Dear Carolina (9 page)

LOVE AIN'T ENOUGH

Some vegetables, they like to be crammed up in the jar, juice squirting and getting all good and marinated. Butter beans, they ain't like that. They gotta have their space. They get to absorbin' all the liquid, and if you don't leave enough room for them to expand, they explode just like that.

Having a baby's near like being one of them butter beans that ain't got enough room. There's not one spare squidgen a' space in your life for nothing save feeding, changing, bathing, holding, and then startin' all over again. I've met some girls that handle it like ain't nothing much changed in their life and waking up every two hours all night long to feed and change a baby ain't nothing to get excited about. But I was like them crowded butter beans: fixin' to explode.

I cain't say nothing 'bout other alcoholics and what makes them want to drink, seeing as how I'm just me. But being tired is like inviting ants to a picnic. That soft voice that whispers real sweet and slow in the back of my mind gets louder. That feeling
I can push on outta here, the wind kissing a sail on a calm day, 'fore I know it it's a hundred-knot gale.

But here's the thing, baby girl: I loved you like I didn't know I could love nothing. That tiny voice crying out ripped through me like a machete on a tree branch. I wanted to wrap you up and hold you tight as a tick into me and not let nobody hurt you. But you know what they say: Sometimes, love just ain't enough.

I weren't nowhere near prepared for what it was gonna be like to try to raise a baby on my own. I saw them babies on Gerber commercials and thought it was real sweet to have one of them little people all to yourself.

Maybe it's 'cause there weren't nobody to help me, but the whole dern thing kinda felt like playing the same song over and over on repeat 'til you thought you'd die if you didn't snap that CD clear in two. You would wake up screaming every two hours on the hour, day and night. And that sweet little pansy mouth felt like a hot poker lighting me on fire every time you ate.

But then I'd get to wishing for that hot poker because sometimes you'd rear that head back and get to screaming like I was pinching them skinny legs underneath your hand-me-down lace daygown. Trying to get your little mouth to make them fish lips would have me in a sweat worse than cutting asparagus all day. We'd both finally get all quiet and relaxed and dang if we weren't at the whole thing again an hour later.

You weren't one a' them sleeping babies you see on the TV neither. You'd wake up and want me to tote you around for a while. If I thought about sittin', you'd scream that little head off.

Even the standing and walking didn't help for 'bout three hours every afternoon. You'd be all changed and fed and comfy and you'd just work out them little lungs anyhow. They told me at the doctor's they call it something like the purple period. Felt more like black to me.

All that crying, it'd get me to feeling like walking out the door of the trailer, hobblin' as best I could to the nearest ABC store and using my fake ID to get so good and lit up I wouldn't care 'bout no crying. I liked to think if my sponsor hadn't fallen off the wagon and died of a cocaine-fueled booze binge that she might coulda helped me. But I wouldn't have called her noway.

And what you got to know is there wasn't one single thing wrong with you. You are the most perfect youngen I ever seen. But, being a momma, it's all brand-new, and being all alone with my head not on quite right, it was all a lot for me to take.

I guess I could say that feeling like I was driving through one of them long, black tunnels with no end in sight was what made me feel like I needed a cold, stiff drink. But if I learned one thing in all that rehab I went to, it's that I wanted to drink on account of me being an alcoholic. Lord knows, Jesus got me through my drinking patch and clear on out the other side. But I was too ashamed to ask for His help now. I shoulda been thankin' Him and singin' His praises so hard and high the angels was dancing. But I didn't feel thankful. So I didn't say nothing.

When you were two weeks old I'd got all sick—fever, headache, vomiting, you name it. You weren't sleeping none, day or night, meaning I hadn't slept none either. We were just dozin' on the couch when I heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I called, feelin' too lazy to get up and answer it.

Marlene just come busting in saying, “It's Aunty Marlene here to bring you a present!”

She scooped you up off the couch, and I was real grateful for the company. Then she handed me a container of formula with a ribbon tied around it. “What's this?”

She looked up at me like I weren't quite right. “It's formula. What the hell you think?”

“Marlene, I told you 'bout a million times I'm breast-feeding.”

She shivered. “Girl, ain't no man ever gonna want you once you ruined yourself like that. We both grew up on formula and look how good we turned out.”

I raised my eyebrows, and we both got to laughing. That might not've been the best argument she coulda used. But I was real glad to see Marlene. I needed some company, and I was feeling right warm toward her. She's the one that named you, after all.

I was sitting in that hospital bed, Marlene up there helping me get you home. She was holdin' you and we was just talkin' like it was normal. That nurse come in and said, “Miss Jodi, you aren't going a place until you name that baby.” Then she walked on out quick as she'd come.

“Marlene, I don't know what to name no baby.”

“Why don't you name her after your grandma?”

We both busted out laughing. My grandma, she's the best woman I ever known. But don't nobody want to be named Ollie Bell.

Marlene, she got out her phone, and music started pourin' out that little speaker. She got to looking through baby names, that finger just a goin'. “How 'bout Marlene?”

I smirked.

“Maggie?”

“Nah.”

“Madison?”

“You got any names on there that don't start with
M
?”

Marlene glared at me and then said, “Oh, yeah. Now this here's a good song!” She clicked the button on the side of her phone, turnin' up that volume so I could hear, “You're so fine, girl you're one of a kind, sweet Carolina girl.”

That song, it was my daddy's favorite. We'd ride around in the truck, just him and me, on Sunday afternoons, listening to Steve Hardy's Original Beach Party on the radio. And when that
song would come up, we'd turn it up even louder, toes tapping on the floorboard.

Marlene cooed down at you, rubbing her finger on your tiny cheek, “You're a sweet Carolina girl.”

Then she looked up at me, and we both said, “Carolina,” right at the same time. It was the first name that seemed right.

That day in the trailer, the phone in the kitchen got to ringing. I thought it was gonna be Khaki saying she'd pop on by.

But it was some man saying, “Jodi?”

“Yes, sir?”

“This is Richard Phillips from Sunny Daze Dry Cleaners.”

My heart got to pounding and my palms got to sweating. I smiled and give you and Marlene a thumbs-up like maybe you knew this could be a big break for us.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Phillips,” I said, hoping I didn't sound nervous. “How you doin'?”

“I promised you I'd call if I got an opening,” he said. “And I need a new counter girl starting next week. It pays ten dollars an hour, eight to five, Monday through Friday.”

“All right,” I said.

I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning to be busting outta here. I was damn close to figuring what was the day and what was the night again. But then it hit me: What on earth was I gonna do with you?

“You get thirty minutes for lunch, two fifteen-minute breaks, a week's paid vacation, and three days sick leave.”

“All right, Mr. Phillips. That all sounds real good. I'll be there at eight sharp.”

“Fantastic, Jodi. I'll look forward to working with you.”

“Woo-hoo!” I said.

“What's that?” Marlene asked.

But I put my finger up, 'cause I was thinking. Working again,
being busy, it was the best thing for shutting up that voice in my head that was dying for a drink. I thought that with three breaks a day I could use the breast pump the WIC people give me. Good thing. Weren't no way I could afford formula, no matter what Marlene said.

I did some quick figuring in my head. Eighty dollars a day was $400 a week, $1,600 a month, $1,300 after taxes. The trailer payment was $400, that damn truck that I cosigned for Ricky, that I could just spit about, was $300, the bills were $200, and I could probably get by on $200 of groceries, $150 if I cut out meat and packaged snacks. Then there was $60 a month for car insurance. That left $190 for diapers, wipes, and baby clothes, $270 if I canceled the cable. I looked up at the TV and dern near got to crying. It had been my main talking company those past two weeks, and I sure did hate to see it go. There weren't no money for health insurance, but that weren't nothing new.

“Thank the good Lord for Medicaid,” I said out loud.

“What are you talking 'bout, girl?” Marlene asked.

I told her about the job, but then I got to realizing it. “Daycare's gonna run me four hundred a month. Ain't no way on God's green earth I can pay it.”

Marlene and me, our eyes met and she said, “I know what you're thinking, but don't you do it, Jodi. You know you cain't.”

I shrugged. “I don't have no choice. I'm gonna have to ask my momma to keep Carolina.”

I corralled your diapers, wipes, burp cloth, pacifier, outfit, and extra blanket in the old purse Marlene give me that was so worn out the strap was about to break clean off. That nausea almost got me again as I cranked the engine of that old Ford.

And it got me good as I started driving through the trailer park where I grew up. I could see Momma's droopy eyes, her
shouting at Daddy, “You're so damn stupid. Cain't even make enough money to keep decent food on the table.”

But Daddy needed Momma right near as much as the crops need the rain. 'Cause even though she drank too much and treated him like something she'd stepped in and spent every dime she could get her hands on, someone was there when I got home from school so he could work.

I could almost smell the kerosene seepin' outta the door of that rusting bucket I'd come up in. I waved at Mr. Jackson, sitting in a plastic lawn chair like always. “Just keeping an eye on things,” he'd say. All them people in the trailer park, they were the best people I'd ever known, always looking out for me, making sure I had a home-cooked meal. Well, all except my momma.

I scooped you up in my arms. Just like when I was little, I didn't know which Momma I'd get. Last time I'd seen her had been at my intervention. She was all sober and sweeter than the last maraschino cherry in the jar. But when she got to drinking . . . Well, there weren't nothing sweet about that Momma.

I knocked real loud and Momma hollered, “I'm coming, I'm coming.”

The door flew open, and there she was in all her glory. Cigarette balancing on her lip, ratty nightgown still on, curlers in the gray hair stained yellow in spots from the smoke cloud she lived in. She stood real still, like she seen a ghost. We hadn't seen hide nor hair of each other in a year. I was hoping she was getting all excited that she was a grandma. But that rough, crackling old voice came out.

“What in the hell have you done now?”

She didn't have to say nothing else. I knew then she were soaking in vodka like a pickle in vinegar. I walked away so you wouldn't have to hear her, but she kept on yelling. “How the hell
you expect to take care of a baby when you cain't even stay sober? I know you're not coming 'round here wanting my help after all the shit you put me through.”

I whispered down at you, “Don't you worry, baby. I'll happily stand in line for welfare 'fore I'll let you be raised by my momma.” That was it too. There weren't no way I was taking care a' that woman in her old age. They could just dump her right on in the home.