by Byrne, Leigh
I went out into the yard to the same spot where, on my eighth birthday, I had sat tying together dandelions to make a necklace, and spread out the blanket Mama had given me. It had been only three years since then, but it felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened in those three years.
As I lay on the blanket, I caught a glimpse of Natalie Page, a girl my age who lived next door. She was standing out on her back patio watching me in a curious way.
Natalie was in my grade at school, but I didn’t know her as a friend. I knew who she was—everyone knew who she was—because she was pretty and popular, but we didn’t hang out together. We had passed a couple of times in the halls, and had waved to each other politely, in an obligatory way, like neighbors do.
She smiled and waved when she realized I saw her watching me, and I waved back. She turned and went into her house, and I stretched out on the blanket, letting the warmth of the morning sun caress my face.
Around noon I got hot. The skin on my face stung and felt tight. I pulled one end of the blanket over my body to shield it from the sun. Mama must have seen me, because she knocked on one of the windows facing the backyard to let me know she did not approve. I slung the blanket off.
She called the boys in for lunch, and the yard got still and quiet, except for the chirping of birds. After a while Nick came out and handed me a cheese sandwich wrapped in a paper towel, and a small cup of water that I gulped down right away.
As I munched on the sandwich and listened to the birds tweet all around me, I decided I liked my new arrangement. Even though I was still confined to one area, being outside gave me a sense of freedom. It was far better than standing with my face to a wall, in perpetual dread of what might happen to me next.
I stayed out in the sun all day, and watched the sky change from blue to burnt-orange. When the sun had disappeared behind a distant hill, Mama called me in. She sent me directly to bed, telling me to sleep in the swimsuit, because I would be doing the same thing the following day.
When I woke up the next morning, I had sunburn on my face and all down the front of my legs and arms. My skin was swollen in patches, and tender to the touch. Mama took one look at me and said, “You may want to turn over once in a while today so your back will match your front.”
Like the day before, I stayed out in the yard on a blanket in the sun until late in the evening. Once again, that night I slept in the bathing suit. The next two days were the same.
While I was out in the sun, Mama fed me a lunch of a cheese, or peanut butter sandwich, but she gave me little to drink. After the fourth day of being out in the heat, I needed more water, so after everyone else had gone inside, I crept up to the house and snuck a drink from the dog’s water bowl, an old metal pail under the outside faucet. I was grateful for our dog, Rusty, when I was able to share his food scraps from the family’s leftovers, and now, as I plunged my face into his cool drinking water.
In the next few days, I drank from Rusty’s water bowl every chance I got. But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much I drank, it wouldn’t quench my thirst. After a week in the sun, I decided to try to slip into the bathroom and drink from the sink faucet.
After everyone else in the family was asleep, I jumped up from my bed and darted across the hallway into the bathroom. Mama’s white terrycloth robe was hanging from a hook on the wall by the bathtub, and it scared me when I saw it, because at first glance it looked like her standing there. I wanted to run back to bed then, but I was thirsty, so I stayed on task.
Searching for something to hold water, I spotted, by the sink, a cup shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head that held the family’s toothbrushes. One by one, I took them out, and placed them on the counter. There were five of them, each a different color. The pink one I used to have before Mama got mad at me was now gone. It had disappeared like all of my toys had.
I put the empty cup under the faucet, and then cranked the cold water handle, carefully. The pipes made a rumbling noise when I turned the water on too much, so I had to dial it back to a slight dribble.
When the cup was full, I turned the water off before it splattered on the porcelain sink and made a sound. Then I turned up the cup and drank without stopping, forcing the water into my mouth so fast it ran in two streams down the sides of my neck. I filled the cup a second time, and a third, to “camel up” for the next day in the sun.
When I ran back to bed, I could hear the water sloshing around in my belly, and it made me laugh. I lay down to sleep, content with having solved my problem. Sneaking into the bathroom every night for water was doable, and with my thirst quenched, my days in the sun would be tolerable, which meant it was not going to be a bad summer after all.
29
By the end of my second straight week of lying in the sun, I became lawn furniture to the neighbors. The adults no longer paid any attention to me during their outdoor barbeques, and the kids played around me as if I weren’t there.
Under the blazing summer sun, the days melted together. Every morning before I went out, I wished for rain, or at least a sky filled with fluffy clouds that would, from time to time, draw a shade over the yard, relieving me from the heat.
When I was blessed with an overcast day, I entertained myself by watching the clouds scud across the sky. Sometimes I imagined there was an enormous ballroom above me filled with beautiful women in elaborate party dresses and big, elegant hairdos, escorted by handsome men dressed in long-tailed tuxedos. Other times the clouds took on the shape of giant ice-cream cones, cotton candy, and mugs overflowing with frothy root beer.
My mind was free to fill with wild fantasies. Out of loneliness I created my own imaginary friends, tiny elfin creatures with large, dark eyes and expressive faces. They lived under our house, where it was cool and damp, and came out only when Mama wasn’t around. As they huddled around me, I pretended I could feel the coolness radiating from their bodies, and it soothed my burning skin.
My imaginary friends were loyal and devoted only to me. They hated Mama for the way she treated me, and together we plotted ways we might stop her from hurting me anymore.
The elves suggested we tie her up and torture her, and then starve her, and when she begged for something to eat, force spoiled food down her throat. They even offered to kill her for me; all I had to do was say the word. But I couldn’t allow them to hurt my mama because I loved her, and I was still hoping that things would get better between us.
I had almost dozed off when I became aware of something blocking the sun above me. “Hi Tuesday!” said a female voice.
I could tell the slight figure standing over me was a kid, but I couldn’t see who she was through the glare of the sun. I propped myself up on one elbow, craned my neck, and shaded my eyes with my hand. I saw it was Natalie, from next door.
“Hi,” I said.
“Mind if I lay out with you?” she asked. But she didn’t wait for an answer. She proceeded to unfold a colorful patchwork quilt and spread it out on the ground beside me. “I have got to get some sun before school starts,” she rattled on as if we were the best of friends. “I can’t believe how tan you are; you look great!”
I glanced down at my body. My skin had turned a deep apricot color that was striking against Mama’s turquoise bathing suit. I smiled shyly. “Thanks.”
Natalie stretched out on her quilt, leaned back on both arms, and shook her long hair back away from her shoulders. She was wearing a pink one-piece swimsuit with white polka dots. Looking at her, I felt self-conscious of the one I had on, because the top was puffy where I wasn’t yet. I reached up and tried to flatten it out with my hand.
“Sure is hot today,” she said.
“Sure is,” I agreed.
Grandma Storm had taught me it’s not nice to stare, and I tried not to, but I found it difficult. Natalie was so perfect. I had never seen her close up before, and had not had the chance to appreciate her delicate, doll-like features. She had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her tiny nose and eye
s the color of the sky behind her.
“You make me look like a ghost!” She scooted off of her blanket and onto mine, until she was right beside me, our hips and legs touching. “Look how dark you are compared to me!” she said in a high-pitched voice. “And your legs are prettier too, so long and shapely.”
I felt my chest swell with pride, and an unexpected grin spread across my face. I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to.
She reached beside her for a brown bottle of lotion, screwed off the cap, and squeezed an extra-large dollop into her palm. “What are you using?” she asked, smearing the lotion onto her outstretched legs.
“Using?”
“You know—suntan lotion—what kind do you use?”
“I don’t use any suntan lotion.”
“You don’t use lotion, and you’re that tan?” She offered the bottle to me. “Want some of mine?”
I glanced up at the house, wondering if Mama was watching us, then nodded and took it from her. I squeezed a dab into my hand, and rubbed it on my legs. It smelled delicious, like coconut and bananas.
For an instant, as we lay there on our blankets, side by side, without Mama around to tell me I was ugly, or kids to judge us, it almost felt like we were the same. Like she wasn’t the most popular girl in school, and I wasn’t the skuzziest. It felt like we were equal, and for an instant we were.
Natalie had been in the sun for only a few minutes, and already the skin on her forehead sparkled with perspiration, and the sprouts of baby hair framing her face were curling in the humidity. Her cheeks and nose had started to burn. She flopped around restlessly on her blanket. She sat up, pulled the top of her bathing suit out in front of her, and blew air down her chest. “Whew!” she said. “How do you stand it out here every day for so long?”
She thought I stayed in the sun because I wanted to. Why would she think otherwise? I shrugged my shoulders.
I didn’t want Natalie to go home and leave me alone. Somehow, her being with me made me feel more normal. I tried to think of something clever to say so she would forget about the heat and stay out a while longer. “I like your bathing suit.”
“Thanks!” she beamed, squinting against the sun, a dimple deep in one cheek.
A few minutes went by. I couldn’t come up with anything else to talk about.
All of a sudden, she leaped to her feet. “I just thought of something,” she said. “I’m supposed to go with my mom to the grocery store. I almost forgot!” She gathered up her blanket and lotion. “Bye, Tuesday!” she called out as she unlatched the fence gate and headed for her house. “I’ll see you later.”
My heart sank as I watched her hurry up the slight hill of her yard. When she ran, her hair rippled in dark waves down her back. Right before she disappeared into her house, she turned around, flashed a smile, and fluttered her fingers.
30
The following day the clouds were sparse and transparent, and they floated across the sky like ghosts. Despite the heat I noticed I wasn’t sweating anymore. Usually by now my body was covered in fine beads of moisture. It pooled in my navel until it overflowed, and then trickled down the sides of my waist. But on that morning, I was all dried up, like a slab of meat someone had forgotten and left burning in the oven.
My thirst had reached a new level. My mouth was now void of any moisture, and my tongue felt thick and heavy. I had been unable to drink from the bathroom faucet the previous night because I was unusually exhausted when Mama called me in, and had fallen into a deep sleep right away, not waking until morning.
Everyone was inside their houses because of the heat. The only sound was the white noise from the air conditioners running in unison. I searched the yard for movement, but it was dead still all around me. A haze of dust lingered in the air near the basketball goal, from earlier in the morning when my brothers had been playing before the heat set in.
Rusty slowly waddled over to his drinking bowl and took several laps of water. Panting heavily, he plopped down in the shade near the house, pressing his back up against the concrete foundation. Briefly our eyes met in empathy.
Desperate for water, I decided to sneak over to his bowl. I didn’t like to drink from the dog’s water in the middle of the day for fear of someone seeing me. But no one was around, and I was so thirsty, I didn’t care. I tried to get up to crawl across the yard to the bowl, but my body wouldn’t move. The steady drip of condensation from the air conditioner hypnotized me, and caused me to forget my plan.
The compressor kicked in, and I snapped out of it. Suddenly I sprang to my feet as if something had taken possession of my body, and started walking toward the house with a purpose that was unknown to me. Although fully aware of what was going on, I had no command of my actions. I simply followed my body as it moved forward—floated forward—not knowing where it was taking me.
I passed Rusty and his water bowl without stooping to drink, and opened the back door to the house. Boldly I made my way through the forbidden kitchen without hesitation, past the place in the hall where I always stood, straight into my mama’s bedroom.
Disorientated, I stood there before her with a strange sense of calm.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked.
I could not speak, and even if I could have, I didn’t know why I was there.
All at once, a dark tunnel formed between us, with Mama’s now infuriated face far away at the end. She was saying something to me; I could see her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear her. She started coming toward me through the tunnel, tumbling around and around inside of it. The closer she got, the more the blackness engulfed her, until it had swallowed her up altogether.
As I drifted out of consciousness, it occurred to me that I was probably dying, and I was okay with it.
When I woke up, Mama and my two oldest brothers were standing over me.
I couldn’t move. Am I dead? Is my family looking down at my lifeless body in a casket? Then I recognized some of the objects in the room around me, and I knew I was in my bed.
Mama had an open book in her hand. She looked baffled. She began to read aloud from the book. “The person with heat exhaustion feels weak and dizzy. The skin is hot and dry, and there is no perspiration…”
Then she and my brothers, and the furniture in the room, all began spinning around me. Every muscle in my body began to cramp.
Mama continued reading from the book. “There may even be fainting and convulsions…”
Against my will my legs and arms started pulling in close to my body, contorting out of control.
Jimmy D. interrupted Mama’s reading. “Why is she jerking around like that?”
“I don’t know, honey. Hush up for a minute and let me find out,” she said. “Pour cool water over the victim. Wrap his head in cold, wet towels and his body in a cold, wet sheet. Give him cool water to drink…”
She stopped reading, put the book down on the bed, and then disappeared from the room. When she returned, she had two wet towels, and as the book had suggested, she bent down over me, close—closer than she had been since I was eight without hitting me—and wrapped me in the cool towels. As she put one of the towels across my forehead, I could feel her breath brushing across my face and smell the floral fragrance of her perfume.
Finally I stopped jerking long enough for her to pour salty-tasting water into my parched mouth. I was thirsty and wanted to swallow, but every time I tried, my throat constricted. She gave up on the water, and instead squeezed the moisture from a wet washcloth into my mouth.
The rest of the day and well into the next, I remained lethargic, drifting in and out of sleep. Mama came into my room regularly to feed me ice cubes to suck on, until I could tolerate water from a glass.
The second night, during one of those vague, blurry periods in between my coherence, she sat on my bed and spoke to me in a low, breathy voice. “I’m sorry for the mean things I’ve done to you,” she said. “I love you, and I always will.”
I wanted to resp
ond, but I was too tired. I tried to tell her I loved her too, but no words came out of my mouth.
I awoke late the next morning feeling well again. Mama brought me some ice water and chicken noodle soup with crackers crumbled up in it. As she handed me the cup of soup, I searched her face for a sign that she had changed, hoping she would follow up on the words she had whispered to me in my sleep the night before.
“Well, you look much better today,” she said.
“I feel better!” I said happily.
“Well, in that case, I think it’s time you get up out of bed and quit being so lazy. After you eat this soup, I want you to clean the house. You can start by sweeping in here.” She turned and left the room without mentioning anything about the night before, as though it had never happened.
Maybe it didn’t happen, I thought. Maybe I dreamed it.
For days I tortured myself, wondering if Mama in a moment of weakness and guilt had broken down and revealed dormant emotions for me, emotions she might not have even known she had. I couldn’t bear the thought that I might have missed the only chance I would ever have with her, or allowed a few stolen moments of closeness between us to slip by.
31
Mama decided to put me to work pulling weeds around the chain-link fence in the backyard.
Pull them up by the roots,” she yelled from the door. “Then beat the roots on the ground to get all the dirt off. I’ll be out to inspect later.”
It had been a while since the weeds had been tended to; they were about two feet high, and thick, and the roots were all tangled up in the fence. Looking around our big yard, I knew the job was going to take the rest of the summer to finish, if I did it the way Mama said.
I grabbed as many weeds as I could hold in two hands and tugged with all my might, but they wouldn’t budge. I lost my grip and fell backwards, and the weeds slipped through my fingers, slicing them. This happened again and again, until my hands were swollen and covered with long, diagonal cuts.