“Come on Keda. Don’t get so upset. Of course you could. That’s not what I said—”
“That IS what you said. And it’s mean!”
“Keda. Calm down. You’re overreacting. It’s not mean. I just think that casting remakes of old movies is hard. Like. I just can’t all of a sudden FORGET what the original Annie looked like.”
“That’s stupid.” I am yelling now. “Why not?”
“You know you’re being a real pain in the ass.” Eve says then.
“Girls!” Aunt Sarah tries to step in. “Enough ok?”
But I keep my body planted in front of Eve’s. “WELL I GET TO BE ANGRY TOO!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE. YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ME AT ALL DO YOU? YOU THINK I’M A BABY BUT I’M NOT. YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT MAMA AND YOU HAVE BEEN A TOTAL WITCH TO ME THIS WHOLE TIME. YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE BUT YOURSELF AND I AM SICK OF IT.”
“Let’s take a time-out shall we?” Aunt Sarah says. Pausing the movie.
Papa comes into the room now with his hand over the phone. “What is it now?!” He hisses. “Do we have a problem?”
“Are you going to tell him what you said?” I lower my voice but point my finger at Eve’s face.
Eve looks at me and then at Aunt Sarah whose eyes fall to the floor. “Aunt Sarah. You agree with me right? I didn’t say anything wrong.”
“Well.” Aunt Sarah starts. “Maybe you could have remembered that actress’s name. But this is between you and your sister. I’m not getting involved. You guys have to make your own peace. Solve your own conflicts.”
Eve rolls her eyes then. And I know she’s thinking Aunt Sarah sounds just like Mama. But instead of apologizing Eve turns back to Papa. “No. There’s no problem. Keda’s throwing a tantrum because she apparently can’t hear right. It’s fine. Just sister stuff.”
“YOU ARE NOT MY SISTER. YOU ARE AN IGNORANT MONSTER.” I scream in Eve’s stupid lying face.
And with that. I stomp out of the room and flop onto the air mattress Eve and I share. Aunt Sarah’s home office is dark except for the fluorescent light flickering around from the fish tank. I bury my face in my pillow and scream and scream. And it feels good. To let all my rage go. It feels like I’m yelling at Eve and Katy and Alma and everyone who has made my life miserable since we moved. When I finally stop. There are voices in the room with me. Shadows.
You can’t stop the rain
You can’t stop her pain
When it rains it pours
That’s the weather baby girl
That’s just the weather
You can’t stop the pain
Let it rain let it rain
You can’t control the wind
She blows and blows
Ain’t a storm
You can stop
Except your own
Let it pour
Let it pour
And let go
“Where have you been?” I hiccup. The Georgia Belles hop from one fluorescent flicker to the next. But they just keep singing. Let it pour. Let it pour. So I let the tears fall. I cry for Lena. For the old Eve. For Mama. And I sing along with them until I am calm.
“Little scoop? Are you awake?” Papa’s voice calls from the doorway an hour or so later. I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a soft snore. Papa leans over to kiss me on the forehead. “Eve’s going to sleep on the couch.” He whispers. Tucking the blankets around me. And then. As if he knows I’m fake-sleeping he says into my ear: “You can be anything you want in this world little scoop. Anything.”
But I know that. It’s Eve who doesn’t seem to think so.
Small
By 3pm the next day Mama is released from the hospital. And by 7pm we are all on a plane headed home.
“You can have the window.” Eve offers. Trying to make up for our fight. I squeeze past her without a word. “Fine. Be that way.” She says settling into the middle seat. She’s wearing a black hoodie. She puts on her headphones and pulls the hood over her eyes. She’s snoring before we even take off.
Mama and Papa are in the row in front of us. Mama had at least smiled weakly at me and Eve when she and Papa made it back to Aunt Sarah’s from the hospital earlier that afternoon. But we didn’t get much time before we were loading up all our things into Aunt Sarah’s Jeep and racing to the airport.
“I’ll be out to visit you in a couple months. When I drive your van back.” Aunt Sarah had said. Hugging Mama close at the curb. “You’ll have it in no time.”
“In one piece.” Mama had joked weakly.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Aunt Sarah laughed. “I’ll try.”
Then Aunt Sarah had kissed us all and hopped into her Jeep.
“Let’s go before we miss our plane!” Papa said as we watched Aunt Sarah speed away. “I was on the phone all night making these arrangements. Let’s just get home so we can get back to normal.”
But nothing is normal. Mama looks like a ghost. Eve is acting like a stranger. And Papa is so worried and exhausted he can barely function.
Now. The plane climbs higher and higher. I watch the white circus tent that is the Denver airport grow smaller and smaller. Then we hit the clouds and all I can see is a foggy gray. I don’t like it when I can’t see the ground. When I don’t know where I am or what’s below. The plane shakes and dips a little as we climb over the mountains. I close my eyes and try to feel happy that we are all going home. But as the turbulence continues all I can feel is my gut flipping. What if she tries again and I am not there to stop her? Who will be my mother then? What if we are never the same?
I hear a ding. The captain has leveled out the plane and turned off the seatbelt sign. No more bumps. I look down. The clouds are now distant streaks below. And the land looks like it has been squashed flat with a hammer. It looks like a patchwork of different-color animal skins and hides. It looks like a bunch of wounds sewn together with thick black thread. I feel like a tiny rock. A shard of sea glass. All worn down to a small grain of useless sand. I do not feel like a girl or a young woman or a sister or a daughter. If it wasn’t for Eve snoring next to me. I wouldn’t know what or who I was.
Part III:
FALL
Labor Day Weekend
Eve and I are not speaking. It’s been a month since we fought at Aunt Sarah’s and the house is cemetery quiet. Papa tries to get us to make up.
“Little scoop! Big scoop! What’s this about? Don’t you think we’ve had enough drama for one summer?” He says on Friday morning as Eve and I do silent dances around each other in the kitchen.
But this just makes Eve explode. “AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT?” She yells in Papa’s face before storming off to the sunroom to eat her oatmeal and read an enormous volume of Shakespeare’s plays she’s been burying herself in since we got back.
“WELL I’M HERE NOW OK?” Papa yells back. “You need to adjust your attitude young lady! We’re all doing our best.” He sits at the table. Crunches on his toast and gulps his coffee down in two swallows. “You girls are killing me.” He says to me before getting up to gather his scores and cello. “I just have one more rehearsal this morning and then we can spend the holiday weekend together. This has got to end. You cannot be fighting like this when Mama gets back next week.”
Even though we all came home together from Boulder Mama left again only a few days after we returned. She voluntarily checked herself into a recovery clinic in Taos.
“What’s Mama recovering from?” I keep asking Papa. “I thought she was doing better?”
“She is. She is. But it’s complicated. She’ll tell you herself when she’s back. You just need to trust that she’s doing this to be healthy.”
I don’t understand why Mama can’t recover at home. I still wake up at night and check the locks. The doors. A good little soldier. Can’t we help her heal?
Ain’t a storm you can stop. Except your own. The Georgia Belles keep reminding me. But it’s hard to let go. Everything is familiar but different. The chickens are
bigger. Fireball crows and crows and crows in the morning. Before the light creeps in. Eve and I take turns looking for eggs. Dumping the compost. Homeschool group doesn’t start up again for another week or so. So we read more books. I poke around the yard for treasure. I sing made-up songs. Eve memorizes all of Hamilton. We practice piano. Each morning I pick out my TWA that’s more like a full-on Afro these days. I stuff the messy edges into a headband and try to pat it down. Papa drives us to the grocery store. We shop in silence. The Sandias glow pinker than ever at sunset.
And Mama recovers. She does not write or email. She does not call. And even though Papa has circled September 6th in red pen on the fridge calendar. I am starting to believe she may never come home. That maybe she’s across the world. Playing concerts in her red sequined dress. That somewhere on a stage she bows and bows and bows. And people clap and clap and clap. And her playing is so beautiful. So clear. Nobody can tell. That she’s left us all behind.
Mother (noun)
At the library on Saturday I slip away from Papa and Eve. I copy down the definition in my songbook:
1. A woman who is a parent
2. ORIGIN / BEARER OF LIFE
3. One who displays a maternal softness or attentiveness
Then I write the beginning of a new song:
A mother is a puzzle
A face that is mine
And not mine
A mother hurts
Be your own origin
When I get home I call Lena. But nobody picks up and I don’t leave a message. I hop on the computer and check our blog. But even though Lena promised she’d write when she got back from camp in August. There’s nothing new from her. I know I should write her. About everything that has happened. But I can’t. Not yet.
A Gloomy Sunday
Turns into a gloomy Labor Day Monday. Papa takes us to Target to get “back to school supplies” but public schools started two weeks before and the supplies have been picked over. All that appears to be left are red and blue folders and stacks and stacks of lined paper and some packs of pencils with bananas all over them.
“We should have come here weeks ago like normal kids!” Eve whines at Papa as we pick through the leftovers. “All the good stuff is gone.”
“Well that’s not true!” Papa says with a forced smile. “You just have to dig a little.”
“Yeah right. We’d have to dig to another Target to find anything.” I add. “All of this is the worst stuff. The stuff nobody wants.”
“Come on girls. Give me a break. Next year we’ll get here earlier ok?”
“Ok.” Eve says.
“Fine.” I say.
But neither of us can get rid of our sour faces. It feels like we are always getting the leftovers.
I dig through a pile of plain black composition notebooks. But don’t find any neon ones hiding. Eve throws a white three-ring binder in the cart and then grabs a pack of yellow highlighters.
“That’s all I really need. So I can keep my script organized and learn my lines.” She says. Wandering in the direction of the shoe department.
As a compromise. For being told that neither she nor I would be going back to El Rio. That we were going to “give the homeschool thing a fair shot but with more structure and help.” Papa let Eve enroll in an after-school theater group at the Downtown Theater Association. Eve’s hoping to get the role of Katherina in this fall’s youth production of The Taming of the Shrew. If we were speaking I’d tell her that role is perfect for her. Since she’s so grumpy and mean all the time. But I keep my mouth shut. I’m relieved to not be going back to El Rio. Papa hired a tutor to come work on math and science with us twice a week and we’ll both be taking some online courses as well as continuing to attend homeschool group.
When we get home from shopping. I call Lena again. Her mom never has her phone on her. The phone rings and rings and rings. Then I get sent to her mom’s voice mail.
“It’s Labor Day weekend.” Papa reminds me as I hand back his phone. “She’s probably out with her family. I’m sure she’ll call you back.”
I’m not. I’ve called her five times since being home. I’m starting to think maybe she forgot about me.
“Why aren’t we out? With our family I mean?” I ask.
“We just went out.”
“You know what I mean.”
Papa takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. Then he smiles at me and pats the space beside him on the couch where he is seated with his laptop and headphones. “I know. But Mama’s home tomorrow. And we’re going to spend some time together. With her. I promise. Plus. Once I finish this work I’ll make us turkey burgers. How does that sound?”
“Turkey burgers are gross.”
“Well. I also got fries. Will you eat fries at least?”
“Maybe.” I say scooting off the couch. “Probably.”
Papa sighs and then puts his headphones back on. I head down the hall. I stop by Eve’s room. The door is open. Eve is standing in front of her closet mirror reading Katherina’s lines dramatically from her huge Shakespeare book.
“If I be waspish best beware my sting!” Eve says in a shrill and exaggerated tone. “If I BE waspish BEST beware my STING!” She says again. This time accenting different syllables.
Before I can stop myself I laugh out loud.
Eve turns sharply. “What are you laughing at!”
“You. That was funny.”
“Well your face is funny.” And she slams her door in my face.
“WAY TO TAKE A COMPLIMENT!” I yell through the closed door. “THAT’S WHY I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU.”
“WELL YOU JUST DID.” Eve yells back.
I pound her door with my fists two times and then head into my own room. I take the picture of the two of us on my dresser and shove it into the back of my closet. Who needs her? The shrew. I spend the rest of the afternoon listening to Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday.” Over and over and over. Outside the sun shines and shines and shines. I get up and close my curtains. I don’t think about Mama. Or Eve. Or Papa. I close my eyes and let Billie tell me all about my feelings.
Bad Jokes
The next day we drive three hours north to pick up Mama from her clinic in Taos. Eve sits in the front with Papa and I sit behind her in the back seat of Papa’s Volvo. We wind our way into the jagged hills and then onto thin mountain roads that make me dizzy and out of breath with their height.
For the first hour we listen to Papa tell bad jokes. “What did the red light say to the green light?… Don’t look! I’m changing! What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft?… A flat minor. Why did Adele cross the road?… To say hello to the other side. What’s the difference between a viola and an onion?… Nobody cries when you cut up a viola.”
I smile at that one. And from the front seat I hear Eve snort.
“Aha!” Papa shouts. “You DO still know how to have some fun.”
I get what he’s trying to do. Lighten the mood. Eve didn’t even want to come with us. But Papa wouldn’t let her stay home. And I want to see Mama. With my own eyes. What if she’s still not better? My stomach flips with the thought and then growls with hunger since I wasn’t able to keep my breakfast down. None of us really know what to expect when we get there. All Papa tells us is that we’re going to meet with Mama and her therapist for a family counseling session. And then afterward we can check her out of the clinic and bring her home.
“Hey. Here’s a cool joke.” Eve starts. “One out of every four people is suffering from some mental imbalance. Look around at three people you know. If they’re ok. Then YOU’RE THE CRAZY ONE.”
Papa doesn’t laugh.
And neither do I. “I don’t get it.”
“Oh come on. It’s funny because—”
“That’s enough.” Papa says with ice in his voice. “Cut it out Eve. Mental illness is nothing to joke about. You should know that. I don’t want to hear any of that EVER again. Have some e
mpathy why don’t you!”
Eve slams her body back in her seat and puts her headphones on. So Papa turns on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and maxes out the speaker volume. We drive the rest of the way like this. Eve’s headphones blaring. The Volvo’s sound system blaring back. By the time we get to the clinic my ears ring and ring and ring with noise.
Brightree Clinic and Retreat
Mama looks smaller. Like she’s lost weight. I thought maybe she’d be in a white paper gown like at the hospital but she is wearing her own clothes. A pair of jeans and a black and white striped t-shirt that hangs off of her. Her hair is pulled back into one long braid. She smiles at us when we walk into Dr. Deb’s office. Then she bites her bottom lip. Her eyes filling with moisture. My heart pounds. Why is she still crying? Shouldn’t she be feeling better? What kind of stupid clinic is this! But before I lose it Mama is hugging me. And then Papa. And she is also laughing. “I missed you.” She motions for Eve to join us but Eve just says “hi” and then hovers in the doorway. She looks small too. Standing alone. Her ponytail escaping her black hoodie. Biting her bottom lip. Just like Mama does.
Dr. Deb’s office is not really an office so much as a big room decorated like a beach house. Which is funny. Because we are in the high desert. No water in sight for miles. The walls are painted an eggshell blue. And photos of boats and driftwood and oceans hang on them. Besides a desk and chair in the far corner there are no other real pieces of furniture in the room.
“Alright. Let’s make a circle and all have a seat.” Dr. Deb says. Motioning to the middle of the room where an assortment of pillows are spread out. “We like to ground ourselves here. Sitting on the floor helps.”
I pick a big square purple pillow made of velvet. Eve picks a plain black one and sits next to me. She sits so close I can feel her sleeve tickling my arm. Of course Mama picked the hippie dippie crunchy clinic! I can almost feel her saying.
For Black Girls Like Me Page 14