“They always find something wrong,” she said, drinking mint tea to calm the pain. But the pain didn’t get calm and a few weeks later, she went to the Emergency Room. That night, we found out that she’d had a baby growing but the baby wasn’t thriving. That’s the word the doctor used. Thriving. And the next year, when my fourth-grade teacher said to Mama, Frannie isn’t thriving in science and math, my mama’s face had clouded over and tears came to her eyes.
Mama stayed in the hospital for a long time after the not-thriving baby died. And the whole time she was in there, it felt like our family was holding its breath. Then, when the doctors said she was okay, we all started breathing again. But Mama came home quiet and sad and for a long time that’s how she stayed.
But the weeks passed and Mama got better. Every morning, she’d get out of bed and hug me and Sean, calling us her gifts from God, her unbroken promises, her little lives. And some mornings, I’d find her sitting holding the framed picture of Lila she kept at her bedside, a sadness on her face so deep, it seemed like no one would ever be able to break through it.
The years passed and the sadness went away too. Mama laughed more and hugged us all the time. She and Daddy headed back to their church, and slowly, our house became this new kind of normal.
She’s supposed to be all better, I signed, slinking down against the wall. I felt like I was eight years old again, scared and mad at Mama for not being Mama. She had said she was all better.
Sean smiled and shook his head. It wasn’t a big smile. Just more like a big-brother smile. He’s so beautiful—all tall and dark with pretty eyes and a nice big-brother smile. If he wasn’t deaf, he’d have a million girlfriends. Hearing girls were always looking at him. But most times, when they saw his hands flying through the air, they stopped looking, which was stupid to me. Sign language is just another language and if they weren’t so dumb, maybe they could learn to speak it. Once in a while, he’d tell us about a deaf girl in his school that liked him. Sometimes he liked her back. Sometimes he didn’t.
She IS all better, Sean signed. Just relax. Help me make some dinner.
I don’t want to make any dinner, I signed. I want to kiss Mama’s head.
Then go kiss it already!
I tiptoed down the hall and stopped to look at the picture of Lila. Her dark eyes stared back at me. Sometimes, Mama talked about the Baby Heaven—where Lila and the two other babies had gone—how maybe there was a whole other Wright-Barnes family up there, fussing and laughing, eating and singing. I stood there staring at the picture. If Jesus came back to this world—I don’t know what I’d want from him. I know what I’d ask, though. I’d say, “Mr. Jesus, I’m sorry to bother you but I have a question. I wanted to know how do you have hope?” I’d want to know how do you have hope when there’s always a Trevor somewhere kicking at somebody. When there’s always a mama somewhere who maybe wasn’t thriving. And maybe he would look at me and smile the way Sean smiled—all patient and sorry for me. Maybe he’d have that calm look like the Jesus Boy.
Maybe he’d have an answer.
I opened Mama’s door slowly and kneeled down beside her bed. It was almost dark now and the light coming into her room was silvery and soft. Everything was so quiet, I could hear my own breath and hers too, coming slowly. Her mouth was slightly open and she looked real peaceful with her eyes closed and that little bit of silver light coming in on her dark face. She had the most perfect nose—not too big and not too small. I ran my finger over her eyebrows. They were thick and then they got thin at the edges because she tweezes them that way. One day I’d get my eyebrows tweezed—even if it hurt—just so they could be perfect like Mama’s. And maybe I’d get some false eyelashes so mine could be long and dark and beautiful like hers. I sat on her bed, pushed her hair away from her forehead and kissed it. Mama opened her eyes.
“Stop worrying,” she whispered. “I see you setting your mind to worrying already. I’m just tired, that’s all.” Mama looked like she wanted to say something more but then didn’t.
She closed her eyes again. After a few minutes had passed, she opened them, looked at me and smiled.
“Frannie. Everything’s gonna be fine. I’m fine.”
“Then why are you sleeping in the daytime?” I moved a little bit closer to her. Her body felt warm.
“Because your mama gets tired sometimes—dealing with all you kids.”
“It’s just . . . just me and Sean. We’re not that much work.”
“Already feels like more most days.”
“What do you mean—it already feels like more?”
Mama touched me on the cheek. “I don’t want you worrying, Frannie. That’s all I’m saying, okay?”
I nodded.
“Wait until you have two, then you can come talk to me about what’s a lot and what’s not a lot.” Mama smiled. I tried to move closer.
“Why don’t you just sit on top of me, girl?” she said, moving over on the bed.
“I want you to get up now,” I said. I knew I sounded whiny but I didn’t care.
Mama sighed. “I can’t, Frannie. Not right now. In a little while, okay? I promise you.”
She looked at me. My face must have been all worried-looking because she said, “What’s that old Maribel Tanks talking about these days?”
“Samantha sat down right at her table! And then I had to sit there because Samantha was sitting there and then Maribel was talking about stinky pennies that the Jesus Boy—”
Mama closed her eyes. “The who . . . ,” she said softly.
“The new boy. Everybody is saying he looks like Jesus, only I don’t think so because he’s just a kid and all—just that his hair is all—”
I could hear Mama breathing slowly. Maybe she was already asleep.
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby.”
“What’s . . . what’s surreal?”
“Your voice going when I’m almost asleep.”
“No it isn’t. I mean, is that what it means?”
“Like a dream,” Mama said softly. “Like something not feeling like it could be really happening. Does that make sense, sweetie?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Like that boy just showing up . . . like he was showing up in somebody’s dream. And then you wake up and maybe he’s not there anymore.”
“Or maybe he is but it’s not as strange. People always wonder about the new kid—you know that. You were the new kid once.”
“Only by a month and that was because of the stupid chicken pox!”
“But everyone looked at you like you were from the moon. At least that’s how you described it.”
I tried to move closer to Mama some more. “Well, they did stare.”
“Of course they did, boo,” Mama said. “We told you again and again not to scratch and you scratched anyway, so you had scabs all over your body. I would stare too. Thank God for vitamin E.”
“It didn’t clear them all up,” I said, holding out my arm. “I still have the two pockmarks on my hands and some—”
“On your leg. I know, baby. Maybe your daughter will listen when you tell her not to scratch! Go help Sean get dinner going. I’m just going to rest a few minutes, then I’ll get on up.”
I kissed her forehead but didn’t move.
“Your mama sure is tired this evening . . .” She didn’t finish. After a while, her breath started coming all even and I knew she was asleep.
“It’s all so surreal,” I whispered, stroking her forehead. Outside, the sky was getting darker. “Some days, it feels like it’s always gonna be wintertime.”
Mama reached up and pressed her hand on top of mine. We stayed like that for a long time.
8
Sean could do three things real well—he could play basketball, he could do math, and he could season chicken. Once he tried to show me how to do the chicken, but mine came out tasting salty and bitter.
You gonna help or what? Sean said. He was chopping up carrots and onions.
I sai
d I would, right?
Well, don’t touch any spices, he said, pointing to the spice shelf, giving me a look. Especially the salt. You can put these in those bowls. I’m going to cook them with the broccoli.
I put the carrots and onions in the bowls he’d put on the table. Broccoli’s only good with cheese.
He opened the refrigerator and stood there smelling different packages, trying to figure out what to cook and what had gone bad. You’d put cheese on everything if you could. He threw a package into the garbage can and took out some chopped meat. Burgers and vegetables.
And rice, I said. I can make rice. It’s easy.
Sean looked at me. When you make it, it’s like oatmeal. Rice should be all separate. Yours is all sticky.
No it’s not! You’re just mad because I make it better than you!
You’re dreaming, Sean said. But he reached up in the cabinet and handed me the box of rice. Don’t put a whole lot of salt in it. And make sure you put a little butter in the water.
I didn’t say anything. He knew I was the better rice maker.
Sean started shaping the meat into patties. He took a pan out of the oven and put a little oil in it.
You think Mama’s gonna be okay, Sean? I asked after a few minutes had passed.
He nodded and watched me put the rice and water in a pot.
Two cups of water, he said.
One and a half. That’s how Mama does it. I put a little more than Mama but less than what Sean was saying. Then I put some salt and a little bit of butter in the pot and waited for it to boil.
Sean reached over me and stirred it. If you don’t stir it before it starts boiling, it sticks.
Yours sticks! My rice is always perfect!
I heard the front door close.
Daddy’s home! I signed, leaving Sean standing there stirring my rice.
Daddy stood in the long hall leading into our apartment, grinning and holding flowers. Everyone said I was going to be tall like him one day, but it wasn’t the tallness I wanted. I wanted his laugh—all loud and silly. And his smile that came into the room a full minute before he did. And I wanted his pretty eyes—the ones Sean got—and his dark, pretty skin that Mama swore I had, but my skin always looked to me like it didn’t know what shade it wanted to be—dark in some places, lighter in other spots.
Daddy stepped out of his shoes and took his wet coat off at the same time. I ran down the hall and jumped into his arms, my legs dangling almost to the floor, Sean right behind me.
Daddy laughed, walking into the apartment with both of us hanging on to him.
“I guess I need to go away more often,” he said, signing at the same time. Sean grinned and shook his head. Daddy drove a truck for Interstate Moving and had been away since Wednesday—moving some family’s stuff to Indiana. Now it was Friday. His goneness felt like forever sometimes.
You need a job that doesn’t make you go away, Sean signed.
“Where’s my woman?!” Daddy said, loud. He shook us off of him and did his caveman walk into the living room. “I’m hungry and I’m tired! And why can’t this man smell something good cooking?”
“Mama’s resting,” I said.
Sean looked at me. He signed, I’m cooking. Mama’s not feeling well, and Daddy’s smile dropped off his face. He dumped the flowers onto the coffee table and headed to Mama’s room.
I picked up the flowers—they were pretty—yellow and red and white with green leaves bunched around them.
Hey, big brother, what kind are these. I held the flowers toward him.
Lily. He finger-spelled the word for me. And roses. The red and white ones are roses. You know that! he signed. Must be pay-day. Flowers cost a lot in the wintertime.
When I have a daughter, I signed, her name will be LilyRose.
Sean made a face and headed back into the kitchen. I followed him.
Your rice is boiling.
I turned the fire down underneath the pot and covered it.
Sean got the jar that Mama used for flowers down from the shelf. I filled it with water and put the flowers in slowly. Sean pulled down plates and took forks out of the drawer. He put four glasses on the kitchen table—we didn’t have a dining room but our kitchen was big enough for four people to move around in.
Then, without saying anything, he put the burgers on, washed his hands, put some oil in another pan and started cooking the carrots.
What about the onions and broccoli, I said. And cheese?
Sean took a deep breath. Carrots take the longest. So you have to cook them first. Then onions. Then broccoli. Then a tiny bit of salt. Not a whole lot like you think everything needs. He stirred the carrots, then covered them. The only sound was the sound of things frying.
Sean watched me take a red rose and move it closer to a white one, then I thought for a moment and put a lily and some of the green leaves between the two.
He turned back to the stove, flipped the burgers, then tore a paper bag in half and put a big piece of it on a plate. Then he added the onions to the carrots, stirred and covered the pan again. He went back over to the refrigerator and opened it. Then just stood there, staring inside. He had ears like Mama, small and perfect shaped. When he was born, the doctors had wanted to do some new kind of operation to fix the inside of them, but Mama and Daddy said no.
Nobody’s experimenting on my child, Mama said. If that’s the way he came into the world, that’s the way he’s staying. It’s us we need to change. And she and Daddy started learning sign language. By the time I was born, Sean was two and a half years old. I grew up learning how to speak and sign. Sometimes, when he walked past her, Mama just grabbed him and kissed his ears. Sean always laughed but he pushed her away at the same time. I wondered if he was standing staring into the refrigerator thinking about that.
Years later, when I asked Mama why they didn’t just get the operation, she said because it was dangerous and not guaranteed. And most of all, she said, signing at the same time, there’s nothing wrong about being deaf. It’s just another language. So now you’re bilingual, Mama said. That’s a gift.
That was the first and last time anybody said anything about me being gifted.
I waved my hand at Sean to get his attention. He liked that more than somebody coming up and touching him.
The ocean, I signed.
Sean shrugged.
Water, he signed, water and air. It sounds the way air feels on your face on a windy day.
He took some ketchup out of the refrigerator and one slice of cheese.
Here, he signed, putting the cheese down on one of the plates. That’s where you sit.
Yellow, he signed.
That’s a hard one, Sean! Yellow doesn’t have a SOUND.
Nothing has a sound to me! That’s how this game got started. Yellow!
We’d been playing this game since we were real little. One person gave the word and the other person had to describe it, to make the person feel it someplace inside of themselves. To make the person hear it. Sean was better at the game than me, but I still loved playing.
Like something soft, I signed. A pillow. Or yellow sounds like bubbles feel—lots of them in a bathtub.
Sean nodded. Then he turned the fire off beneath the burgers and put each of them on the plate with the paper bag. I watched the bag get dark from the oil.
He stirred the onions again, added some spices, a little bit of butter and the broccoli, then stirred it once more, added some water, turned the heat down beneath it and covered the pan.
Music, I said.
What kind? He looked at my rice, then raised his eyebrows.
I turned it off but didn’t lift the top. Perfect, I said. A guitar.
Sean thought for a minute. Like rain, he said. Coming down real soft when it’s warm out and you only get a little wet but not cold. That kind of rain.
I smiled. That’s exactly what it made me feel like when I heard a guitar playing softly.
Daddy came out of the bedroom. We watc
hed his face. His eyebrow twitched. You had to look hard to see it.
Let her rest a bit, he said finally. Dinner ready? Smells good in here.
For a while, we ate without doing much talking. I watched the cheese melt on my burger, then poured ketchup over everything, stirred my rice until it turned pink. We listened for Mama to come out of her room but she didn’t.
“Anything interesting happen at school this week?” Daddy asked. He took a bite of his vegetables and smiled at Sean. Me and Sean both shook our heads.
“Nothing interesting happened with work either,” Daddy said softly. “The road from here to Indiana is flat as my feet. Every now and then a bright green road sign pops up to keep you awake.”
“Is Indiana pretty?” I asked.
Daddy thought for a minute. “Pretty light when the sun’s coming up. But what place ain’t pretty at the beginning and the end of the day?”
Where’s the prettiest place you ever been, Daddy?
Daddy grinned. “I guess California. Took me a long time to drive there, but when I got there, I went straight to the ocean. It was almost night when I pulled the truck up to where I could see the water.” He closed his eyes a moment. “All those different colors spilling over everything.” Then he opened his eyes and looked at me and Sean. “And here,” he said.
Sean watched his lips. When Daddy finished speaking, Sean kept on watching them. After a while, Daddy got up from the table, scraped the food off his plate and put the plate in the sink.
I watched Sean watch Daddy. Sometimes he just stared—and it was like his eyes were trying to do everything—speak and hear and smell and touch. Maybe that’s why they were so beautiful. They had all the senses right there in them, showing through.
There’s another one coming, Daddy signed. Another baby. He smiled—a kind of laugh smile like he was just as surprised as we were by what he was hearing.
What?!
Another baby, Daddy said again.
That’s crazy! Mama’s too old. We’re all too old. What’s anybody in this house gonna do with a baby?
Feathers Page 4