
“She awake?” The both shrugged and kept on moving. “What y’all doing out in the middle of the night? How come your daddy ain’t—”
“Daddy not home yet.”
The porch steps creaked underneath us but I ain’t pay them no mind. He hadn’t even seen fit to come home or at least call. Shouldn’t of shocked me but it did. Some part of me still thought that deep down he probably loved the girls. I was a stupid, stupid woman. Nat was balled up on the sofa shivering and sweating buckets.
“I tried to put a blanket on her but she keep kicking it off, Mama. I don’t know...I ain’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay, Nikki. You done good. Okay?
“Mmmhmm.”
Nat was just barely coming around. Her eyes opened enough to call out my name. Wasn’t nobody else to save my kids, just me. They were all looking to me.
“Mama, what we gonna do?”
“Shh! Just let me think.”
“She sick! Look!” Jackie pointed one finger just as Nat leaned over the side of the sofa to get rid of whatever they’d eaten for supper. “Mama, do something!”
“Okay, stop yelling at me!” I had to close my eyes to shut out the thoughts that were thundering up in my ears. For just a second, was like wasn’t nobody in the room except for me. “Nikki, go get everybody’s coats and stuff. Mya call your Auntie Helen—no Paula. She live closer. Call her up and tell her we need a ride to the hospital.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“What about me, Mama?”
“Come here, Jackie. Come sit right here and talk real nice to your sister. Tell her about something pretty.”
I had a medicine cabinet full of stuff. Something had to work. Running up the stairs I went over the things in my head. Just because the kid stuff wasn’t working didn’t mean the real medicine wouldn’t. Got halfway up before I got the scare of my life. The banister creaked and wobbled and leaned out, threatening to crash down to the hallway below if I ain’t let it go. Was like some force shoved me to the wall, saved me before I could find out if the banister was gone break completely off.
“MAMA, HURRY!”
I found an ice pack and put that on my baby’s head but wasn’t much else I could do. Paula showed up like I knew she would and checked on us at every stoplight. Looking in the back seat to see how we were doing.
“Where’s Ricky?”
Ricky wasn’t like her regular old man. Her man was into playing catch and things in the yard. Having barbecues and things like that. She couldn’t understand Ricky. I ain’t understand Ricky. She pulled us up to the emergency room doors and we piled out, running. The nurses looked at me like I was crazy. A bad cold was all she most likely had. Wasn’t no reason to go running and screaming into the ER where folks were battling gunshot wounds and knife fights. But I ain’t hear none of that.
“She sick! See! Look at her!”
“Ma’am, please have a seat.”
The dark red plastic chairs were all connected to this silver thing that gave them the proper support. But the arrangement had folks sitting right up on each other, back to back, waiting to get seen. All of them cutting their eyes at me, thinking I thought I was special. I wanted to say I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wanted to show them the old scars so they’d know for sure. Wasn’t nothing about me special.
“Please...help her...”
“We will. We just need you to have a seat. Fill out some forms and we’ll get to you as soon as we can.” She lifted both eyebrows and walked me over to the nearest free seat. “Okay? Okay. Here. Just take this and fill it out best you can. When you’re done just bring it up to the desk.”
“Mama, what’s that?”
“Nothing, baby. Here. Take your sister.”
Took them ten minutes to get my insurance card back to me. Said they needed to make a copy. I ain’t say nothing. Paula caught up to us but I sent her home. Wasn’t no reason for her to be away from her own family just to sit in the waiting room. And after we were waiting for damn near two hours I got sick of doing as I was told.
“Ma’am, we are doing our very best—”
“Then your best ain’t good enough! She just a little girl! She barely breathing! You supposed to do something!”
By then I wasn’t much more than a thorn in her side. But she sucked it up and came around to look at Nat. She took her pulse then started shouting things to folks I hadn’t even noticed was there. Before long my baby was up on one of them stretchers and I was doing my best to keep up and stay out they way at the same time. They took her into this room flooded with men in white coats. Talking and shouting and grabbing things...They knew what they were doing, I could see that, but the mama in me wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to crawl up on that stretcher with her. Whatever it was that was doing this to my baby could have me if that would make it leave her alone.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you okay?”
The world got hard suddenly. And a blinding white light swung from side to side over my head. While feet covered by soft white shoes got closer and closer. They were so close I could’ve touched them. Then everything went black.
I SEE YOU’RE AWAKE now, huh?” Her voice hovered somewhere over the machines, pulling at cords and flipping switches. They w
asn’t for me. Wasn’t even turned on. “I’m just getting things ready for our next patient.”
“My girls...” I was still dressed from head to toe and I ain’t have to fight the hospital bed too much to sit up. “My baby, she okay?” The nurse put a hand to my head, studying my eyes. Made me think she had some bad news I ain’t want, I ain’t need.
“The doctor’ll be in a little while to talk to you about it.”
What it? Was it my baby? “Where is she? She gonna be okay?”
“I’ll go get him.”
“No! You tell me! Tell me where she is...”
“Mrs. Morrow, calm down. Alright?” She finally sat on the bed next to me, looking over her shoulder like there might be folks spying on us. “We pumped her stomach, gave her some antibiotics, and we’re running some tests.” The next part she said with a brittle kinda sadness hanging off her tongue. “Do you know how she could have gotten any toxic chemicals into her system?”
“Toxic chemicals? No. No—she just got a cold. A real bad cold. What toxic chemicals? Ain’t no...we ain’t got none of that!” We heard voices rounding the corner and the nurse turned around to stare at the curtain. It wasn’t moving but I got the feeling that any second it would. “She’s gonna be okay, though, right?”
“Ma’am, I can’t say that.” She swallowed real hard, her warm hands closing in on my frigid ones. “But you should really think about how she could have gotten anything harmful in her system. You seem like a good mother.”
I was a good mama. But that ain’t mean I knew what she was talking about. “Nat know better than to eat something ain’t food. That what you talking about?”
“Just think about it.”
The curtain rattled around the pole and a bunch more folks were standing at my bed. Man in a white coat, woman in a gray suit that was two sizes too big, and a security guard. They all had the same look on their faces. Same look Ricky’d gimme when Mya fell or something. Even the friendly nurse couldn’t take it and ducked out before things started.
“Mrs. Morrow, I’m Dr. Levinsten. This is Mrs. Walker. She’s a social worker. We’d like to talk to you about Natalie.”
“What-What about her? She’s okay, right?”
He was holding on to a file that couldn’t of held more than a few pages in it but I couldn’t stop staring at it. Wondering what was in it. What it said about me and my girls.
“Well, we’re still waiting for the tests to come back to tell us exactly what she ingested but...I can say with absolute certainty that the compound included sodium benzene. Do you know what that is, Mrs. Morrow?”
“No.”
“It is a common ingredient found in household cleaning products and is absolutely poisonous to adults and can cause lethal reactions in children.”
“But she okay, right?” I was surrounded by sober faces full of unhelpful thoughts. “I wanna see my baby.”
“She’s resting comfortably in the pediatric ward with the rest of your children, whom my colleagues have already examined. Now, I’ll leave you in Mrs. Walker’s hands.” He couldn’t wait to get out of my presence, like I was making him dirty or something.
But the woman he called a social worker ain’t have that reaction. She ain’t really have no reaction. Her cool blue eyes looked me up and down and ain’t move an inch. “Mrs. Morrow, your daughter...Mya has quite a few scars on her arms and legs. Why is that?”
“Mya? Because she…she like to climb trees and stuff like that. I try to get her to stop but she don’t listen.”
“Mmhmm.” She glanced over her shoulder at the security guard like they were in it together. Them against me. “Did you try to stop Natalie from drinking bleach as well? I’d like to know how a three–year-old managed to ingest it without anyone noticing. Did she smell like bleach to you?”
“No.”
“That causes some confusion. If it was in fact an accident...say she got into it by mistake, then her clothes or hands would smell like it. Now if someone gave it to her, perhaps fed it to her in her bottle then...do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I’m a good mama...I am.”
“Mmhmm. Can you tell me what Natalie was doing all day?”
“She slept a lot. Threw up some. Was coughing. I gave her some cough medicine. The kind for kids.”
“When did you first notice something wasn’t right?”
“Um...last night? Maybe...”
“Maybe?”
“I was kinda distracted. I had to get ready for my first day of work. But I’m a good mama! I am! I love my girls. I’d...I’d die for them.”
“Where’s your husband, Mrs. Morrow?” She flipped open a pad of paper and pushed down on the top of a pen, making it click. “How can I reach him?”
“Why? Ricky ain’t got nothing to do with this. You don’t need to bother him none.”
“His daughter is in the hospital. You don’t think he would want to know?” She stopped writing. Her pretty little mouth opened up just a little to make an O. “Mrs. Morrow? What kind of relationship does he have with the girls?”
It was the perfect moment to let out my truth. Tell her what she wanted to hear. Ricky was a crazy man and he ain’t give a damn about us. She’d want me to go into it more so I’d tell her about all the times he’d hit me or thrown me around. Tell her how I was planning to leave him and how much he scared the girls. Was so much I could’ve said but I just said, “He yell at them sometimes.”
“Has he ever struck them? Did he give Mya those scars?”
I shook my head. I ain’t want to but I couldn’t lie on him. Couldn’t say he’d do anything to Mya. He’d spank the others but I was always there to make sure it ain’t go too far. And he wasn’t about to poison nobody, just wasn’t his way. Ricky liked to use his hands and see the look on folks’ faces when he did what he did. Liked folks to know it was him that did stuff to them too. He wasn’t gonna miss out on none of the credit that was due to him.
“Who has access to Natalie on a daily basis?”
“Can I see her?”
“Not right now. Please answer the question.”
“Nobody. Just me and Ricky and the girls usually. Sometimes my friends come over or folks from the neighborhood. They all real nice. When can I see her?”
She threw another glance at the security guard who stood watch at the foot of the bed. When she looked back at me was when I heard it. Sound of a big angry man heading my way. The security guard disappeared first but he wasn’t no match for my regular old man. Ricky probably just ran right over him.
“PECAN!”
The social worker looked at me anew. Like me sitting in the same spot was a surprise. “Is that your husband?”
“Pecan!” Ricky threw back what was left of the curtain and marched right up to me. Doctors and nurses stopped to watch as they hurried by. “You okay? Is it the baby?”
“No, no I’m fine. I just fainted is all.”
“But my boy’s okay? Right?”
I nodded. “Ricky this Mrs. Walker. She’s a social...a social worker. She asking about the girls.”
“What about the girls?” He frowned up real good. Was the first time I was happy about Ricky’s rough outside. If anybody was gonna make the woman go away it was him.
“Mrs. Morrow, you’re expecting?”
“Yeah she is. You ain’t tell them? We finally having a boy.”
“He don’t know that. He just wishing.”
“I know it.” Ricky was already worked up. I should’ve just let it be. “How you gone tell me what I know? I know what I know. Where the girls? If you fine, then let’s go.”
“Mr. Morrow, your daughter Natalie has been admitted to the pediatric ward. We’re waiting for the tox screen to come back but it looks like she’s ingested a poisonous substance.”
Ricky chuckled a bit then looked at me like it was a joke I must have been in on. “What she talking about?”
“They think somebody gave her bleach.”
�
��Why somebody’d wanna do that? Don’t make sense.”
“Well, it is my job, Mr. Morrow, to investigate things like this and—”
“Investigate? Look, woman, ain’t no need to do no investigating. Kids get into stuff. Right, Pecan? Ain’t that the way it go? So, thanks but no thanks. We just gonna have to keep a closer eye on her. Come on, Pecan.”
Ricky held back the curtain, waiting for me to slip on my shoes. She looked stunned to say the least. Guess she was expecting Ricky to take her side of things or at least listen to her.
“Mr. Morrow, I have to ask you to hold off on going up to Pediatrics until we have a better sense of what happened.”
“N’all, I’m just gonna ask them what happened and they gonna tell me. I don’t need you nosing around in my business.”
“Mr. Morrow—”
“Look, I done already told you woman. Y’all can’t be treating everybody that come up in here with a kid like this! What? You come after me because I’m a black man? Huh?”
“No—”
“Trying to take black babies from they families and put them with clean white folks. Huh? Y’all folks make me sick. Come on, Pecan.”
And that was that. The security guard standing post outside of Nat’s room looked a few years past retirement. He wasn’t about to challenge Ricky. So Ricky scooped Nat up in his arms and led the rest of us to the elevators. Her little head rested against his big hard chest and I thought I was seeing things. It was the closest he ever got to showing her some type of affection.
Ghost
"GOOD TO SEE YOU again, Mrs. Morrow.”
How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) Page 14