by Randi Pink
“Oh, please, please, please,” Missippi said. “I only been out a few times and never past the playground. Can I?”
Ms. Pearline nodded to Missippi and then locked eyes with Papa. “If you notice any shortness of breath or swelling in the ankles, bring her right back here. Also…” Ms. Pearline grabbed two of his snotty fingers and placed them onto Missippi’s neck. “Count the beats for me. Aloud.”
“One, two, three, four, five…”
“Okay, stop,” she said. “Start again.”
“One, two, three, four, five…”
“Okay, stop,” she repeated. “Start again.”
“One, two, three, four, five…”
“Okay,” she said finally. “See how slowly you’re counting? If you feel yourself counting faster than that, bring her right back. I want you to do that at least every thirty minutes. Got it?”
Papa nodded and looked over at his daughter with worry all over him. “I won’t forget.”
* * *
Papa helped Missippi onto the train. Everyone gawked as she waddled down the aisle. She smiled at them just like she would do at home in Valdosta, but most of them didn’t smile back. Instead, they pretended not to see her at all. So rude, she thought. Mary had told her people in the city weren’t too kind. But Missippi knew that sometimes mean people just needed a little love. A smile from a stranger or a two-step biscuit if they’re really having a rough go of things.
“Sit down here, Sippi,” Papa said. “Easy there, slowly.”
Papa handled her like a porcelain doll.
“I’m okay, Papa. Don’t make a fuss.”
Papa cleared his throat the way he did when he was remembering something important. “Ms. Pearline told me you might do that from time to time. Is she right about that?”
Missippi knew that he meant the little white lies. She didn’t want to lie to his face about whether or not she ever lied to his face. God’s honest truth was yes. Ms. Pearline had her dead to rights. But how does a girl tell her papa she’s a little white liar?
“Papa.” Missippi reached for his hand. “You’re a good papa. And I don’t never want you to worry about nothing.”
“So you do tell me stories sometimes?” he asked sadly. “I won’t be mad if you do, Sippi.”
“Only when it might hurt you to tell it.”
Papa leaned back, slumping into the curve of the seat. The intercom announced the next stop. Hegewisch Station. Such a strange name. Missippi wondered how to spell it.
“I need you to tell me the whole truth, Sippi. Are you hurting and not telling Ms. Pearline?”
Missippi searched herself for pain and quickly found it in her low belly. It had been coming and going since night, but it was easy to ignore since it didn’t last long. She didn’t want to lie, so she waited for the pain to pass again before she answered. “No, Papa,” she said without lying. “I feel fine right now.”
He placed two fingers on the side of her neck. “One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Okay, let’s get ready to get off.”
Missippi bounced with joy. “Where you taking me, Papa?”
He forced his face right side up. “I’m taking my baby to Margie’s ice cream shop. Best in the wide world.”
The world grew by a hundred when Missippi stepped off the train. She counted six lanes of traffic zooming past her and so many different types of people everywhere. She tried to count them, but there were too many of them. A man with a Panama hat bumped Papa’s shoulder and excused himself. A lady in a short red dress crossed the white lines of the street, and everybody watched her do it. An older lady in a walker sat alone at the bus stop with bags at her feet.
“Papa.” Missippi tugged at his jacket. “Should we help that nice old lady along?”
Papa laughed a little. “This is Chicago, Sippi. If that woman made it this long here, she could probably help us more than we can help her.”
The feeble-looking woman popped up from the bus bench, grabbed her bags on her forearm, and boarded the bus like it was her second home. Papa was right. Stronger than she looked. When the woman’s bus drove on ahead, Missippi noticed a group of strangers pointing at her babies with their mouths open. This time, she didn’t smile at them. She knew judgment when she saw it. She gave them a scowl instead.
“Ignore them, Sippi,” said Papa before rubbing the top of her head. “What flavor you want?”
Missippi tried to do as her papa said. She would’ve been able to, but they weren’t pointing at her. They were pointing at her two young’uns. They hadn’t bothered nobody. Except maybe each other with all the kicking. Baby girl and baby boy already been pointed at like they don’t have the right to get a scoop of ice cream like everybody else. Missippi felt protective of them. She wanted to line up those fools and give them all a hard slap across the cheek.
“Come on, Sippi.” Papa encouraged her to cross the street. She did, but she was still angry. “Your first lesson of being a parent: Sometimes you got to walk away from the foolishness.”
“You think I’m a parent, Papa?”
He looked away and didn’t answer her. “You never told me what flavor you want?”
“What flavor they got?”
“They got everything you can dream of. Go ahead,” he replied. “Call one out.”
“Chocolate?”
“Sippi, that’s easy. Of course they do.”
“Butter pecan?”
“Yep.”
“Mint chocolate?”
“They got it.”
“Pickled flavor?”
“Ahh,” Papa said. “I think you got me on that one.”
Papa held the door open and guided her under the bright red, striped awning. The place was buzzing with people. Papa spotted a large, mustard-colored booth and claimed it. “Sit down here, Sippi. I’m going to get you a chocolate, butter pecan, mint chocolate sundae. And I’ll see what I can do on pickles.”
Missippi laughed and began bouncing until it hurt too badly. The pains in her low belly were getting a little stronger and more regular, but they were still tolerable. She’d been holding her instinct to cringe at them. When Papa turned his back to order, she allowed herself to shudder in pain. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe, she told her little girl. Breathe, she told her little boy.
Papa returned with three different scoops in a bowl and a pickle spear sticking through the top. His face dropped when he saw her. She wasn’t quick enough to hide her cringe.
“I’m fine, Papa.”
Instead of a reply, he placed his two fingers on her neck and counted. “One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Let’s go.”
“But what about my ice cream?”
“Let’s go,” he said firmly. “Now.”
* * *
They took a bright yellow taxi back to Ms. Pearline’s place instead of the bus. Missippi couldn’t believe how much money it cost poor Papa. She vowed to pay him back as soon as she could. It was her fault for making all that fuss.
“What’s wrong?” Ms. Pearline answered the door without as much as a hello.
“Her heartbeat was real fast,” Papa said frantically. “And I think you right about her lying. I caught her looking like she was hurting bad.”
“Mississippi.” Ms. Pearline said her full name in an angry roar. “How much does it hurt, on a scale of one to ten?”
“Uh…” Missippi searched her body again for pain. “Two?”
“Mississippi!” Ms. Pearline yelled outright. “It’s important that you tell me the truth here. Has the pain been coming in waves? Hurting at a two and then hurting at a … say … ten?”
Missippi nodded.
“How long as this been happening?” she asked as she rushed to prepare the bed, laying down plastic squares and blankets, just like she had done for Ruby weeks ago. “How long?” she screamed, and Missippi jumped at the outburst.
“Since last night.”
“Sippi,” said Sue. “Oh, no.”
“Have you bled?” Ms. Pearline was frenzied and nervous now.
“I…” Missippi began. “A little.”
“Have you had water?”
Missippi nodded. It had happened on the toilet last night.
“Come here, girl. Lay down overtop of this plastic so I can check your labor,” Ms. Pearline said, shaking. “Have you lost your membrane?”
“What’s that mean?” Missippi asked as Papa, best friend Sue, Lillian, and Mary laid her down on the bed.
“It’s a thick plug. Like slow slime coming out.”
“I didn’t see that.”
“Are you lying again?” Ms. Pearline demanded. “Did you see it or not?”
“No, ma’am.”
Ms. Pearline opened Missippi’s knees and set what felt like her whole hand inside her. Missippi couldn’t stop herself from yelling out.
“Lillian, Mary,” Ms. Pearline instructed. “Get the stick from the kitchen and place it in her teeth. Sue, get the chicken timer from the kitchen counter, next to the pepper grinder. This child is in active labor.”
“What should I do, ma’am?” Papa asked in the most terrified voice Missippi’d ever heard out of him.
Ms. Pearline replied without looking up. “That’s for you and your daughter to decide. You can wait back in my bedroom or you can hold her hand while she brings these babies into the world. Decide now, though. This is happening soon.”
Papa looked into his daughter’s eyes. “Sippi,” he said. “My sweet baby girl.”
“Papa.” Sippi could barely get his name out through the thick pain.
“I’d like to stay here with you.”
Missippi felt a tear fall from the corner of her eye. “You’re such a good papa.”
SUE
23 Weeks
The very first time she heard her dear sweet Missippi refer to her as “best friend Sue,” she thought it was a one-time thing, but hoped it wasn’t. Stankybooty was getting old after all.
Best friend Sippi hung on her every word. Listening intently to her stories about marches and protests and Richard-fucking-Nixon. Sue left out the fucking, though. Best friend Sippi was too sugary sweet for such sour language, and Sue didn’t want to be responsible for spoiling her.
Sue could go on and on with Sippi. Sometimes the others rolled their eyes at them, loving each other so much. But Sue didn’t care. They were soul mates, like in the best books she’d ever read—Bennet and Darcy, Eowyn and Faramir, Gatsby and Buchanan. Two kindred spirits finding each other in the crowded world. Better than gold, she was. The only thing Sue couldn’t talk about to Sippi was her mother, Margaret.
Sue never really talked about her mother to anyone, actually, but with Sippi, it felt like an especially unkind thing to do. Even the smallest mention of a mother in the apartment perked her ears. She was a girl longing for a mother figure, that much was beyond obvious to Sue. And if she dared complain or brag about her own, that might hurt her. Though the avoidance of it was becoming difficult, since Sue’s mother sent letters. When the first one had come, Ms. Pearline announced it to everyone at lunchtime.
“Sue,” she said before handing her the unopened envelope. “Your mother sent a beautiful letter.”
Sue noticed Sippi watching the letter as if it held the answers to years of questions. Then her eyes lost their glow. She wanted beautiful letters for herself. Sue tucked it under herself and pinched Sippi’s cheek to perk her up, but it was no use. She moped for hours afterward.
That night, Sue had a talk with Ms. Pearline. Asking her to hide the letters on top of the cupboard so Sippi couldn’t see them. Ms. Pearline told her knowingly, “Good idea, Sue. Good idea.”
* * *
One night, after Sippi had fallen asleep, Sue edged a chair to the cupboard and retrieved the letters. She was surprised to see them separated into two stacks.
There she sat, hidden behind the island in the middle of the kitchen floor with unread letters at her feet. She organized them by date and then smelled them. They smelled like her mother, dainty and understated. The first had been sent the week she’d arrived, and there was a crisp hundred-dollar bill in it. Sue tucked the money between her growing breasts and read the salutation: Dear Susan, I’ve always wanted to tell you this. Then she gave herself permission to open only two more. It was all she could take in one night.
The salutations read like beautiful confessions written in careful cursive:
Dear Susan,
I’ve always wanted to tell you this …
Dear Susan,
I could never find the appropriate words …
Dear Susan,
I fear I may owe you an apology …
For some reason, Sue was nervous to begin reading them in their entirety. She did so anyway:
Dear Susan,
I’ve always wanted to tell you this. First of all, darling, I love you so very much. Secondly, I am not good at sharing my thoughts aloud with anyone, and I never have been.
When I was in school, many people thought me mute. As a very young child, I decided to take a sabbatical from speaking. To your grandparents’ chagrin, I didn’t speak a word for an entire year of my life. I would have gladly gone on longer if they hadn’t threatened institutionalization.
On the Vineyard, children are expected to be perfect and check all of the boxes. Beauty, class, intellect, culture, and the ability to speak. Since I did not possess the last of them, they assumed me less than smart and lacking culture. Beauty, the least important of virtues in my opinion, has always been out of my control. Mother’s genes gave me that without effort. But I longed for knowledge and culture above all other things. In my lifelong search for them, what I found surprised me—passion. But alas, I never found my ability to speak those passions aloud.
You, darling, have what I always wanted—the skill to debate your own ideas. This is why I am so lenient with your curfews and social life. I am in no way oblivious to the things you’ve been up to. I know about the young men you’ve marched with and slept with. I know that you’re a paying member of numerous Democratic organizations. And most of all, I know how much you hate this war. And maybe even hate your own father for this war.
Still, call me naive, I was honestly shocked when you told me about your condition. I believe parents should trust their children with their own sexual lives, and I expected that you would utilize protection.
However, I have had time to consider your side of things. And, more importantly, reflect on my own youth. I, too, made unwise decisions at your age. Those I may reveal in subsequent letters, but as of now, I am not ready.
This first letter will be to express the love that I feel for you, despite your choices. Darling, there is nothing you can do to avoid my love. It may move mountains.
Your mother,
Margaret Claire Laura Hurley-Day
P.S. I sincerely hope you love Ms. Pearline as much as I do. I’ve been following her cause for years, and she is, bar none, better and more capable than anyone in and around the state of Illinois. If, by chance, you experience anything out of sorts, find a phone and call. Night or day, darling.
Sue saw a smear at the end, likely caused by her mother’s tears. Her heart ached for her mother, and she felt a rumble of pain inside her. While her morning sickness had passed weeks ago, she still experienced phantom flips and turns in her abdomen. This, however, was that unfamiliar feeling of regret.
Sue usually had a policy of never regretting anything, since every decision, even the bad ones, led to the full human experience. But she should have used a condom, like her mother had mentioned.
Sue knew the night she’d gotten pregnant. It was after a small rally Michael had arranged at their school. Her ex-boyfriend Malcolm Engel was staring at her longingly from across the practice field, holding too many books. He was a scholarship kid, attending their school bec
ause he was brilliant, not because he was rich. He was penniless, actually. But still, Sue loved Malcolm, and in retrospect, she had no idea why she’d dumped him the week before. She’d taken his virginity while he still wore his large glasses. With Malcolm, she had used a condom. With Michael a week later, she hadn’t.
She turned it over and over in her mind. Why had she done this to herself? Handcuffed herself to the asshole, while letting go of the good one a week before. Regret brought back the sickness in her gut. She pulled out the next letter to focus on something else.
Dear Susan,
I could never find the appropriate words until this moment. This may be a faux pas for a mother to tell this to her daughter about her father, but I do not agree with his politics. I’ve tried very hard to hide it from you. Forcing myself to smile when I want to act out, which happens quite often actually. I believe that history will frown upon him and his president.
Please know that I am not revealing this for any reason other than to help you understand me. I have not been open enough with you over the years, and I’m ready to alter that.
Your mother,
Margaret Claire Laura Hurley-Day
Sue eagerly opened the next one.
Dear Susan,
I fear I may owe you an apology. I wrote the last letter after drinking too much wine.
My apologies,
Margaret Claire Laura Hurley-Day
P.S. Though I must add, it was the truth.
Sue had to cover her mouth so she didn’t laugh out loud. Over the years, she’d guessed her mother secretly felt this way, but never thought she’d ever reveal it to her. After the initial shot of amusement, Sue began reflecting on her parents’ relationship. No hugging or kissing on the mouth that she could remember. They’d always greeted each other by air-kisses on the cheek and pleasant nods of mutual acknowledgment. Even if he’d been gone for weeks, that was their greeting—sterile and loveless.
Sue knew that if she married a boy like Michael, she’d be doomed to live a life like that. With Malcolm, they could grow together. Build something strong with a firm foundation. But with Michael, the father of this baby, the future had been set through generational wealth and privilege. A future of beige, colorless Kenilworth. A future with a man just like the one she hated the most—her horrible father. Maybe her father couldn’t stand her mother, either. He was probably having an affair back in DC.