by Randi Pink
“Everyone out,” said Ms. Pearline. “Now!”
The room fell silent except for the ticking of Sue’s chicken timer. “What?” asked Sue. “She’s probably really close…”
“I said,” said Ms. Pearline in an angrier voice than Sippi’d ever heard from her, “out!”
Everyone else scattered, and the room quieted, leaving Missippi gap-legged on the bed with Ms. Pearline on her knees between Missippi’s.
“Mississippi.” Ms. Pearline lifted into a squat but never left her place. “I need you to listen carefully to what I am about to say. We don’t have much time. I am not angry at you. I am concerned for the safety of your babies, one of which is semi-breeched. You are not following the instructions I’m giving you closely enough. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Missippi nodded in response. “I thought you hated me,” she said between intense contractions.
“I love you, child.” Ms. Pearline squeezed a smile out through her fear. “I just need you to do everything I say. It’s very important. Life-and-death important. Okay?”
When Missippi nodded again, Ms. Pearline permitted everyone to go back to their places.
“We’re entering the transition phase,” Ms. Pearline announced. “The end is in sight. Sippi, would you like to go to the tub or stay here?”
Missippi was so glad to hear Ms. Pearline call her Sippi. She looked around her. Walls covered with pretty pictures painted by other girls with swollen bellies. Mary and Lillian smiling down on either side. Best friend Sue rubbing her leg and ticking the timer. And Papa. Telling her that everything was going to be okay in his thick Valdosta twang.
“I’m happy here.”
“Okay. The contractions will come every thirty to ninety seconds now, and they can last up to two minutes. Sippi, this means you’ll have little time to recover between them. If it gets too much, we’ll go to the tub. Here comes one now. Breathe.”
The whole world shrunk into a thing of pain. Long, hard pain with no relief to look forward to. The intense urge to push came over Missippi. Her stomach pounded loud and mean as a twister, and her body told her she needed to empty it.
“No!” yelled Ms. Pearline. “You are not ready to push. Do not push, you hear me? Stop! Pushing!”
“What’s wrong?” asked Papa. “Dear God, Pearline, what is it?”
“She cannot push until she’s fully dilated. I know you want to push now, Sippi, but I need you to control it. Control your little body. Short mini breaths now. Show me your pant, come on, baby. Tongue out and everything.”
The urge was stronger than anything ever before in her life. It would feel so much better if she gave in to it. Ms. Pearline told her to pant and hold whatever it was on the inside, but her body couldn’t stop.
“I can’t stop it.” Missippi squeezed her butt cheeks together and tried and tried to stop it. Her body was taking over.
“You need to calm down, Sippi,” said Ms. Pearline. “You’re in a panic. I need you to think of calm, short breaths. Look, we’ll all do it with you.”
Lillian started panting like a hot dog, and Mary joined her. Best friend Sue put down the timer and started playing soft, slow tunes on her guitar. Ms. Pearline watched for Missippi’s babies, making sure they hadn’t crowned before they were ready. Then there was Papa.
“Did I ever tell you about the time your mama came home barefoot in the wintertime?” He was smiling. As calm as the first breeze of spring. “Valdosta winter ain’t but fifty degrees, but still. She had the whole neighborhood fussing over her that day. Everybody loved your mama, Sippi-girl. But nobody as much as me. She was my light. I used to call her that. Not baby or honey or sweetheart. No, ma’am. She was my bright, bright light.
“She’d given her shoes away to another mama down the road from us. A mama that couldn’t afford to get her own shoes for her own feet in the wintertime. We didn’t have much of nothing, but if she had a quarter, she give away a dime of it without a second thought.
“I wish you could’ve had time to know her, Sippi.”
The urge to push calmed. The panic attack let up. Papa had never spoken of her mother. Not that she could remember at least, and she’d long given up on asking. He stared off for a while. Quiet. Rapt. Fixed on his own memory.
“But I tell you what,” he said. “Your babies are gonna know you. You understand me? They gonna know how wonderful you are, girl. You just got to breathe like Ms. Pearline tells you to breathe, and they gonna know you. You hear?”
Sippi reached up to his face. “Such a good papa.”
* * *
Missippi named them Author and Easy. A baby boy and a baby girl, just like she’d known all along. Their cries sounded like the wind chimes from her dreams. Bells, tiny, sweet bells ringing to let everyone know they were there and healthy.
* * *
The twins slept through the night. Not like Ruby’s baby boy, who hollered like a siren no matter what. Author and Easy were dream babies, Ms. Pearline had called them.
The sun peeked over the high-rises of downtown Chicago, and a familiar pounding sounded off—Tim Reese. The babies screamed at the disruption, and no amount of rocking would quiet them down. It was as if they sensed a mean man coming.
“I hear them little heathens!” he yelled, clearly drunk. “Let me in now, woman, or I’ll break it down!”
Papa leaped up and went to the door. “Everybody lock up in the bathroom. Deadbolt it behind you. Sippi and the babies in the tub.”
“I’m staying right here with you,” said Sippi, barely able to stand.
“Get in there, girl!”
“Come on, best friend,” said Sue. “Babies need you with them.”
Missippi went with her into the small bathroom. They couldn’t hear as well from there. Only muffled sounds of men arguing back and forth and random neighbors inspecting the ruckus from their apartments.
After a loud crash, Ms. Pearline went into the living room with them and began demanding Mr. Reese leave.
He finally did.
The girls came out of the bathroom to find Ms. Pearline holding a bloody rag over Papa’s forehead. The coffee table was shattered, and a crowd of neighbors had gathered at the open door. The babies had both stopped crying, and they stared at Missippi with big, beautiful, innocent eyes.
“Sippi,” Papa started. “Gather your things. I’m taking you home.”
Sue shouted, “You can’t.” Terrified tears running down her face. “You just can’t.”
Missippi wanted to protest. Wanted to agree with her sweet best friend Sue. But since the babies had come into the world hours earlier, something had shifted in her body. It wasn’t about what she wanted anymore. Nothing she desired mattered, not one little bit. She just had to protect them. She couldn’t stay.
“I have to go, best friend.”
“Fine, then,” said Sue. “I’m coming with you.”
SUE
Sue packed her guitar and a single bag to join Sippi and her papa. Ms. Pearline went to the neighbor’s apartment to call Sue’s mother to inform her that Sue was leaving. Ms. Pearline wasn’t angry at all. Sue had expected her to be angry, but she seemed resolved. Accepting it as Sue’s choice and not her own. As she hung up the phone, Ms. Pearline removed the coverings from her own body and began wrapping Sue’s neck and face in her scarf and blanket.
“You two need to head out before rush hour,” Ms. Pearline said with heavy sadness. “We don’t want anyone to catch you. You’re an odd couple for this neighborhood.”
“What did my mother say?” Sue asked Ms. Pearline while being wrapped like a tick.
“She said to call her as soon as you get to Valdosta,” Ms. Pearline replied with cracks in her voice. “And that she loves you, darling. Her words.”
Lillian and Mary began to cry openly, but they didn’t object. They knew it was the right thing. Sippi handed Author to Lillian and Easy to Mary for them to cuddle for the last time. The move instantly dried their tears and t
urned their faces into smiles. Those two children were the cure for sadness.
“I think I have everything,” said Sippi.
“Me too. Am I wrapped enough?” Sue asked Ms. Pearline.
Ms. Pearline nodded nervously and lowered her gaze. She must’ve been exhausted, just delivering two babies the night before. And then dealing with horrible Tim Reese that morning. She was an unbelievable woman.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done.” Sue looked from her to the twins to Sippi. “Everything. For Margaret, too.”
Ms. Pearline bowed her head in acknowledgment.
Missippi walked to her with her arms wide and brought her in tight for the hug that broke something in Ms. Pearline. Her barriers opened. She wailed and wailed before saying, “I’ll miss you, Missippi. I’ll miss you the most.”
The room watched as they painfully said good-bye.
And then the five of them left—Missippi holding her twins, followed by her papa, and then Sue.
The giant rig was backed right up to the entrance of the apartment so no one saw them. He’d laid down an entire floor of blue painting blankets in the back and nailed down two small boxes filled with knitted blankets for the babies. Sippi stepped in first, wincing at the movement. Then Papa rolled down the back door.
He revved the enormous engine, and they were off. The first hour of the ride was Chicago’s nauseating stop-and-go traffic. Everything in the rear of the truck shifted and stopped over and over until Sue wanted to vomit. The small, battery-powered light near the cab was just enough to illuminate her best friend and the beautiful new babies she’d just brought into the world. Sippi looked exhausted.
“How are you feeling?” Instead of focusing on her own stomachache, Sue decided to ask about Sippi. She had, after all, just had not one, but two babies. “Tell me the truth or I’ll know.”
Sippi forced a smile in response. “I feel on cloud nine with these little angels. But my body feels like it’s been run over. Specially…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Down there. It hurts, best friend. It hurts real bad.”
For Sippi’s sake, Sue didn’t want to push too hard for information. But for her own sake, she wanted to know. Her own baby was coming in a few months, and she had no idea what to expect.
Sue decided to ask her. “Tell me what it feels like.”
Sippi didn’t seem upset. Actually, she seemed kind of excited to know something Sue didn’t know.
“Well…” She leaned in. “You ever been punched in the cheekbone before?”
“Of course not, have you?”
“I have,” Sippi replied. “Well, kicked actually. But not by a person, by a mule. On my cousin’s farm, he bucked me square in the cheek. Now, I’ve been hit before, but there’s something special and horrible about a cheek hit. It’s dull and aching. It hurts all day and all night. That’s what I feel like … down there. Like a hard punch in the cheek.”
“I don’t get it,” Sue replied honestly.
“I know. It’s hard to say out loud how something feels on the inside. Here, give me your arm.” Sippi held her hand out, grabbed Sue’s thin left upper arm, and punched it.
“Ouch!” Sue snatched it back.
“No, no, wait. You’re going to lose it. Look,” Sippi said, staring at the spot she’d punched Sue. “I punched a frog out.”
Sue saw it just before it went down. A golf-ball-size lump in her skin, peeking up and then back down.
“Did you catch how it felt a little bit dull and made your arm sleepy?”
Sue nodded.
“That’s how I’m feeling,” Sippi said. “Only a million times worse.”
Sue thought about that. Dull, aching pain in the vagina. She’d never thought much about having a vagina at all, really. Vaginas are hidden. Used only when necessary for pleasure and pee, but never seen. Boys, on the other hand, named their penises. Horrible Michael called his Teddy, after the “Chappaquiddick Incident” Kennedy. Sue hated him.
She hadn’t had adequate time to think about him showing up at her home like that. Threatening the nightmare of Kenilworth aristocratic marriage on her. Housewifery. She would never do it. His grandmama couldn’t make her. Her father could never make her. What were they going to do? Tie her down? Make her say her vows to a phony? Never.
“What’s on your mind?” Best friend Sippi interrupted her thoughts. “Did I scare you?”
“Nothing. Just can’t believe these babies are so quiet and calm. You’re a lucky girl. I hope I’m that lucky.”
“So you’ve decided to keep yours?” Sippi smiled like a girl much older than fourteen. She didn’t bounce at all. Sue couldn’t tell if it hurt, or if giving birth had taken her best friend Sippi’s bounce away forever.
“I don’t know,” Sue said honestly. “I’m scared to even think of it.”
“Are you having a little girl or a little boy?” Sippi asked, again with a more mature countenance. Sue didn’t know how to answer her question. “I mean, when it speaks to you. Is it a little boy or a little girl?”
Sue sat quiet for a few seconds, listening for a little voice to help her answer the question. She felt a bit embarrassed that she’d never even tried to talk to it. Maybe that made her less motherly or something. Not woman enough to be a mother, not that she wanted to be one necessarily.
“I haven’t heard anything from it.”
“That’s okay, best friend.” Sippi closed her exhausted eyes. “You should sing to it sometime. It might sing with you.”
Four hours into the ride to Valdosta and only Easy had woken up to nurse. Sippi fell asleep with the little one on her nipple, and Sue maneuvered her out of Sippi’s arms. She rocked the smiling baby back and forth as they walked the length of the rig’s cabin. Only the small light in the corner guided her through the darkness, but Sue could tell Sippi’s papa did all he could to make it comfortable for them. Wooden shelves had been cleared of their boxes and other contents. A wicker basket filled to the brim with room-temperature Cokes and salt-and-vinegar potato chips hung on a hook near the cab, and stacks of blue blankets covered the cold metal floor. He’d done his best, Sue knew. He really was a good papa, just like Sippi had been telling her all along.
“Hey, little buddy,” Sue kept saying to Easy. “Hey there.”
Sue hadn’t realized babies that young knew how to smile and coo. She was a dream of a little human being, and Sue felt privileged to hold her. She’d never actually held a baby before. Her aunt tried to make her hold hers. Sue never did. She’d always been scared to break or drop them. But these two babies were an extension of her best friend. They were more family than any cousin could ever be.
Sue began singing and swaying as Easy dozed off in her arms.
“I fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher…”
And then she heard it—a little girl’s voice singing along from inside her.
A girl.
* * *
They arrived in Valdosta on a Tuesday. Sippi’s papa pulled up to the back door, and there they were in the driveway of a skinny house. Sue’s neighbors back in Kenilworth had bathrooms larger than best friend Sippi’s entire home. She felt a jolt of guilt shoot through her. Why did she deserve such privilege when sweet, innocent Sippi and brave, beautiful Ms. Pearline lived with so little? She didn’t want to show it on her face. She smiled a bit too big, like a sad clown putting on a show. Sue noticed a few people gawking at her; all of them wore head-to-toe black in hundred-degree heat. Some even wore small veils on their heads. To Sue, it looked like a town in mourning.
“What’s going on, Papa?” Sippi had noticed it, too.
“Y’all go on inside and pour up some sweet tea while I ask Mr. Turner next door what’s what.”
Sippi wrapped Author in his blanket and handed him to Sue, while she carried Easy. Through it all, they slept soundly.
The small living room was clean and quaint, but it was as hot as the outside. Scorching hot. Beads
of sweat gathered around Author’s sleeping little nose, and Sue wiped them away with her sleeve. She, too, was sweating. Her blond hair stuck to the nape of her neck, and her shirt became drenched quickly.
“I’ll turn on the fan,” said Sippi. “I don’t even feel it anymore. See?” She wiped her face. “Sweat-free. Let’s put the babies down in my bed.”
When they went back into the kitchen afterward to make tea, Sippi’s papa walked through the door looking alarmed.
“What’s wrong, Papa?”
He took his hat off before speaking. “It’s Ola. Pretty gal from down the way, just about your age, Sue. She died yesterday with a baby inside her.”
Sippi fell backward onto the checkerboard kitchen floor. Sue couldn’t tell if she’d actually fainted or just fell. But she watched helplessly as her best friend lost all control over her little legs.
* * *
Sippi slept and cried all day while Sue and Papa watched over the babies. Sippi needed sleep. She’d been tired from labor and had hardly slept on the ride down to Georgia.
While Sippi slept, Sue called her mother to check in. Her mother sounded worried, and happy to hear that her daughter had arrived safely. Sue’s mother then asked to speak with Sippi’s papa, probably to thank him and offer compensation for her daughter’s care. Sue heard him refuse outright and thank her for the kind offer.
She was flying in tomorrow morning to bring Sue back to Kenilworth. Sue daydreamed of bringing Sippi and the babies back with them. They surely had the room in their large, lonely home. But it was impossible, Sue thought. There was not a single family like best friend Sippi’s anywhere near her. They lived on the opposite side of her town. Sue’d never really thought about that until that moment. Everyone she knew back home looked exactly like her. Everyone.
“Do you know who did this to my baby girl?” Sippi’s papa asked Sue out the blue. “She won’t tell me.”