“Hey, chile…yo’ mama left the keys for you. Said you be here pretty soon. Come on in, I get’em fo’ you.” Smiling, Sylvia followed the older woman who was about her mother’s age, a little older. Now that she had the keys, there were three to remember to get in her mother’s entry door. This was the last thing she wanted to have to deal with as sore and hurting as she was. It took her a good five minutes, sighing between each key that wasn’t the right one to turn the tumbler. Once she got in, she made sure to turn and lock all three locks back. Then up the long flight of stairs to her mother’s floor, where she once again, had to find the key to the giant padlock to the bars pulled closed; that was an easy one to find. Then she had the joy of finding the two keys to get in the door once she pushed the bars out of the way. “Gee whiz ma, move already! This don’t make no sense. God help us if there’s a fire.” After finding the last key…she was in! “Hallelujah!” she cried out after finally getting in.
With a start, Sylvia woke, almost leaping clean out of the bed. Her body hurt more now than this morning. She whimpered, wincing as the doorbell rang on like crazy. “Oh, shoot…Okay! I’m coming, mama! Hold on! I’m coming!” Sylvia yelled as she rushed from her room, having gone there straight away to nap. She laid the keys down somewhere and couldn’t find them. “Oh, man…I’m coming!” she sang in a panic, her mother laying on the bell. Finally she spotted them on the sofa about to fall in between the cushions. “Phew! I’m coming…dog!” She scrambled to the door, unlocked it, but had to undo the padlock to the gate. Slamming that back, she squealed out after pinching her finger between the closing crossbars. “I’m coming!” she yelled, sucking on her finger where it throbbed trying to rush down the long staircase, her muscles rebelled, slamming into the door beneath that broke her speed down, her muscles were too sore to do it for her. Quickly she turned the deadbolts and needed the key for the top one. She moved the curtain back to see her mother tapping her foot, with one hand on her hip and looking belligerent.
“Would you hurry up!” her mother yelled, her head moving to punctuate each word. Sylvia smiled, fumbling with the keys, found the right one then unlocked the top deadbolt. “What the heck was you doing? I’m down here ringing the doorbell for the last ten minutes! And I gotta pee and I can’t get in my own house?” she fussed, passing Sylvia, marching up the stairs. “And lock that door back!” she called down from the top. Sylvia obeyed. When she reached the top of the stairs again, her mother heard her, yelling her reminder, “Lock that gate back! And my door!” she called from within the open door of the bathroom, where she could be heard relieving her bladder.
“I know…I know.”
“Em-hm, well this ain’t Wisconsin…we can’t leave our doors unlocked here! And put them keys on the buffet where I can find’em.”
“I know—I know!”
Coming out of the bathroom, and undressing with every step she took leading her to the middle bedroom right off of the bathroom, which had always been hers, she asked, “Okay, what’s going on…whatcha doin’ here?” She never missed a step as she reached up behind her to undo her bra…the first that had to go. She was home, time to break free and breathe.
“Whataya mean ‘what I’m doin’ here’? Can’t I just come to visit?”
“You can, but you don’t. You don’t like the neighborhood, remember? So, whatcha doin’ here?”
“Mama, you make it sound like I never come to visit with you.”
“You don’t!”
“Mama, I do, too!”
“Emmm-hmmm,” she mumbled through a crooked lift of her lips.
“Mama! It’s not like I live right across town anymore!”
“That’s right, you don’t! For no reason at all, you up and moved away! That was your choice, when you coulda at least try to stay near me when I might need you! But, nooo, don’t nobody give a hoot about mama! Unless you need something…or something wrong! So, which is it?” she asked, dropping her house dress over her head as Sylvia stood in her open bedroom doorway. She signed deep as her mother started hanging up her clothes.
“Mama, why do you have to always be so irritable? So grumpy and mean?”
“You can call it what you like, when the truth is, you bust your butt to raise yo' kids right. You make sacrifices for them. Doing all you can for them. But when they get grown, they move on and forget to look back. I’m just taking my cue from y’all. Y’all go about yo’ lives and don’t look back…so I’m doing the same.”
“Mama, I call you all the time.”
“Well you about the only one!”
“That's not my fault, so don’t make me suffer because Jr. and David too selfish to pick up the phone. I cannot control what they do, or neglect to do.”
“I’m not blaming you!”
“But I'm the one who's getting fussed at! Excuse me, I just got here and you’re jumping all over me for something they’re not doing. You haven’t even asked me how I’m doing…or what’s going on with me!”
“Tha’sa lie…it’s the first thing I ask. If you here, it’s for a reason. So, what is it?”
Sylvia crossed her arms over her chest and poked out her bottom lip, now being the belligerent one. “Chile, you too old to be poutin’,” her mother griped, walking past her out of the bedroom, heading for the kitchen. Sylvia had no choice but to follow. “Well?” again her mother asked, heading for the stove where a pot of collard and turnip greens that she cooked earlier sat; next to that, a platter of fried catfish. She watched her mother turn on the eye under the pot, Sylvia stood leaning against the wall in the kitchen, her ears picking up the clicking sound from the stove’s top pilot about to light. The flame burst to life and the greens were getting warmed. Her mother walked away from the stove to the refrigerator in the corner, opening it to remove some Cranberry juice. She sat it on the table and stopped, looking at her daughter who leaned quietly against the wall.
“Sylvie?”
Sylvia looked up at her mother and her eyes watered up. Slowly, she pulled herself away from the wall and approached the table, where she pulled out a chair and eased herself into it. There she settled into place, waiting for her fatigued muscles to stop punishing her for moving.
“What’s wrong with you? Why you moving like that?”
“I’m sore.”
“From what?”
Sylvia sighed deeply, swallowing back tears. “I was stalked. A man broke into my house, went through my things. Then came back yesterday when I was home. He attacked me, tried to rape me.” She sighed tiredly, sadly. Tears streamed again. “Oh, my god, baby…why ain’t you tell me?” her mother cried, coming around the table to grab a hold of her daughter.
“Owww, mama, I’m sore…please…don’t.” Right away, Lydia pulled away.
“I’m sorry, honey. Where you hurtin’ at?” Sylvia wiped at her tears.
“All over…especially my scalp…I’ve been removing loose hair all night and morning.”
“You wanna take somethin’? A painkiller?” Lydia asked. Sylvia shook her head. “No, mama, I’ll be fine.”
Lydia walked around the table and took a seat across from her daughter. “You say he tried to…what stop him from doin’ it?” she asked softly.
“My neighbor, he heard me screaming. He stopped him.”
“Neighbor? What neighbor…you ain’t got no neighbors.”
“I do now. He lives across the road from me.”
“Oh…he heard you screamin’ from all the way over there?”
Sylvia shook her head, answering, “It’s a long story, mama.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” she returned. “See, that’s why I can’t live in no place like that. Ain’t nobody close enough to hear you screamin’ if you need help. An’ you probably didn’t have your doors locked, ‘cause you think white people don’t break in to do harm. But they just as crooked as any nigga out here on the street—”
“Mama, I hate that word! Why do you have to use the word nigga to describe black people?�
��
“I ain’t talkin’ about just black folks! Anythang can be a nigga! There’s Mexican niggas! Puerto Rican niggas! And you best believe there be some white niggas, too. It ain’t got nothing to do with color!”
“I know that, but that’s not how you used it!”
“Look, girl, don’t be tellin’ me how to talk! Fact is, you don’t think there no white niggas, and one slipped up in there on you! Running from the ones here in the city, you set yo’self up fo’ a country, redneck nigga!”
“Mama! Who said he was white?”
“Okay, what was he then?” Lydia asked, already knowing the answer. Sylvia sat back drawing in a deep breath. “Well?” she asked again.
“White,” Sylvia confessed.
“Um-hm, just what I thought. I rest my case. Now, who this neighbor that stop him?”
Dread…anxiety…trepidation. That question from her mother started all of those feelings to flow through her bloodstream. She sat so long, so quietly, that it only made it worse. Her mother shifted in her seat, and one eyebrow rose as she leaned on the table. Then anticipating a juicy explanation, reached behind her to turn off the boiling greens then turned back to her daughter. “Might as well tell me everythang now, it’s gone all come out later, anyway, and I don’t got time to be waitin’ for it later.”
Sylvia propped her elbow up on the table to lean her forehead in the palm of her hand, trying to prepare herself for where this would go with her mother.
“Spit it out!”
“My neighbor … is … interested …in me,” she began slowly.
“Um-hm…what's his name?”
Sylvia gulped, holding her forehead still. “Shawn…Everett… McPherson."
“Um-hm…an' white,” she stated matter of fact.
“Yes.”
“I see…and he hear you screamin’ from way cross the road, huh?”
“Not exactly."
“Then how he hear you?"
“He was…at my door…when he heard me screaming.”
“Um-hm…what he doin’ at your door?"
“Mama…do you have to ask me every tiny little detail?”
“What you tryin’ to say? Ain’t none of m’business?”
“I didn’t say that, mama.”
“Oh, yeah, you did—just said it different.”
Sylvia whimpered as if in pain. “He was there to get his keys, mama.”
“His keys? What you doin’ with his keys?”
“He went out of town on business. He’s an artist. I agreed to watch his house for him. When he returned, he came to mine to get his keys. But at the time, I was screaming in fear for my life. He came in, jumped on the man—beat him up. I called the police. The police came. The man was arrested. I filed charges right away this morning and I came here to get away from there. I just didn’t feel safe at home there anymore.”
“I see. There with all them white folks…see what like’ta happen? Now you need to just pack up all your stuff, and get your butt back here at home where you belong.”
“Mama, please…don’t start. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I just needed to get away for now. Can I just stay here for a while until I can decide what it is I need to do?”
“Now you know you ain’t even got to ask me that. Your room up in that front where it’s always been, and always gonna be. You stay as long as you want. But you ask me, I thank you need to just sell that house and move back here. But that’s just my opinion, you do what you want.” With that said, her mother rose, going to the cabinet to remove two plates and began fixing them with greens and catfish for them to eat.
In the days that followed, Sylvia slipped into sleeping late, helping her mother around the house, and finishing the basement that she was remodeling herself. They fussed and carried on as usual. Her mother wanting to do it her way, and Sylvia thinking her crazy because her mother was in her early sixties, arguing, “Mama, I can’t believe you’re doing this by yourself! Why don’t you hire a contractor for this?”
“Where do you suppose I get the money to pay one? I have to get things done myself, if it’s gone be done the way I want it. You ain’t got to help! I’m use to doing things by myself, for myself.”
“Lord, here she go,” Sylvia mumbled, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m here, aren’t I? And I’m helping, so don’t start.”
“Don’t tell me what not to start! You got money to hire people for whatever you need! I don’t have that luxury,” she fussed on. Sylvia moaned and continued to work, wondering if she needed her head examined. Home was starting to take on its old appeal once again. Maybe if she installed bars and padlocks galore, she would come to trust it once again, feeling safe and secure. She’d gone to the post office to have her mail held until she picked it up, and called her daughter and son to inform them that she was going to Chicago for awhile to visit with her mother, leaving out the reason she’d decided to do so. She’d been at her mother’s for close to two weeks when the doorbell rang. They were just coming up on the back porch when they heard it.
“Get the door, Sylvie, I’m tired.”
She walked through the house, stopping at the bathroom to give herself a quick look over in the bathroom mirror. “Girl, get out the mirror and answer the door! Goodlan’ you always primpin’,” her mother fussed as she took a seat in the kitchen. With a sigh and rolling of her eyes, Sylvia exited the bathroom and went to the door, going through the many locks and the padlock on the gate. The bell rang again.
“I swear, I’m gone start back to putting soap in that doorbell…get on my nerves…people just lay on it…” her mother grumbled from the kitchen as Sylvia made her way down the stairs. She picked up the curtain from the glass window of the door, and looked out - to get the shock of her life!
Shawn stood outside the vestibule door looking and waiting for someone to come down. After about four minutes, the curtain lifted on the inside door. He chuckled to see eyes so beautiful, they took his breath away. Those same eyes widened to a round that he feared them popping out of her head. Grinning, his gloved finger lifted to wiggle her forward to let him in.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Sylvia sang in litany. Her heart was pounding in double rhythm for double reasons. Shawn Everett McPherson was standing at her mother’s door…in Chicago! He was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen, and she was scared to death! She was shaking; the sight of him momentarily mesmerized her. He’d grown long sideburns, connecting to a very nicely-shaped beard where his mustache also connected. The look took her breath away. He was rugged, masculine, and sexy as hell! In disbelief, tears came to her eyes.
“Sylvia! Who at the door?” her mother yelled.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man! What am I gonna do?”
Turning the same finger that gestured to her, he wrapped on the glass, {{ thump, thump, thump }} “Hey…you mind opening the door? It’s cold out here, you know!” Shawn yelled from outside, his breath misting and lifting in confirmation to the cold.
“Sylvia?!”
“Yeah?!”
“Who at the door?”
“At the door?”
Shawn gestured with his arms crossed over his chest, his hands rubbing his upper arms like he was freezing, his body bobbing up and down as if needing to generate heat, when he was not cold at all, but it was a good show.
“Chile, what is your problem?” her mother called down, now at the top of the stairs, looking at her daughter. Sylvia stood at the bottom door with the curtain open, looking back and forth from outside to back up at her.
“Who at the door!” her mother asked again, getting impatient.
“At this door?” Sylvia gulped, nervous, looking stupid. Her mother put her hands on her hips, asking, “Have you lost your min’? Is somebody at the door or not?” she demanded.
Sylvia nodded her head rapidly yes.
“Who?” her mother asked.
"Ummmm, it's for me.”
“Well, do
n’t just stand there looking crazy…open the door!”
“Oh…okay.” Sylvia took one last look up at her mother, then taking a deep breath, she opened the bottom door with all its locks and walked over to the outside door, unlocking it to admit Shawn, who was grinning with a slightly red nose.
“What are you doing here?” Sylvia whispered in a panic.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her back.
“I live here!” she returned.
“Sorry, but if my memory serves me correctly, you live in Camp Daniels, Wisconsin…across the road from me.”
“Urg! I can't believe you, my mother lives here! You’re at my mother’s house! Do you know that?”
“I sure do.”
“Well, why are you here? How did you know I was here? How did you find me?”
“Sylvia!" Her mother called down again.
“Oh, man! Yes, mama?”
“Who are you talking to down there at my door?!”
“Ummmm—” Sylvia started with a squeak, but was cut off as Shawn stepped around her to stand in the doorway where she was looking up.
“It's me, ma’am, I'm at your door!”
“What the hell? Who is me!” she demanded to know, coming back from the dining room to the top of the stairs to look down to see what was going on, and who was at her door answering her in some white man’s voice. Sylvia thought she was going to faint. Her heartbeat picked up in double pace once again.
“That would be me, ma’am…Shawn Everett McPherson,” he spoke to her from down at the door, now standing more inside than out. Sylvia stayed hid behind him, trying to get over the shock of him being there, and trying to figure out how to handle this situation that was once again getting out of her control.
“I don’t know no Shawn Everett McPherson…oh, wait…Lo-o-ord ha-a-ave mercy! Chile, chile, chile…”
“Um, ma’am…I live in Wisconsin, across the road from your daughter. Well, she up and disappeared on me a week and a half or more ago, following a particular incident that left me concerned about her welfare. I’m just here to see that she’s alright, ma’am.” He heard Sylvia whimpering behind him.
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