7
T
hree days after Tate was born and whisked out of the hospital room, amidst Brooke’s echoing screams and a rush of blood I have tried to forget my whole life, I sat down next to her on the bed. She was still weak and had been pumped full of donated blood. She was also detoxing, the nurses were helping her through it, but it was tortuous to watch. Brooke was sweating and her breathing was troubled. She took deep breaths, then panted, then back to the deep breaths. She’d thrown up many times and was clearly anxious, jittery, and emotional.
I cradled Tate in my arms. He was wrapped in a yellow blanket, sleeping peacefully, his coloring perfect, the blue color he’d been born with gone. I looked into those tiny, uneven eyes in the middle of that big head and I knew, as I had known that first day, that I loved him.
“Good luck, Jaden,” my sister panted, her arms tracked with vicious lines from her soul-sucking addiction. “I can’t do it.”
“What?” What did she mean, she couldn’t do it? I felt ill.
She pulled an IV out, then swung her bony legs out of bed, moving slowly, her emaciated arms barely able to hold her up.
“Get back in bed, Brooke. You can’t get up!” She was sick and frail, deathly.
“Yes, I can and I am.”
“You’re not supposed to, the doctors said you’re still sick and you’re still bleeding. You’ve had stitches, you have to finish getting the drugs out. Please lie down. Mom went home for a couple of hours to rest, she’s coming right back—”
“This is a hospital, not a jail, sweet Jaden. I’ve been to jail, I know what it’s all about.”
I swallowed hard. “What . . . what did you go to jail for?”
“For bad stuff I did. I’m not going to tell you. It’s over and done, and that’s it.” She climbed into her jeans, bending carefully, while I pleaded with her to stay. The jeans were too large for her, a far cry from the stylish jeans she used to wear, with her colorful tops, and pretty jewelry, some of which she made herself. She was as skinny as a wisp of wind. Frightfully skinny. She pulled a rope, not a belt, but a
rope,
through the loopholes and knotted it tight so the jeans wouldn’t come off. The daughter of a woman who wore couture was wearing a rope.
“Did you even eat today, Brooke?” What had happened to my gentle and kind sister? The one I made daisy rings with for our hair? The one I cut out paper dolls with and explored Mom’s garden in Hollywood and Grandma Violet’s garden in Oregon?
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“How can you not be hungry?”
“I’m not.” She was jittery, hyped up. She’d come in to the hospital with unexplained bruises, and they were now turning purple, green, and blue. “I’m leaving, Jaden, I’m sorry.”
“Please, no, Brooke. Stay.” I hugged Tate close.
“I can’t.” Her green eyes were bleak holes in her face, her skin pale and lined. The drug use had aged her ten years. It was making her shake.
“I want you to stay—”
She muffled a sob, hand to her mouth.
“We can help you, Brooke!” I loved her. I wanted her with me, with us. There is little worse than knowing that the person you love will probably kill themselves with drug use, and I wanted her healthy again. I wanted my sister back.
“I don’t want help, I don’t need help.”
She pulled on a black sweater, even though she didn’t need it, the day sunny and hot. She added a black sweatshirt and flipped out her red hair. Her hair looked so much better than it had when we’d first arrived at the hospital. Then, it was matted and dirty and stringy. It smelled of smoke, dust, and mildew. The nurses had cleaned her up, as had my mother, who had cried while she brushed her daughter’s hair, then used scissors to cut the knots out, and chopped six inches of fried tangles off the ends.
“But Tate needs you, Brooke—”
“No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t need a drug addict for a mother.” Her eyes filled. “I’m leaving him with you, Jaden. I’m done.”
She was done? The mother of the baby was
done?
“What . . . What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can’t be a mom to him.” She put both hands to her head. I knew it was throbbing. “I can’t bring Tate into my life. Tate won’t . . .” She gasped, then put a hand to her mouth. “He won’t survive.” The phone next to her bed rang and she picked it up, so irritated. “Austin, shit, quit yelling, I’m coming downstairs now. Yes, by myself, what did you think? No, I’m not bringing the baby. I don’t care if you don’t want kids around. Yeah, I’m still fat. I had a baby, you ignorant shit.” Her voice cracked and splintered, and I heard her take a huge, shuddering breath, her body quaking. “Did you call Darrin? He’s waiting? Stop talking, I’m sick of it.”
My sister was abandoning her son. I was sickened, but I knew I was talking to the drugs, not Brooke, and the drugs were nasty and cruel and dishonest. You might as well be talking to the devil himself.
“Yeah, I have some cash, Austin. Do you? Why the hell don’t you have any money? Why is it that I always have to get the money? You’re getting it from who? When? Yeah, I’ll go. Then we’re outta here. Arizona is fine. I need some sun.” She hung up.
I held Tate closer to me and planted a kiss on his forehead. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, but I wanted to protect him anyhow. I swear he smiled. They say it is impossible for a baby that young to smile. They are wrong. I know he smiled. It was my first inkling of his shiny brilliance.
“I’m sorry, Jaden.” She leaned over Tate.
“God, Brooke—” She had been beautiful once, but she was battered to bits now.
For a second the veil lifted and I saw sheer, raw pain in her eyes. Two of her tears landed on Tate’s cheeks, and slid down, as if Tate was crying, as if he was mourning the loss of his mother, the one person who should have protected and loved him above everyone else.
“Bye, Jaden. Bye, Tate. I love you.”
The phone rang again, she swore, picked it up, and shouted, “What the fuck is it now, Austin?”
It was the drugs. A sober Brooke never would have spoken to anyone like that. It was only a few years ago that I would have told you that Brooke was the kindest person I had ever met in my whole life.
Brooke wobbled on out as her tears slid down Tate’s face.
“I love you,” I whispered to him, broken. My sister was on drugs and would probably end up dead. She had left her son, who was born with a big head. He was mine now, and I loved him. “I love you, Tate.”
He smiled again, yes, he did, don’t you doubt it, then he slept.
I walked to the windows. In a minute, I could see my sister’s auburn hair, the exact color as mine, floating in the wind. She stopped and looked up at the windows and waved. She couldn’t see in, but I knew she was waving at me, at Tate. A car pulled up alongside her and she climbed in. The car sped away. She was gone. Gone again. Pain rippled through my body.
I could not predict Tate’s future then. I knew it would be hard. I had no idea how crushingly hard, but what I did know was this: I was Tate’s mother. My sister gave birth to him, but he was my son.
I was nineteen.
Would my sister have allowed Tate to play basketball even with his medical issue? Sure. Why the hell not? The kid would have been running loose and taking care of himself from the moment she left the hospital with him. He would often have been hungry, cold, scared, neglected, abused, and completely alone because his mother would have been high or chasing down her next fix—if he had even lived through his first year with his medical issues, which was highly improbable.
That’s how drug addicts “parent.”
In fact the words
drug addicts
and
parent,
together, at best, are an oxymoron.
I am Tate’s mother. I will do what I believe is right.
That means no basketball.
TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG
I am going to post a picture of myself soon. Real soon.
I want to hide longer because then you can get to know me without my head in the way. But keep sending me your stories about yourselves! I’m posting all the ones that people want posted, and there’s tons to look at, dudes and dudettes. We have people being real—so read ’em!
Did you know that Africa has 11.7 million square miles? How many lions does that work out to be? I wonder.
Did you also know that an adult’s intestines are about twenty-five feet long? Man, if I could take my intestines out, I could use them as ropes. Maybe I could rope cattle with them, or I could use them to swing from one tall building to the next in a city, or to make ladders. You know, an intestinal ladder.
Did you also know that Trang’s farts smell like the devil burning his tail? He has the worst farts. I think something died in him.
Did you know I really, really want to try out for the basketball team, but my mom said no? I know!! Insane!!
Also I am listening to Max of Grunge Punge. He is so chill it’s sick.
I think part of the reason I’m writing this blog is because I’m trying to get enough courage to get out there, you know, “out there in the world,” because I live in a small town now, and I figure if I get my face floating into the universe now, and I don’t freak that many people out, then it’ll give me some courage to leave here.
It’s not that I want to leave here, Tillamina’s cool. We’re close to the beach and skiing, we’re out in the country, but I know I have to leave someday. I mean, I can’t hide because of my head, right? How am I going to go to college and study cellular neurophysiology, cognitive information processing, the Renaissance, Italian art? How am I going to study my favorite subject: the brain? How am I going to figure out how to bottle up cow’s farts for energy? How will I see Venezuela or Machu Picchu or study how Venice was built on water? Can’t do that if I hide, right?
And I want to do all that. I can’t let my head get in the way.
So I’m writing the blog.
Who’s out there today? What do you want to do with your life?
“Guess what, Boss Mom?”
“What?”
“Look at this. I wrote: Who’s out there today? And a whole bunch of people are. Some of them are kids at school, one is Nana Bird, four are people from
Foster’s Village,
including the current bad boy villain that she lusts after, and Uncle Caden wrote, ‘I love your head, don’t knock it, my boy.’ Damini wrote that she is ‘out there’ and would I quit bugging her, I am a pain in her keester. A couple of my teachers wrote, too, and a bunch of people I don’t know. They’re all talking about what they want to do with their lives, where they want to go, who they want to be, what’s holding them back, their worries.”
“This is amazing.” I read the comments. I was impressed with the frankness, the dialogue, the sharing, the encouragement.
“This is chill.” Tate laughed.
The blog was giving him a voice. A voice without people reacting first to his head. A voice that could show his personality, his humor, and his character, which then allowed him to talk with others honestly and with respect. I reached down and hugged him. “I love you with my whole heart, son.”
“Me, too, Boss Mom. And I know you’ll change your mind about basketball. You know, the guys are practicing, getting together. I can do that, too. Carefully. I’ll be careful.”
“No.”
“You’re gonna give in, Boss Mom.” He rubbed his neck. “Hey! Maybe the Other Mother might see my blog. Then she can get to know me.”
It felt as if I’d been hit in the gut with a car. “I already know you, Tate, so does Nana Bird and Caden and his kids and we love you in a monster-sized way.” That was the way I told him I loved him when he was a kid and he loved monsters.
“Yeah, me, too, Boss Mom.”
“This is a bad idea,” I told my mother the morning of the raft outing with Ethan, scurrying around the kitchen getting the club sandwiches slammed together with the warmed-up crumbled blue cheese dressings and adding extra powdered-sugar frosting to the cinnamon rolls I’d slaved over.
“Here’s a list of adverbs to explain how I’m feeling. Ready? Stupendously, colossally, jarringly awkward.”
“Awkward is an adjective and this is a spleeennnndid idea.” My mother was wearing what she thought was fashionable gear for river rafting: pink, all pink, including a shiny pink jacket with gold buckles, and her gold bangles and dangly diamond earrings. Initially, she was wearing pink stilettos with a shiny white heel.
“Mother, really?” I pulled my hair into a ponytail, the crystals from Tate hanging to my shoulders. “Pink heels?”
“Nana Bird, you’re gonna puncture the raft,” Tate said. He was eating his fourth bowl of cereal in the nook.