“Hi!” Teddy said, catching up to Rhonda as she walked to the bus stop. “I was wondering what happened to you.” Teddy was charming; his Southern drawl was smooth as silk.
“What do you mean?” Rhonda asked.
“I used to see you and your brother leaving for school every morning, but I haven’t seen you for a while,” Rhonda was flattered. He had been watching her!
Over the next several months, Reggie and Rhonda were on again, off again, but things with Teddy were heating up. Rhonda was thirteen, Teddy was nineteen. He had come to New York from Mississippi to find work after he finished high school. He had been raised by his grandmother and wanted to make some money to send back home to her. Teddy said he had six aunts and uncles who kept having children and dropping them off for his grandmother to raise. His grandmother was old, tired, and poor. Rhonda told Teddy about Grandma, who showed no signs of aging, could still move fast, and was mean as hell.
Whenever Teddy saw Nett, he tried his best to be extra nice to her. He would hold the door for her, offer to carry her bags, and always had a friendly and respectful greeting when she passed. But Nett wouldn’t give him the time of day. She didn’t like him and made no effort to hide her feelings. It didn’t matter; Teddy persisted in his pursuit of Rhonda. One morning as Rhonda was leaving for school she found Teddy waiting for her in the hallway.
“Can I walk you to the bus stop, Miss Lady?”
“No!” she almost screamed at him. “If somebody sees us … I mean if somebody tells my mother … I mean no, I’m in a hurry.”
Teddy snatched Rhonda’s book bag from her and headed down the stairs. “I can walk fast, too, you know.”
They walked together to the bus stop, laughing and talking like boyfriend and girlfriend. When the bus rolled to a stop in front of them, Teddy leaned over and kissed Rhonda squarely on the mouth. It was a nice, warm, friendly kiss.
When Rhonda got home that afternoon, Teddy was sitting on the stairs waiting for her. He smiled. She smiled. She moved toward the door to her apartment, and Teddy followed her. As Rhonda fumbled nervously for her door keys, Teddy gently maneuvered himself in front of her and kissed her again. This time, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth. Rhonda was stunned. She panicked. But then Teddy spoke and asked if he could come inside. The request had the same effect as cold water being thrown into Rhonda’s face.
“Are you crazy!” she screamed. “You can’t do that!”
“Then why don’t you come upstairs with me?”
“My brother will be here any minute. I can’t.”
“I promise. You don’t have to stay long. You can watch for your brother out my window.”
Teddy’s house was very different from Rhonda’s. There was a lot of furniture in his living room and lots of dirty dishes in the sink. There was a dirt ring around the bathtub and a pile of clothes on his bed. Reggie and Rhonda usually “did it” standing up, fully clothed, with their underwear down around their ankles. Teddy pushed the pile of clothes onto the floor, and the next thing Rhonda knew, she was lying nude on Teddy’s bed.
Rhonda was thirteen and a half years old, naked in bed with a grown man. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Teddy kissed her from head to toe. She didn’t know how to respond. He asked her if she loved him. She kept her mouth shut. He told her that he loved her. She closed her eyes and forgot that she could even talk. Seven and a half minutes later, she was back up, getting dressed. She was speechless.
Rhonda couldn’t believe that an attractive, handsome man-child would be the least bit interested in her. Her father wasn’t. Her brother wasn’t. Reggie was, but he was a boy, not a man. She couldn’t believe that a grown man would want to have sex with her. It was only when she danced that she felt beautiful. Otherwise, Rhonda felt she had never stopped being ugly. She was going to make the most of every opportunity she had to be beautiful and feel loved. But Rhonda hadn’t learned that men will say anything and do anything to get you to have sex with them. She had yet to learn how to distinguish between a lie and the truth. And it never dawned on her that Teddy could be lying through his teeth.
When Rhonda told Teddy that she thought she was pregnant, he disappeared. He didn’t move. He just disappeared. Rhonda had continued to see Reggie, but far less frequently. She had spent every stolen moment she could find with Teddy. Rhonda and Beverly had become friends again, and Rhonda confided in her. Beverly told her sister, Sandra, who took Rhonda to a doctor. Much to their chagrin, the doctor confirmed that Rhonda was indeed pregnant. Four months pregnant to be exact. Sandra kept saying how sorry she was for Rhonda; Beverly was too freaked out to say anything at all. Rhonda had no idea what to do next.
That night, Rhonda called Reggie and told him she was pregnant. Reggie was shocked, but he was a decent boy who cared about Rhonda and the predicament she was in. Reggie didn’t disappear. He told his mother, who then called Nett. There was a meeting with all the parents and thirteen-year-old Rhonda and fifteen-year-old Reggie. It was decided that the children were too young to get married and that Rhonda would have the baby, then put it up for adoption. Then it was decided that Rhonda would have the baby and Reggie’s mother would raise the baby until Rhonda finished school. Then they decided that Rhonda would stay at home and attend a school for pregnant teenagers. In the end, Rhonda was sent to a foster home for pregnant girls in Jamaica, Queens. It was there that Rhonda realized no one had ever asked her who the baby’s father was.
Three weeks after Martin Luther King was assassinated, Rhonda gave birth to a baby girl. Little Tracey, named after Teddy’s sister, was five pounds thirteen ounces, and seventeen inches long. Tracey looked just like her father. Same eyes, same color, same everything. Tracey went directly from the hospital into foster care. Rhonda went back home to Nett’s disappointed sadness, Ray’s indifference, Grandma’s predictable “I told you sos,” and to begin living with her own shame.
One day, soon after she returned home, Teddy reappeared. She was walking home from the store when she saw him.
“Was it a boy or a girl?” Teddy knew where Rhonda had been because his mother and all the other mothers in the building had been gossiping about why Rhonda had disappeared right in the middle of the school year.
“A girl.” Rhonda said and never stopped walking. She refused to even look at Teddy. When they got to the front of the apartment building, Teddy said a quick “see ya” and ran across the street to the park. For the rest of that day and for several days after that, Rhonda sat in the window and watched Teddy.
The train ride uptown usually took about twenty minutes, but on this day it seemed to take forever. Every time the train stopped, every time the doors opened, every time one person got up and another sat next to her, Rhonda would break down and cry again. By the time the train reached the Seventy-second Street stop, she was weeping inconsolably. Some of the women on the train, sensing her pain, offered her tissues and cough drops. At the Eighty-sixth Street station, one of the women helped Rhonda off the train and asked her what was the matter. Rhonda explained that her six-month-old-baby, who had been in foster care, had died that morning, and she didn’t know why. Her mother was at work and couldn’t leave, and she didn’t know where her father was, and the baby’s father had disappeared—again. The only thing the woman could think of to say was, “You’re so young.” She gave Rhonda some extra tissues, wished her well, and went on her way. Rhonda was alone and on her way to identify her baby’s body.
Reggie and his entire family came to the funeral. The social worker and the foster parents also came. Nett, Daddy, and Ray refused to attend. Surprisingly, Grandma wanted to come, but Nett lied to her about the day and the time. Tracey lay in a small white casket and wore a little white dress. She looked so tiny. Rhonda sat still in the pew and wondered why she felt no grief for her dead child. She felt no sadness, no loss, no pain. She waited all through the funeral, hoping that she’d feel something. She waited as they placed the tiny casket in yet another big black car, and even
as Tracey was lowered into the ground. It wasn’t until Rhonda looked up and saw the lady in the white dress standing in front of the grave that she felt anything at all. And what she felt was closure. Finally, it was all over.
With all that behind her, things returned to normal pretty quickly. In a matter of weeks, Rhonda was back to her schoolwork, hanging out with her friends, and her dance classes. It took several months before she got up the courage to share her experience with her dance buddies. And to her surprise, most of them already knew or at least had some idea. Things at home had changed, however. The only time she and Nett talked was when Nett was questioning her about where she was going, where she had been, and whether she was “messing around again.” Whenever Daddy showed up, he looked over her, around her, but never directly at her. At sixteen years old, Ray was becoming a full-fledged alcoholic. He could care less that his sister had been pregnant and buried a baby.
Rhonda had learned a great deal in the past year. Everything had happened so fast that the lessons had come in fragments. One fragment of what she learned led her to believe that when you don’t matter to the people in your life, the things that happen to you don’t matter. Another piece of the lesson was that once people get what they want from you, they leave. Another small portion of the lesson that life was teaching Rhonda was that when you don’t have anything that people want to begin with, they will leave. The biggest, and most difficult piece of the lesson that Rhonda had learned was that when you really need someone, the people that you expect to be there will not be there. Nothing in this lesson was new. These were all things that Rhonda had learned a long time ago at Grandma’s house and at Aunt Nadine’s. She had learned how to cry and keep on moving. It was painful and sometimes hard, but Rhonda had learned her lesson well.
Things were not going so well for Nett. She was working two jobs, trying to make ends meet. But the ends were not connecting, were, in fact, miles apart. Each payday, Nett had to decide whether they’d have food in the house, a telephone, or have the lights on. There was never enough money to pay for the necessities, let alone little extras for herself, Ray, or Rhonda. Rhonda never complained, though she wanted so many of the things that her friends had. She understood that Nett was doing the best she could for them and seldom asked Nett for anything that cost money. Rhonda would faithfully wash and wear her two skirts and two blouses, week in and week out. Nett would sit at the kitchen table late at night, eating her warmed-over dinner and watching Rhonda iron her clothes, carefully avoiding the spots that were threadbare or shiny from being ironed so often. Sometimes, Nett would get angry and pick a fight with Rhonda. She’d interrogate her about her whereabouts that day and ask her who she was taking such care ironing for. Other times, Nett would push her plate aside and put her head down on the table. When Rhonda asked her what was wrong, Nett would just say she was tired, but Rhonda knew she was hiding her tears. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how she skimped on her own needs, Nett rarely had two nickels to rub together.
To make matters worse, Nett had found out that Daddy was spending his money on another woman. Nett, who had always prided herself on her looks, could no longer afford nail polish or expensive perfume or trips to the beauty parlor to get her hair done. Nett, who had given up so much just for the reflection of love she saw in Daddy’s eyes, was at first uncontrollably angry then sullen and depressed when she smelled the perfume she could no longer afford on one of Daddy’s shirts. The thought of him impressing some brazen hussy in Mr. Rootman’s bar with the money she and his own children so desperately needed and deserved sent Nett over the edge.
Ray, like Daddy, was seldom home, and Rhonda usually took the brunt of Nett’s erratic and moody behavior. Rhonda did her best to stay out of Nett’s path, but the slightest infringement would bring Nett’s misplaced wrath down on her head. If Rhonda’s chores weren’t done on time or done properly, Nett would go into a rage and deny whatever minor privileges Rhonda had. Most nights, Nett came home tired, defeated, and mad at the world. If she was more tired and defeated than mad, she’d eat her meager dinner and go right to bed. If anger prevailed, she’d burst into Rhonda’s room, accuse her of sleeping around with some unnamed boy, and threaten to kick her out of the house if she ever got pregnant again.
The physical and emotional space between Rhonda and Nett grew wider each day. They denied each other the love, compassion, and understanding that they both yearned for. Rhonda felt that she was losing Nett’s love and that she would never regain Nett’s trust. But the money problems and the problems with Daddy were not her fault. She was doing her best not to ask Nett for anything, and Nett didn’t even seem to realize that Rhonda wanted nice things too. She wanted new clothes, new shoes, a few dollars now and then for the movies or romance magazines.
Nett came home in a particularly bad mood one night and found Rhonda in her room, painting her toenails.
“Nail polish? Where in the hell did you get money to buy nail polish?” Nett was furious, her tone accusatory.
“Aunt ’Nita gave me the money,” Rhonda said meekly.
“Oh, really? And just how much money did she give you?” Rhonda didn’t answer. “Fifty cents? Two dollars? Twenty dollars? Enough to pay the gas bill? The phone bill? How much, Ronnie?” Nett stood with her arms crossed, daring Rhonda to tell a lie.
“Forty dollars.” Rhonda’s voice was barely audible.
“I know I didn’t hear you correctly. How much did you say?” Nett stepped closer to where Rhonda now stood trembling.
“Forty dollars,” she repeated.
“Where’s the rest of the money? I know you didn’t bring forty dollars into this raggedy-ass house and spend it all on yourself.” Nett looked into Rhonda’s guilty face and already knew the answer. “You mean after all I’ve done for you, all the sacrifices I’ve made for you and your brother, all the hours I’ve worked just to put a lousy piece of salt pork in a pot of beans and keep a roof over your selfish, ungrateful head; you mean after all I’ve done to provide for you when your own whore of a father wasn’t giving me a dime, you went out and bought forty dollars’ worth of what? What could you possibly have needed so badly that you became a liar and a thief? Just like a rat leaving a sinking ship. Everyone for themselves. Is that the way I brought you up? Haven’t I always told you that you take care of the people who take care of you? You’re hopeless, you know that, Ronnie? You’re pathetic. You don’t appreciate anything I’ve done for you. All you think about is your own sorry self. I work my ass off, and this is the thanks I get? Well, you know what, Ronnie? Let me tell you something—” Nett hesitated for a split second, but not long enough to stop the words. “You and your Daddy are just alike. Neither one of you is s——t, and you never will be s——t!”
An avalanche of hurt and despair and deep sadness rolled across the room, filling every corner, sucking the very air from Rhonda’s lungs, blocking the light from her vision, killing her wounded spirit.
Nett had turned and stormed out of the room and was halfway to the kitchen when she realized what she’d done. Somehow, Grandma’s venomous words had come from her own mouth. She had used them as weapons to vent her anger and frustration. Nett slumped down heavily onto a kitchen chair. The meanness of her spirit and the viciousness of her words shocked and frightened her. What had she become that she could purposely inflict such pain on someone she loved so dearly? She had to apologize. Immediately. She had to hold Rhonda in her arms and tell her how sorry she was and that she hadn’t meant to say those terrible words. She had to explain that she was just upset about not being able to provide for her family, and that she was angry, not with Rhonda, but with Rhonda’s father. She had to tell Rhonda how much she loved her, how she would never stop loving her.
It was too late. Rhonda had gone into the bathroom and taken all the pills she could find, including Ray’s asthma medication. Then she had walked quietly past the kitchen into the living room and laid down on the sofa. She did not expect to wake up in the morning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What’s the Lesson When You Don’t Reconcile Your Past Before Moving Ahead?
Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you can now make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity, Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.”
A Course in Miracles
IT WAS TIME FOR ME to get out of the bathtub. The water shooting through the jets no longer felt soothing. It was beginning to hurt. Maybe it was because I was remembering so much, so fast, and this had made me sensitive. When you start to remember who you were, you become sensitive about who you are. You may begin to doubt your ability to go any further. You may even doubt whether you have the right to go any further.
I have, at one time or another, doubted myself. Doubt is a common side effect of remembering. It is human nature to assess what we can do according to what we have done. When I didn’t do so well yesterday, I have been afraid of making the same mistake again. At this point in my life, however, I realize that if I don’t remember what I did, I cannot do anything differently. If I don’t pay attention to the details of my actions, I will do the same thing over and over out of habit. I don’t want to do that anymore. If that means that I must search every little corner of my life until I understand what I do that gets me into places I don’t want to be, then I am willing to stay in the tub and remember and cry and be wrinkled and cry some more. I also believe that if I get any more wrinkled right now, my brain will shrivel and I won’t remember anything.
Yesterday, I Cried Page 13