by Jen Lowry
I smiled. “Rules are rules. Now come on before the foreman cancels the contract.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me in close to him as we walked the couple of steps back to the door. “Momma’s got some architectural blueprints of her own.”
That piqued my interest. “What do you mean?”
He raised his hands acting like he was innocent, but I knew there was more to this than he was letting on.
The bell jingled, and the singing was in full force. Mrs. Sunshine had Bell singing about pie, shimmying like they were in a Motown group, and the whole crowd was laughing. Ray never had a chance to tell me what his momma was up to on the sidelines.
When my crew was out the door and my night shift was over, I told Ray in front of them all, including Daddy.
“I love you, Ray. Goodnight.”
Ray was still riding the rainbow after our kiss. I could see it on his face. “I love you, too.” He held out his hand to Daddy and said, “And thanks again, sir, for letting us all go out on a date.”
Daddy laughed softly, pinching my arm. “I guess I need to change the conditions about the kissing. Just don’t do it in front of the kids, okay? Don’t want them getting ideas of wanting dates of their own.”
I blushed like Red Hots. “Daddy!”
Ray laughed. “Sorry, sir. She kinda …”
Daddy shrugged. “Knew it was coming anyway. She’s right around the corner to being an adult, but I’m still wanting her to be a baby, I guess.”
Mrs. Sunshine ushered us out. “Birthday coming up, Sweet Potato? We do those right around here, now.”
“No need to worry about me and birthdays. We don’t do those at all, where I’m from.”
This eighteenth year of mine would mark ten years of us being the “Rambling Jones and the Motherless Children” circus show. Ten years of never knowing what was next or where our next meal would come from. How much more of that could I take, after having this piece of heaven served up to me on a purple-rimmed plate? I didn’t know.
“Well, you don’t seem excited about this one, Sweet Potato. We’ll have to get those plans a-going. When is it?”
I couldn’t find my voice, so Maize answered her, his eyebrows rising a little at my inconsideration. I couldn’t help myself.
“It’s September 24th. The day that started us all down the vegetable stand.” He rolled his eyes.
How many times had we heard Daddy say it like that? At least seventeen times before, and still ridiculous as the first time.
“Well, we’ll have to mark that on our calendar, won’t we, Ray? Sounds like a perfect day to me.”
She winked at Ray, and I knew the planning committee was going to swing into gear not only for my first date but for my birthday, as well.
I walked quietly behind my chatter bug family all the way back to The Home, and when we made it safe inside, locked behind our door number seven, Daddy turned the flashlight on me. But I didn’t feel like it tonight. Instead, I opted out and turned the flashlight on Maize. After what he had done for me, he deserved a night in the spotlight, and he could really sock one to us. So, we all listened animatedly as he told us a scary ghost story about a girl about to be eighteen who’d lost her golden arm. As he neared the end of his tale, the girl’s corpse found the grave robbers who stole her birthday arm. Maize would jerk at the last second and shriek, “Give me back my golden arm!”
He would get Bean right at the end every single time, regardless of how many times we’d heard the story, and Bean would about jump clear out his skin. Supernatural storytelling was Maize’s specialty. As he closed out the nightly variety show, he flicked off the flashlight. Before long, a hush fell over the room, letting me know the others were out.
The bunk mattress creaked as Maize turned so his voice could carry closer to me. He whispered, “What’s gotten into you, Sweet Potato?”
I loved him, and by my soul I wouldn’t drag him down to where my mind was brooding. He never talked about Momma. In fact, none of us ever talked about Momma anymore, period. We did for a long time after she had first gone, but it seemed to only make Bell and Daddy cry, so me and Maize learned not to bring it up in conversations that involved the rest of the family. We kept it secretly going until it didn’t matter whether we remembered her. She had abandoned us, so we gave up on her, even her memories.
“Sweet Potato? Is it Ray? You don’t like him?”
He leaned over the side of the bunk and balled his fist up, as if his little ninth-grade self could go against what Ray had—and what he had was a lot, I tell you.
“No. I love Ray. Just let me be already.”
I could do this. Don’t hide anymore. Let it all go. I couldn’t let the world stay inside me, like I’d done for all these years. I had to let the world spin on its own, because honestly, some things were out of my control.
“Well, if this ain’t about Ray, you worried that school was a dream today?”
He chuckled, letting me know his own fears. Maize never had it so good.
“No. Ray promises me that this place is different, and we won’t get it bad here. Regardless of our name, our skin color, or our family situation, even.” Homelessness, motherless, brokenhearted.
“Well, when Mrs. Sunshine brought up your birthday, it was like she was talking about your funeral.”
The words took a second to settle before sinking right down to the bottom of the ocean.
“Oh,” Maize said.
That was all he could say, but it was enough.
I turned over, facing the wall, tracing Ray’s name in a heart on the peeling, pale green paint. “We don’t celebrate it for a reason, Maize. And this year, above all years—no. How could we say it to normal people?”
The distinction was clear. They were normal, and we were not. Nothing about us was ordinary. Our looks, our names, our birthdays, our past. It all was a blur of confusion, all messy and stitched together from rags. To bring Ray, a wonderful, God-fearing man, into my abnormal life was not fair to him, not right. Ray was right, and I was not.
“You are too quiet, Sweet Potato. Don’t do this.”
He knew I was done with cultivating and tilling. I was tired of this.
“I can’t drag him into our life.”
Plain as that. No frills, no more promises or tomorrows or dates or birthdays. I pulled myself up and off the bunk, shaking Daddy.
“Daddy, get up. Daddy.”
Bell stirred at my voice. “What’s wrong, Sweet Potato? Is something wrong?”
Daddy got it. The words were short. And for the first time, it was my turn to say it. “Map.”
He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. The faker. “Not tonight, Sweet Potato. Go to sleep.”
I stomped my foot, not even caring it was something I’d never done before or how childish it looked. I was done with playing grown-up for this family. Those days were over.
“No fair. When you say ‘map,’ we all line up behind and follow the leader. I’m saying our calendar is all crossed off, and we are ready to ship out. I mean it. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Yes, you can. And no, you don’t know what you are saying. You are just being your Daddy, and you are being a scaredy-cat. That’s all. Your feet are touching the oil in the fryer. Stop being chicken and go back to sleep.”
What was this, reverse-psychology mumbo-jumbo? “Chicken? You’re the selfish chicken!”
I couldn’t help but wonder who was talking inside my body, because I’d never once disrespected Daddy. The tone I was using was insolent on a whole other level. But I couldn’t stop.
“How dare you question me? I’ve done everything I could to help keep this family together, to keep the kids preoccupied so they wouldn’t fall into despair, to try to give them some kind of existence in this screwed-up world you’ve dragged us up, under, and through. But no more. I’m calling the shots now, and I say map.”
He got up then, stood with
his massive build over me. Part of me wanted to cower, to hide my face from him in shame. I wanted to cringe, in case he reached out and slapped me. I sure did deserve it. But I just stood there, my arms dangling at my sides like a lifeless rag doll. Years of crying from the inside had rusted me to the core, and now I was with corroded wheels turning, staring at a man who had been on E for so long I didn’t know how he could survive only on the fumes.
“What happened to you believing? Having faith even enough for the both of us?”
He was solid. Eyes different somehow. Now that I was standing up to him, he seemed to get some life into him. I should have done this years ago. Was it my own weakness that had kept us on the road?
It was time to say it. “Do you think we like being homeless?”
Bell’s feet hit the floor. “What’s happening, Sweet Potato?” Her face was already starting to lose its composure, and her lip was shaking. “We ain’t never been homeless. We are the home.”
“Look at us, Daddy. Have you ever really looked at us? We’re just kids. You’ve dragged us from one mill house to shelter to ragged-out shack to the next. Years of having nothing but me trying to hold them together with what little we could find. Days on end in starvation and dirtiness. The filth of it. The shame of it. And now, I tell you to go, and you tell me to go to back to sleep!”
Tears fell, and I wasn’t close to stopping. Maize and Bell were now crouched together on the bottom bunk, but I could see the pride welling up in Maize’s eyes. Bean was awake with the cover pulled right up to his chin. I couldn’t even regret what I was saying, because it needed to be said. It was about time.
“I’ll forgive you for this, Sweet Potato. And when I say calendar, then it’ll be time.” Daddy crossed his arms in that defiant way, but I could do it, too. I crossed mine right back.
“Don’t you see? That’s the thing. It’s not about you anymore. We’ve dragged Mrs. Sunshine, Mr. Joe, and … and …”
I couldn’t say his name, because I would probably internally combust and char up right there. “And … you are letting them think that I can have a date or a birthday, and they’ll go to all that trouble planning, and for what? For you to say ‘calendar’ and we leave? So, then, let’s just leave. Let’s go. Tonight.”
I pulled my one bag together and draw-stringed it shut, slinging it over my shoulder.
His hand came firm on my arm. “Sweet Potato. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Kids, go on back to sleep. She’s having a moment, but this too will pass. Sweet Potato, I love you.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.
“I love you, too, Daddy. But this is where it stops. This place is too good. It’s too good to be messing it up, so we’ve got to go.”
He frowned, a tear escaping his own grief-stricken eyes. “You trying to say that this place is too good for you, that those people don’t deserve you, but that’s where you’re wrong. That’s where I’ve been wrong all these years, running and mourning and not knowing which way to turn, when I always knew the road sign that I should’ve followed but couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
He sank down on the cot, creaking the old springs, his hands covering his face. It was more than one tear now, and I had caused all of this mess. Was Daddy trying to soften me up with this pity party?
“I can’t let him into this. It’s not fair to him.”
Ray was the only thing outside of God and my family that meant anything to me, and if I had to walk away to protect him, then I could do it.
“Let him into this? I don’t think you have a choice in what he gets into. I believe the boy really loves you, and you love him, Sweet Potato. Even though you’re just a youngin yourself, you’ve seen the world from a different view. You’ve led a life that’s growed you up faster than Miracle Gro on a potted plant, and that’s my fault. I should’ve stopped long ago. I’ve had many an opportunity. I’ve been hiding behind revelations that could change our lives, and I’ve not been able to face it. It ain’t right, what I’ve done. To the whole lot of you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not right, Daddy. Don’t you see? If I wouldn’t have cried to Momma that day to take Rambo on a walk—you remember that day. He was only a puppy, and we needed to take him out, and I was going to train him. If I wouldn’t have wanted that dog, then we wouldn’t have needed to take that walk, and she wouldn’t have got that dime bag laced with crystal meth.”
He put his hand over my mouth, covering the words that were still coming.
“Don’t bring that up, Sweet Potato. Not now.” His eyes pierced hot, like a fire poker.
“It’s my fault, Daddy. I’ve done this to all of us. And tonight is where I’m stopping it. If you don’t leave with me, then I’m taking the kids and going off on my own. I can take care of them, and I am the only one that can stop us from dragging these good people down.”
I passed Daddy on the cot and made it to the door. Maize was already gathering his things and grabbing Bell by the hand. Bean was balling up his fist on the corner of Maize’s shirt. It was time to take control of this.
Daddy blocked the door. “Up them stairs now, Sweet Potato, and don’t be fussing with me about it.”
When we made it up them rickety stairs, I wailed at him. “I ain’t no good for Ray, Daddy. These kids can’t take this anymore, because they’ve found something good. You know we are a messed-up lot. Look at all of us—ridiculous, right down to our names.”
“That’s it, Sweet Potato. You get so caught up.”
He put his arms around me, and it was a warm place to be. No matter how much I was hurting, he was still my shelter. No matter how much I wanted to punch him, he was still Daddy.
“My name is stupid, Daddy. Right mad Momma was at the world to name me that. You are trying to distract me.”
I always pictured Momma as the lonely one, the wishing-well one who was always trying to penny-pinch her way back to that farm but never could. That was why I wasn’t that wisher kinda girl. Wishing was for losers.
“Marigold knew what she was doing when she named you all. Have you thought about it? Even once tried to get her message to you?”
He was shaking, and I stepped back. Hearing Daddy speak of Momma was making him about to fly away, Sweet Jesus, and I was scared he might carry me with him.
“If you only knew how much I’ve thought of our names.”
He rolled his big eyes. “Tell me what Sweet Potato means to you.”
I gave a big shrug, then put my hands on my hips. “It’s orange, and bumpy, and hard, and dirty. Even at the grocer, it still has some dirt on it when you pick it up. It takes a long time to cook before you can get in the insides of it.”
He stopped me. “But with some butter and some cinnamon and brown sugar, man, you can’t get nothing better … can’t get nothing better than you, child. It’s more than the taste. Think of the whole process.”
I had already studied up on the plant. He didn’t know how many times I’d done this very same thing with all our names. “It’s a root vegetable with all kinds of fibrous roots all sticking out.”
“No, Sweet Potato. Go on.”
I did it again, hands on hips. “Daddy, what else is there? It’s a dirty vegetable? You are distracting me from leaving. You think you slick, huh?”
He leaned up against the wall, placing his hands across his chest. His eyes welled up at whatever memories he’d stirred up in his old, black cooking pot. Oh, Daddy.
“Marigold named you Sweet Potato because of the morning glories.”
“The what?”
What was this rambling? I heard how he sucked his breath in, and I knew that this was killing him. He had never told us much about Momma—nothing except her not wanting to leave Johnston and her “Amazing Grace” story. And all other stories had been forgotten, the good ones along with the bad. So, this was a whole new experience for the both of us.
“Morning glories were your momma’s favorite flower, you see. She thought right h
ard about naming you that, but she didn’t want you to end up like her, so she couldn’t do the flower naming. Scared you would pick up on her genes. She wouldn’t listen to me one bit when I told her the name didn’t do that to somebody, and your name as Morning Glory Jones would have worked out just fine.”
He let out some laughter as the tears rolled down his face. “I tried to tell her that you’d get that genetic makeup of the both of us, but she didn’t understand that biology stuff. Thinking that the name was more important than the stuffing inside them cells. So, she did the next best thing after her morning glories: the plant that produced it. Not a flower, but a vegetable. So, there you go. You were named after a flowering vegetable.”
“A morning glory? I’ve never seen a sweet potato flower. You’re making this junk up, Daddy.”
I couldn’t say, “You’re lying about this,” because I knew that was one thing Daddy didn’t do. Could the flashlight be on him right now, and he was spinning me a spider tale?
“It was on them fields at her daddy’s place. Them special-looking sweet potatoes grew them morning glories, cascading on the vines like a waterfall of blue and violet waves. She’d walk with them in her hair, looking mightily fine. She was a blue-eyed girl with a purple flower stuck behind her tiny ear.”
Tears dried up on his face, but I knew he was carrying on his crying on the inside.
My voice was thick. “I always wanted to be named after a flower … Morning Glory, huh?”
“Yeah, Morning Glory. Never be ashamed of who you are. No more of this, Sweet Potato, my girl with the thickest roots, the stable one. The one that helped shape us all into who we are right now. I’ve messed up mighty bad with you. I’ve stuffed you in that draw-string bag and slung you around with the rest of them, and you still have been the one to carry us through. Oh, God. How can I ever ask you to even forgive me? I’m going to find a way to make you forgive me.”
He covered his face with his hands, ashamed as Momma circled him now with her memories. Ashamed and more alone now than I would have ever imagined one could be.