Tempest Rising

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  They were almost to Chestnut Hill. Had just left the trolley tracks and shops of Germantown Avenue and were onto huge streets with no white or yellow lines that marked all the streets of this size in West Philly to hold the traffic in place. There was not much traffic here to hold in place. Just houses as large as the streets were wide, two-, three-storied, deep and long brick houses sitting back behind snow-draped trees; she couldn’t even name these trees, they had such exotic shapes.

  “No wonder those girls wanted to get back here.” Ramona sighed. It was a tear-laced sigh. She’d cried such rivers today: for Mae, for those girls, for Donald Booker, for herself. She especially cried for herself.

  Now Tyrone was going in between her fingers, taking his time, leaving no speck of her fingers untouched by his hand. “Well, of course, they wanted to get back here, Mona, not just because of their house; it’s just that this is where their essence is. Don’t matter how good or bad they were treated staying with you and your mother, they still would have wanted to get back here to, you know, to breathe.”

  Ramona squeezed his hand. Thought about how her essence had been left back in that park eighteen years ago and how she’d had to go back there, at least in her mind, so that she could breathe.

  She rolled her window down. The air was still gray, and the temperature was dropping again. She rubbed her hands together and blew into them. She hoped the girls had doubled their socks. They were almost to where a tree had fallen and spread itself out halfway across the road. This was the block; Ramona could tell by the police cars, one marked, one unmarked, sitting in front of a grand stone Victorian.

  “You think we need to get out of the car?” she asked. “That must be the house up there where the police cars are sitting. Maybe we could talk to the neighbors; maybe they’d tell us details they might leave out for the police.”

  “Sure, baby doll.” Tyrone pointed out of the passenger-side window, motioning to a woman who’d just crossed their view. “We could start with her.”

  When Ramona looked at the tall, slender figure gliding up the street as if she were walking on velvet instead of ice-covered concrete and noticed the vintage fox-foot–collar coat she was wearing, she was getting ready to say to Tyrone that you can always tell people with money by the way they walk and the quality to their coats. She had her mouth all fixed to let go a barrage of observations about the rich. But then she noticed the purple wool blanket-like shawl hanging in a loose drape around the woman’s head as if she were an Arabian princess. She couldn’t even say anything after that.

  It was the stitch. All through the shawl, that tight knit-purl cross-stitch, that stitch she’d never seen until she’d seen it woven through all of the hats and scarves and gloves that belonged to the girls. So all she could do was shriek, “Oh, my God! Stop the car right now, Tyrone. You gotta stop the car.”

  Tyrone almost ran up on the curb, unaccustomed as he was to driving Perry’s fully loaded automatic transmission with power brakes.

  “What? Ramona! What the hell is it?”

  “That’s her.” Ramona pointed wildly toward the woman.

  “Who?”

  “Her, it’s her. My God! She must have gotten out. They must have let her out.”

  “Who? Shern? Victoria? Bliss? Who? Who do you see?”

  “Their mother, right there, that woman gliding up the street. That’s their mother. My God, that’s Clarise.”

  “That’s Clarise?”

  “I’m telling you, I’d know that stitch anywhere.”

  “You lost me, baby”

  “Never mind, sit here. I’m getting out. I’m going to talk to her; I know that’s her. I’ll be right back. That’s her. That’s the girls’ mother, Clarise.”

  Clarise drew into herself as Ramona approached. She balled her fists under her coat sleeve, deciding whether to run or try to fight her off. She couldn’t run, damned tree was blocking her. It was the Pattersons’ tree; the last ones to welcome them to the neighborhood, the first ones to point out all the business Finch was losing to the catering chains.

  Clarise turned her back on the fallen tree and faced Ramona. She looked for her shoes. Darn, black rubber slip-on boots, so she couldn’t tell if she was wearing the white oxford, rubber-soled shoes all the institute staff seemed to wear. Like the ones she was wearing now, borrowed from the day shift nurse who had left them in the utility room next to the opened bottle of White-All shoe polish and the three-tiered squeegee sponge. Good shoes too. Her feet had remained dry and fairly warm the whole walk here. She sniffed. No aura of wintergreen alcohol surrounded her. She unfurled her fists, then balled them again quickly. This woman was calling her name. Who was she, calling her name like this? She centered her weight. Took the stance taught her by the aunts. Fixed her eyes on Ramona like they were cannon loaded and ready to fire. “Who the hell are you?” she asked. “And how is it that you know my name and I don’t know yours?”

  “Um, miss, um, may I call you Clarise?”

  Clarise dropped her fists. This was definitely no one from the institute.

  “Um, I’m—my name is Ramona, and actually we’re—” Ramona turned and pointed to Tyrone, who was halfway out of the car.

  “Tell him to get back,” Clarise commanded.

  Ramona made a frantic motion with her hands, and Tyrone got back in the car.

  “We’re over here about your girls.”

  “Say their names,” Clarise said.

  “Shern, Victoria, and Bliss.” Ramona said the names slowly, seeing each of the girls in this woman as she said the names. Shern had her mother’s eyes for sure, probing, intense, watery, like half-wet circles of gray-black ink. The strong, straight nose was also Victoria’s nose. And Bliss had certainly taken those fleshy lips, that pouty mouth.

  Clarise felt a stabbing in her heart as Ramona said each girl’s name. She sat down on the fallen pin oak and buried her face in her hands. “Just tell me. Tell me fast and tell me true. Just tell me right now. What happened? Please tell me what happened to my babies.”

  “Um, well, they were staying with me—that is, with my mother and me over in West Philly. Um, you know, my mother takes in foster kids—um, I mean children. And, well, we don’t know all the details yet, but it looks like they ran away sometime late last night or early this morning.”

  Clarise was crying into her hands now. Her shoulders were going up and down, the fox-foot collar seeming to stroke her neck as she cried. “I knew something was wrong,” she sobbed into her hands.

  The pin oak made a cracking sound as Ramona sat down on the fallen tree next to Clarise. Ramona had her arm around Clarise’s shoulder. It was a stiff arm, Ramona so unused to consoling people using physical contact.

  “I’ve been smelling bread, all morning, a yeasty, buttery smell. The morning I woke and my husband wasn’t next to me, hadn’t been in the bed all night, first time ever I’d woke not knowing exactly where he’d spent the night, I woke to the smell of the sea, a sweet, oily smell that was coming to me in mists, and then in waves, and then I could barely catch my breath, as if my lungs were filling with water.”

  Now Clarise was starting to shiver under her aunt’s faithful coat. She had walked from the institute to here. Most of it through snow-covered Fairmount Park, where she had the streets to herself, no cars, no people; the storm had even kept the stray animals and pesky park squirrels in. And she had done the eight miles in three hours and kept reasonably warm, even worked up a mild sweat. But now her heart had almost stopped at the news that her girls were missing, her blood froze a little, and the heat that had settled between her coat and her skin while she’d kept moving was quickly receding, and suddenly she was feeling the gray air for what it was, a dull, throbbing cold.

  Clarise’s shoulders felt so frail under Ramona’s arms. So Ramona wrapped her arms fully around her. She rubbed her hand up and down her arm. “Um, uh, um, Clarise, why don’t you come and get into the car with my boyfriend and me? We were riding around looking for
your girls. We figured that they’d probably try to get home. Um, but the police look like they had the same idea. Um, maybe you know where else they would try to go. But first why don’t you come and get in the car with us? Please, come on,” she whispered, “let me help you into the car.”

  Clarise allowed Ramona to help her up. Because not only was she cold, but she was tired; more than tired, she was weak.

  Tyrone had the back door opened when Ramona and Clarise got to the car, and Ramona climbed into the backseat with Clarise.

  “Are you warm enough?” she asked her once they were both settled in.

  “Much better, thank you,” Clarise answered, and then let the loosely hanging shawl fall from her head and onto her shoulder. Ramona noticed how Clarise tossed her head as if she were royalty to encourage the shawl to fall. She took note. This is how refined people acted.

  “Is this your young man?” Clarise asked as she leaned forward to get a better look at Tyrone.

  “Um, yes, yes, he is,” Ramona said.

  “Can you tell him to drive slowly through this block? This is our block. Even though my girls wouldn’t hide on this street. My Shern has a key. They would just use the key and go on in. Unless, of course, those dumb oxen police so visible in front of my door have scared them off.”

  They rode in silence through the block. Ramona respected the silence even though she was brimming over with questions for Clarise. When did she get out? Why hadn’t they known she was getting out? Why was she just walking through the streets like that? How did it feel to go through life without any idea who her father was? She gasped as she thought this last question. Had never been aware of any yearnings to know her real father. Was just beginning to understand that that didn’t mean the yearnings weren’t there.

  Clarise was sitting forward to get a better view of the snow-covered block, seeing her girls in strollers, then tricycles, then roller skates, then two-wheeler bikes with training wheels; splashing around in the inflatable toy pool on the front lawn that would make Clarise’s jaws ache when she had to blow it up; posing for pictures on Easter Sunday and Mother’s Day. The images were building one on the top of the other like a slide show in fast motion, she could even hear a clicking sound as her mind went from one scene to the next, and now she was screaming and startling the quiet in the car. “Oh, dear God. Dear, dear God,” she hollered. “Please let them be safe. After my Finch, I just couldn’t bear another loss. Not a loss like that, not my girls. Sweet Father in heaven, please, not my girls.” She closed her eyes tightly. Then wrapped her arms around her chest.

  “Why don’t you sit back and try to relax?” Ramona said as she reached for Clarise’s shoulder.

  “Relax? How can I relax? I’ve run away from the institute, yes, that’s right, run away,” she said to the shock in Ramona’s eyes. “My girls are God knows where, and you tell me to relax.” She stared hard into Ramona’s face. She lowered her voice. “My dear, if you think it is even remotely possible for me to try and relax right now, then the institute has a bed waiting for the wrong woman.”

  She saw Ramona’s features recede to a hurtful downcast. Noticed then Ramona’s red eyes, puffy nose. She sat back against the seat and closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead lightly with her long, slender fingers. She moved her fingers outward along her face and let them rest at her temples. “Well, at least you let me have a decent outburst without shooting me with that navy haze. I’m not crazy. Never was. It was the medication. Had me so bogged down all I could see was navy. The more I reacted to it, the more they gave me. Educated fools, those doctors. I stopped taking it on my own, you know. Look at me now. Or at least listen to me. Don’t I sound as sane as the two of you?”

  Tyrone caught Ramona’s eyes through the rearview mirror. Did a questioning move with his eyebrow as if to ask Ramona if she was okay back there with this woman claiming not to be crazy. Clarise saw him too. She sat up again, tapped him on his shoulder, said, “My dear, I’d put my clarity of thought against yours any day of the week. I’ll bet over the past week you’ve found yourself in situations and wondered why you were there, and knew you shouldn’t be there, and continued to stay there. Personally I think that’s crazy. Are you locked up somewhere forbidden time and space with the things you hold most dear?”

  Tyrone thought about his week with Candy. How he’d started off unable to resist, humming all the way to her animal skin–covered walls. But after five, six, seven days in a row, the skins and the smoky mirrors made him dizzy, and even the way she so readily went wide open for him that had so excited him in the beginning he thought his natural head would burst, after a week straight, the predictability of their time together made him miss Ramona’s hot and cold, hard and soft changeable nature.

  “I didn’t mean you any disrespect,” Tyrone said. He fixed his eyes on the street unfolding in front of the car lest his guilty eyebrows show. “Any suggestion on where we should go?” he asked the hood of the car.

  “To your house,” Clarise said, and lightly touched Ramona’s suede-trimmed trench coat. “That’s where my girls left from. I believe that’s where they’ll return. I’ll call my aunts and uncles when we get there. When I see what’s what, I may even let them take me back. But they’ve got to understand about the medicine. I’ll explain it to my aunt Til; she’ll fight for me.” She smiled weakly at the thought of Til fighting for her. And then she turned to face Ramona again. “Young lady,” she said, “I need a favor. Can you please remove these tight-ass rubber bands from my hair. Why they did this, I certainly can’t figure, they should have just left my hair be, let it go wild; the African bush seems a popular hair statement, don’t you think?”

  Ramona moved in closer and began unwinding the rubber bands. “I don’t like that bush, no, I don’t like it at all. And I want you to know that I’ve been keeping a good press in your daughters’ hair, hot-curling their bangs every morning and giving them two thick plaits down the back. Except that Bliss has a softer grade, more like yours.” She had the first rubber band out and smoothed through Clarise’s thick, soft hair to get to the next one.

  Clarise smiled and sighed. “She does, she really does. My baby Bliss.” She nestled her head against Ramona’s shoulder. Ramona’s fingers through her hair reminded her of how Shern used to love to play in her hair, smooth through it to get to her scalp. Ramona had unwound the second rubber band now and was massaging Clarise’s scalp. The car was warm, and the seat was soft and drawing her in. Ramona’s fingers whooshing through her hair was affecting her; she actually was beginning to relax. What a powerfully intimate thing to do, she thought, the press of fingers against someone’s scalp. She realized now why women told their hairdressers their deepest soul secrets, why mothers and daughters bonded so over the act of combing hair, why best friends always styled each other’s hair. Why she suddenly felt so close to Ramona, even trusted her.

  “Please tell me that you and your mother were good to my girls,” she said in a voice that wanted to fall asleep. “Please tell me that they didn’t run away because they were being mistreated. Please tell me, why do you think they left?”

  Ramona took in a deep breath and picked up an end of the purple shawl. Her voice shook as she started to speak. “Because I couldn’t act like you, you know, a real mother; because my mother couldn’t either. Because we didn’t even know how to be mother and daughter to each other. Because sometimes things happen to people that in an instant change who they are and they spend a lifetime trying to get back to who they used to be—” Ramona was crying again. She was pulling the sobs from her stomach, and her entire body convulsed, and she rocked back and forth and made choking sounds.

  Clarise opened her blanket shawl, stretched it out for Ramona to lean into. “Or trying not to get back to who they were,” Clarise said. “That institute I just left is teeming with people trying not to be who they really are.” They nestled on each other’s shoulders under the tight knit and purl cross-stitch that didn’t let any cold in as Tyron
e maneuvered through the ice along Lincoln Drive bound for West Philly and Mae’s house.

  Mae’s block was crowded as Tyrone eased up Addison Street in Perry’s deuce and a quarter, Clarise sleeping against Ramona’s shoulder under the purple shawl. Anybody not already at Mae’s over the girls missing had surely run out of their houses and into the street to watch Mae and Clara Jane curse at each other and get ready to fight. They never really exchanged slaps. Clara Jane held on to the coconut cake knife; Mae broke a wine bottle against her concrete porch for effect. Said she’d cut Clara Jane right in her lying mouth. But people like Beanie and Hettie separated them, said the newspeople were likely to show up to do a story about the girls, and why we always got to be acting like heathens when the newspeople show, Beanie said. So Clara Jane walked on down the street, Mae went back into her house, and the tide of people separated to let the car through.

  Tyrone stopped in front of the door, told Ramona he’d let them out, then go park. He got out of the car and walked around to the back passenger side and was just about to open the door for Ramona and Clarise when he was met by Addison barreling down the street, legs and arms moving in big circles he was running so fast.

  He was holding up the mitten that he’d snatched from Mister’s pocket. “Look, look at what I have.” He waved the mitten in Tyrone’s face and then pulled it back. “You think this is worth a reward. I’mma show my aunts, ask her to hook it up for me.”

  Tyrone grabbed Addison by the collar. “Is that—?”

  “Shern’s, yepper,” he said.

  Tyrone glanced into the car, saw Ramona gently nudging Clarise awake. “Where?” he demanded. “Where did you find the glove?”

  “Hey, man, get off of me or I ain’t telling you jack.”