by Lisa Wingate
“Shut up!” Barbie pushed off the sofa, backhanded the air in a quick, violent motion that caused Mark and Landon to shy away. They skittered to the end of the sofa, climbed over, and ran toward the hall. I saw Aunt Lute coming out of the darkness, pink chiffon floating like the veils of a ghost. Stopping at the edge of the light, she opened her robe and wrapped Landon inside. Mark clung to her sleeve. Through the diaphanous pink curtain, Landon’s wide, fearful eyes tracked Barbie’s flailing hand.
Jewel wailed louder, arched her body, and fell backward with a quick jerk that made me jump toward her, arms outstretched. Barbie caught the baby and wrapped her tightly, smothering the cries. “Don’t you touch her,” she hissed, twisting away. “You can’t take my kids. I won’t let you take my kids.”
I clenched a fist, squeezed until the fingernails bit into my skin. My mind was racing out of control, running toward something that seemed too ominous to confront, especially tonight. The truth was that no matter how much I tried to normalize our situation by making friends with the neighbors, or volunteering at the church, or taking the kids to story hour, it was all a farce. We couldn’t keep living like this. We couldn’t stay in this borrowed house, with Barbie spending her nights on Lower Greenville, and Aunt Lute wandering in the backyard, and our supply of cash dwindling.
Barbie’s eyes narrowed, and she swayed on her feet again. “You’re trying to turn them against me. You and . . . and . . . her. I won’t let anyone take them away. I know what that’s like. I know how it feels to have someone . . . to have someone take your baby and. . . .” The sentence faded without an ending. I stood silent, waiting for more, wondering at the words. I knew almost nothing about Barbie’s history. I had no means of understanding her, because she was a virtual stranger. I’d never tried to go beneath the surface. I knew my father had met her at a charity fashion show. He was the celebrity host; she was modeling swimsuits. When he brought her home, I told him he looked like a poster boy for midlife crisis. I said I couldn’t wait to be old enough to move out, and as soon as I was, I’d go to a college as far away as possible. It never occurred to me to wonder if that hurt him, to wonder if he was lonely and if Barbie filled some need in him. I never cared whether the two of them loved each other, or why Barbie was willing to endure endless medical procedures and daily hormone shots to fill the house with kids. I thought it was idiotic, and I couldn’t wait to leave it all behind.
Now, for just a moment, I saw something real in her. Desperation, need, pain, fear. Then anger, like clouds rushing over, covering everything.
“Don’t you ever take them anywhere again.”
“If you’re here to watch them, I won’t.” My wild rush of emotions ebbed away, draining out to sea like a high tide, depositing me against the doorframe, clinging to Daniel, feeling beaten. A part of me wanted gratitude for having stepped up to the plate these past weeks. A part of me felt I deserved it. “But I’m not going to sit here and be your babysitter while you go out and party with Fawn, and come home wasted, and sleep it off.”
“Fawn’s the only friend I have left.” Barbie’s cheeks flamed red. Tiny beads of saliva dotted her lips and chin, and she swiped the back of a hand clumsily across her mouth, wiping them away, drawing leftover lipstick sideways onto her cheek.
“Fawn isn’t your friend. If Fawn were your friend, she’d care whether you were looking after the kids. She’d care whether you were looking after yourself. She wouldn’t be taking you out spending money when the bank account is low enough already. If Fawn were your friend, she’d be helping instead of hurting.”
Barbie bounced the baby, awkwardly trying to quiet her. “You think you’re right about everything. You think you’re so smart. He left because of you. He left because he couldn’t stand to tell you he’d lost the money, and he couldn’t pay for that stupid college, and the stupid car you begged for, and your clothes, and all the things you want. You think that piddly little golf scholarship was going to pay for all that? Huh? Not even close. He left because you wanted too much. He left because of you.”
I stepped back, momentarily stunned, then slowly feeling the sting of reality. Barbie was right, and not just about herself; she was right about me. My life had been all about the labels, all about having the right things and being seen in the right places. I never considered what my father did to acquire the money that provided the comforts. I just took them for granted. After he married Barbie, I’d made it clear that he couldn’t possibly do enough to make it up to me. I’d taken all the gifts meant to buy my love, and cut the strings with such determination that, when life crashed down around us, there were no family ties left to bind.
Chapter 23
Sesay
The lines in the book draw a picture. Not a picture with colors and animals and houses you can see, but if someone should tell you what the line picture means, and you tuck the line picture into your memory, then when you see the line picture again, your mind will say, This is a tree, and you can see the tree behind your eyes. Mrs. Kaye has given me the book from the reading class, and in it, I can see cat, and tree, and road, and sky, and bird, and many others. I look at the lines, with their strange curves and crosses, and they are not only lines. They are pictures.
Some of them I knew. I understand this now. I have learned many of these lines all my life, but I did not know this. Book, I have seen on the sign at the Book Basket, stop, speed, hospital, police, cleaners, restaurant, pharmacy, gas. You will know these, because you have seen them many times. People have said them to you and pointed at them as long as you can remember. Your mind understands the line pictures, but you do not know this until someone shows you. I can read, after all, and I am learning more. I am learning faster than Elsie. For Elsie, the letters move on the page when she looks at them. The letters won’t be still, she says, and she struggles with the words over and over and over again. Sometimes I wish to reach out and turn the page, and say, Move along. I need to see more!
But I must stand and wait and be silent. Mrs. Kaye smiles at me and tells me she would teach me, if I like. She points to an empty table, but to be in the class, I must write my name on the paper, the form, they call it. I am afraid of the paper. “No,” I say, “I can watch here.”
The mother of Root and Berry is patient. She smiles at Elsie even when the word pictures move around. “All right, let’s decode it,” she says. “Dol-lar. Dollar. It’s not such a long word when you break it down.”
Elsie does not smile in return. Elsie is an unhappy woman. This you can see in her face. Long lines travel downward from her mouth, and deep creases are like roads on her forehead, reaching to the places she has been. She has frowned for many, many years.
I watch her and think, This woman owns a fine home, and a car, and flowers in her yard, and often I smell wonderful food cooking in her kitchen. What has she to be sad about?
But I, of all people, know that sadness is an easy path to walk, once you set your foot on it. It travels down, and down, and down, and people tramp it with their possessions on their backs like a pack, the weight pushing them along faster and faster and faster, until they cannot stop. They cannot look up. They do not know that the secret is to lay down the pack, turn off the path, and go a better way.
Father God says, “Do not worry,” Michael tells the people under the bridge. “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
I remember these words from my childhood, when I sat with Grandfather in the mission church, filled with people, the heat crowding in around us. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?When those words were spoken at the mission church, the people lifted their hands and cheered, and then they sang. Even as they went away, carrying on their heads heavy pots of water dipped from the river, they sang.
In my memory, they are the happiest people, even though the paths in that place are difficult to walk. There is no choice for them
but to trust in Father God. They know no other way. They know nothing other than to be happy for breath in their bodies and food in a bowl and a place for a family to sleep, and wake, and keep together. They do not expect even these things, and so each is a gift.
I know this word, too, gift. I have watched Elsie try to read it in a string with other words. I see a birthday gift. If I can find a place with a light tonight, I will look at these words again, to be certain I remember them. I must not go to the shed behind Root and Berry’s house again, and now the shed at the church is locked at night. Someone came in and stole a hoe, and a garden hose, and the Christmas lights. It was not me, but now Pastor Al checks the shed each night before he leaves, to be certain the door is locked. If I go to the reading class, it is too late to enter the mission. For a bed, you must arrive before supper and wait in the line. If you are late, the beds are full.
I have been sleeping behind the Book Basket. I have found a safe place there. MJ and the Indian chief do not know this. I am very clever at hiding my place so no one can find it.
The lights are on in the Indian chief’s painting place when I leave the church with my book of line pictures to read. I am thinking about the string of line pictures, I see a birthday gift. I am trying to remember how the lines look, and I am so lost in it that at first I do not see the Indian chief standing outside, smoking a cigarette.
He crushes the cigarette and waves as I come closer, and I am aware of him there in the shadows. His hair is unbound again today, falling long and dark around his shoulders.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he tells me.
“You were gone away,” I say. For five days since I have come back to the Summer Kitchen, I have been watching his part of the building, but the doors have been closed and the lights dark. “I have some things.”
“Some things you carved?” His eyes lift, and he smiles, as if he is pleased. This feels strange to me. I am accustomed to sad eyes, eyes that pity me. But the Indian chief looks at me with interest.
This concerns me, and I think, Perhaps I should walk on, after all. It is not good to have others know your story. It is dangerous.
“Come on in.” The Indian chief—Terence, his name comes to me—opens the door, and the light spills onto the gravel. “I’ve been out of town for a few days. I’ve got to head out tomorrow for another art show, so I’m working late tonight. Need to catch up on some billing and get things crated for the next show.”
These people run so fast downhill, I think. They have so many things pushing them. “The darkness is God’s way of telling a man to quiet himself,” I say as I pass through the door. “My grandfather told me this when I was very young.” Far back in my mind, I remember Grandfather setting away his carving tools to sit in the moonlight with me. Overhead were so many stars, and far away, I could hear the ocean as the sun touched it. It was a peaceful sound, but I did not feel at peace. I was worried that the soldiers would come and take the little house Grandfather had found for us, as they had taken my father’s big house. I was worried they would take Grandfather away, too. I told Grandfather this, and he only rested a hand on my head and said, Ssshhh. Listen to the stars, how quietly they whisper. . . .the
“It’s good advice,” the Indian chief agrees. “But it doesn’t pay the bills, unfortunately.”
Unfortunate. I wonder how the lines look for this word. I imagine many lines, twisted together like chains. These fortunate people are unfortunate. Nights pass by, and they do not see the stars or hear the breezes whisper.
We enter the room, and the scent of paint surrounds us. The chief has started a new picture, only rough outlines in brown just now. I wonder what it will be. “Let me see what you’ve got for me.” He pushes some rolled papers aside to create space on a table.
I take the carvings from my pocket. Three large birds and some smaller ones. There are also little boats, but those are not for him, so I put them back in my pocket, but then I pull one out again and hold it up. “Do you know the word for this?” I ask.
The Indian chief scratches his neck, looking confused. “It’s a boat, isn’t it? A canoe?”
“No, the way the paper would say it. Its line picture. The letter that makes it.”
His lips part, and his teeth are not straight and white. “Oh, how to spell it, you mean?”
I do not know if he understands me. “How it is in a book. On a paper.”
“How to write it?”
I nod. “I am learning the line pictures. The words. At the church.”
“Oh, the reading class.” He takes a book of empty paper, and then makes the word with a thick pencil he uses for his drawings. I think of the name for each letter, to try to decode the word, but the a causes trouble. It hides when you say the word. But I know that the lines say boat. I want to carve this on the bottom of my boats before I give them to Root and Berry and the boys in the blue house.
Boat is a small word, easy to make. I thought it would be larger.
Someday, perhaps, I will write the story of the boat that carried me here with Auntie.
I hold the paper book like something very precious. I look at the line picture.
The Indian chief laughs, a warm sound from deep in his throat. “You can have that art pad, if you like it so much. Here, take the pencil, too. As good as these carvings are, you might want to take up drawing.” He lifts one of my birds, one I carved in the shed behind Root and Berry’s house. He holds it lightly, as if it is real. He is careful with the wings. “You sure have an eye.” His voice is only a whisper.
“I have two.”
He laughs, and I do not know why. This is the difficult thing in people. They say things I do not understand.
“Sorry.” The chief notices that he is laughing alone. “You have an eye—it means you have a skill for seeing things the way they really are.”
“Everyone sees.” It does not seem like such a gift.
He smiles and shakes his head. He is a good man, I think. A kind man. “No, not really. Not many people know how the feathers look on a hummingbird’s wing. Most people go their whole lives and never even wonder about it.”
I understand his words now. “They walk so fast.” I wave a hand toward the street, then tuck the pencil and paper book into my pack. “The people always walk fast.”
“True, that.”
“The birds must have colors,” I tell him. I have not painted the birds, because the building has been closed, the palette locked inside it. I need many colors for these birds.
Terence holds the carving up again. “No, you know what—let’s just put a little wood stain on this one and see how it turns out.” He moves across the room to another table, opens a can, and presses smooth, brown oil into the wood, then rubs it with a cloth until it shines like a round rock in the bed of a stream. “Beautiful, huh?” he asks, and I nod. I know I am smiling and he will see my teeth, but he does not seem to mind.
He lays the bird on a table to dry. “You can stay and work on the rest for a while, if you want. I’m not going anywhere,” he says, and so I stay. He returns to his work and I color my carvings brown, and polish them until they shine. When those are finished, I color and polish some wooden things he is making—frames for his paintings, he tells me. We talk as he works and I work. He asks where I came from, and I tell him about the Broadberry Mission. “No,” he says, “I mean where did you come from when you were little? You’re not from here. I can tell by the way you talk.”
I wonder what is the good thing to say. I wonder, if I say what is true, will he call the police? At the cane farm, they tell you, If anyone comes, you must not mention the boat. You must say, “I come from Miami. I work here legal.” They teach you how to say the words Mmm-eye-am-eee and lll-ee-gul. You must know this, or the police will put you on the boat again.
“A far place from here. Near the water.” I tell the Indian chief. “Mmm-eye-am-ee.”
He laughs softly, as if something tickles his throat. “You didn’t get that acc
ent in Miami.” Pausing as he wiggles a painting into a frame, he turns. “It’s all right. You can tell me. I’m not gonna call the police or anything. Listen, I know what it’s like to be on the run. I did some stupid things when I was young. Hurt some people I cared about, left behind a daughter I should’ve stayed to raise. I was in prison the whole time she was growing up, you know? I wanted to go hunt for her, but for a long while I just figured I didn’t have anything she needed.”
“Have you found her?” I look around us. It seems to me that the chief has much that could be given to a child, a daughter.
“She found me.” He sets a tool in the tray, and his legs bounce nervously on the stool. “We’ve talked some these last three years. I’ve sent her a couple paintings I did from old pictures of her and her mama. It’s a start. She’s getting out of college soon—Juilliard—and trying to figure out what she wants to do next. She asked me what I thought, but I’m not sure I’m the one to be giving out advice, you know? She’s got an adopted family, and I don’t want to get in the way. I don’t have any right to.”
I watch him, and I think for a moment about this man. I gaze into him. He is like the porters who carry heavy packs atop their heads. You cannot see his burden, but you can feel the shadow of it. He struggles beneath the weight of the past. I can trust this man, I think. I can tell him my story.
I take a breath, and I let my mind go back, so that I am in my father’s house again. For the first time in my life, I begin to tell what happened there. “When I am a young girl, I live in a big house with my father and my mother, and my grandfather and many brothers and sisters. My father is an important man in the city. He tells other men things to do, and when we walk with him on the street, men move out of his way. Even at a young age, I know he is a big man, a respected man.