Knowing (44 page)

Mae Thelma couldn’t admit to herself that she had reached this mysterious climax of effacement. The humiliation of using her children scorched her to the soul, yet she couldn’t stop herself.

She used every conceivable excuse to get Jackson to come over that her mind could imagine. The refrigerator was broken. The bathroom faucets leaked. A cracked window needed replacing in the kids’ room. And the kicker: In the bitter coldness at the start of December, the furnace wouldn’t work.

Ginger took all of this in stride as she struggled to be nice, keep her cool, and maintain her relationship at an even keel. She wanted to scream.

Sierra and Autumn weren’t thrilled when Ginger suggested that they spend a weekend with their grandmother. An inducement of forty dollars apiece to go shopping silenced their protests.

But by late Saturday afternoon, each of the kids had called from their grandmother Katherine’s. When was Ginger coming down to pick them up? They were ready to come home. The phone rang again. Shuffling through a stack of insurance papers, Ginger cradled the phone along her shoulder. “Yes?” said Ginger, thinking it was probably Autumn again.

“Hello. Hello,” came the nervous voice.

“Yes.” Ginger furrowed her brows.

“Can I please speak to Jackson?” came the unmistakable slow southern drawl.

Goose bumps rose on her flesh. Flashbacks of the mice, throwing water in her face, Jason’s party. A streak of yellow. The sickeningly sweet smell of honeysuckle. “He’s at the basketball game.”

“Me and the boys are at the airport. You think Jackson’ll be home directly?” Mae Thelma asked.

Determined to start the New Year with the pledge of Jackson’s love, Mae Thelma had made a final attempt to secure a stronger love potion from her aunt Gitty, a high priestess of voodoo in New Orleans. The boys had been eager to meet the great-aunt they’d heard so many stories about.

You’re asking me what time my husband will be home? Ginger thought but didn’t say. This bitch must have more balls than Jackson.

“I have no idea.” She slammed down the phone.

Smothered potatoes and onions, Caesar salad, and a three-quarter-inch porterhouse steak were placed before Jackson as he gave Ginger play-by-play events of the Pistons’ game against the red-hot Chicago Bulls.

Quietly she listened. Ginger couldn’t keep from watching the clock. It had been nearly an hour and a half since Mae Thelma had called. Though Ginger had prepared a hefty dinner just for two, she merely picked at hers, constantly keeping watch as the clock ticked loudly inside her head. Would she call back? Would he go if she did?

Ginger nearly jumped out of her seat as the phone shrilled loudly. “I’ll get it,” she offered. Jackson, who sat closer to the phone, sensed Ginger’s discomfort and picked up before the second ring.

During the lengthy conversation, Ginger cleared their plates. Outside the kitchen window the winter night was as clear as day. Ice crystallized circles of puddles along the street.

She felt her heart slipping, skipping a beat, hearing the anger and tone in his voice, directed toward her. When he hung up, fury was written all over his face. “They’ve been at the airport for hours!”

“She could have called a taxi,” Ginger said softly to deaf ears as Jackson skidded out of the driveway. Warm tears slid down her face. Gathering her purse and keys, she drove to her mother’s house in Port Huron. She wouldn’t be here when he got back.

When Ginger and the kids returned home late Sunday evening, Jackson ignored her, focusing on Autumn, hugging and kissing her. Ginger saw the hurt in Sierra’s eyes as she watched Jackson snuggle his baby daughter. Jackson finally acknowledged his other baby and kissed her too. But the biggest baby of all, Ginger, was left out.

“What in the hell were you thinking about?” Jackson grabbed Autumn’s hand. “Don’t you ever put your hands on her hair again!”

Turning abruptly, Ginger’s eyes flushed with tears.

“Daddy, Mama didn’t —” Autumn looked back at her mother, her large brown eyes glossy, as her father dragged her from their bedroom.

How could he possibly think that she would deliberately cause her baby’s hair to come out? He hadn’t even given her the opportunity to explain. It had been a simple mistake, leaving the permanent on Autumn’s hair too long.

Autumn’s hair, normally twelve inches long, had broken off badly from being overprocessed. Ginger was panic stricken when she found sections throughout Autumn’s hair that measured less than three inches. There was no way she could hide it. Ginger tried to cut it as evenly as she could into a retro-seventies shag style, tried to make light of it to Autumn as she joked to her small child that she’d go back to school after the holidays with a new hairstyle. It seemed to please her.

When the idea of a permanent for Autumn first arose, Jackson had told Ginger he didn’t want to put any chemicals in his baby’s hair. He’d given in, though, when his sister, who’d called to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, scolded Jackson for being so old-fashioned. Her daughter, Jamara, had been just five when Jackson’s sister had permed her hair — and a year later, her hair was fine. Ginger begged her husband to try to understand how difficult it was to manage Autumn’s thick head of hair. But the call from his sister was what had made him agree.

Autumn was extremely tender headed, and Jackson had to leave the house when the crying started. He couldn’t stand hearing her cry for so long. Autumn’s hair was so thick, like her grandma Katherine’s, that it took hours of babying before Ginger was finished. “You okay, sweetheart?” Ginger would hear a low sniffle from Autumn, signaling another crying spell, and she’d stop for a moment, then begin again. “Mama’s not going to hurt you, baby. I’ll be finished real soon, okay?” By then Ginger was exhausted.

The force of Jackson’s accusations was like an earthquake that ruminated deep inside her heart’s core. Her body trembled. Her hands shook. Falling facedown onto their bed, Ginger cried like a baby until there was nothing left but dry tears.

Ginger’s heart, weeping to belong, to be cherished, closed like a shell, protecting the prize, because the heart has its reasons of which Reason knows nothing. Washing her face with tepid water, she toweled her face dry in the darkness of their bathroom. She vowed vindication. With renewed courage she went downstairs to face Jackson.

“I read my watch wrong,” Ginger admonished. “I was trying to make her hair look pretty for the Christmas program at church Sunday. I figured a few more minutes and it would be bone straight. You know how thick her hair —”

“
Was
,” he finished.

The six o’clock news flashed interviews with last-minute Christmas shoppers who scurried for that special gift outside the Twelve Oaks Mall. Ginger felt raw envy as she heard a husband saying to his wife on live television, “This is it, sweetheart.” He waved a perfectly wrapped diminutive package over his heart. Autumn, quiet, sat on the floor in front of her father, clutching her knees.

“I’m sorry, Jackson.” Ginger’s voice quavered. She could feel the sweat on her nude head beading beneath her wig. “I can take her to the hairdresser’s —”

He looked up from oiling Autumn’s reddened scalp. “Don’t bother. I’ll take her.” His voice sounded so cold. So heartless.

“I love her, too, Jackson.” Ginger’s hands shook violently as she massaged her temples. “You think I’d intentionally hurt my baby? You think I want her to feel like I —” She couldn’t finish.

Jackson, unmoved, finished Autumn’s hair, then patted her bottom, signaling her to get up. Ginger had crossed the line that divided his heart. He didn’t want to admit it, but his baby needed him. To him Ginger was too busy working to notice. Ginger had made her choice. She chose a life away from him and the family that he had worked so hard these past years to create. He resented Ginger’s drive toward success. Everyone suffered, except Ginger. He’d had enough of her selfishness.

Jackson appreciated economy in words. “Yeah,” he said, and, turning off the television, left the house.

Ginger sat in her bathroom nursing a drink, trying to numb the pain in her heart. Did he think she was that vindictive, to make her child suffer, and deliberately cause her hair to fall out? There wasn’t a day when Ginger didn’t think about her own hair; not a day that she didn’t see the horror of her bald head staring back at her. No one knew her pain. No one. Not Jackson. Not her mother. Or even her children. It was as if a part of her had died.

Each day she played the role of a woman in control. She needed the love from her family to strengthen her. To give her purpose, a reason to be strong, to have faith in God and not wallow in self-pity. Having a loved one accuse her of hurting her child — a child whom she’d loved and nurtured since the first moment she’d felt the gift of life growing inside her body — was more painful to Ginger than having an arm severed without anesthesia.

“Who is it?” Ginger called out, wiping her swollen eyes.

“It’s me, Mama.” Sierra’s sweet voice was hesitant, listening for any telltale signs of anguish in her mother’s reply.

The sound of her daughter’s caring voice was like an arm around her shoulder. “Hold on, sweetheart. I’m just getting out of the shower. I’ll be right out.” Trying to evoke a perkiness she didn’t feel, she flushed the toilet and turned the cold water on over the sink. Splashing the tepid water over her face, she did her best to be presentable for her daughter.

Wrapping herself in her terry-cloth robe, she wound a hand towel around her head, covering her puffy eyes with a cold washcloth. “What is it, honey?” said Ginger, feigning a headache. She strolled into their bedroom and casually turned on the television set, trying to shield her face with the soft cloth.

“A package came for you this afternoon.” Knowing that her mother and Jackson had been at it all afternoon, Sierra’s instincts had told her to wait. Looking at her mother now, she knew the timing was right. “I think it’s from Dink,” she said cheerily. Sierra slipped the small, brown, awkwardly bundled package inside her mother’s palm.

Ginger handed her back the package, still holding the cold cloth to her forehead. As if synchronized, they sat together on the couch. “Can you open it for Mama?” She could see the return address from Arizona, and knew it was from her son.

“No, Mom. It’s addressed to you. Dink would be mad at me if I opened it.” Sierra smiled innocently at her mother.

Ginger turned the package over and over in her lap. “What do you think it is, Sierra?”

Sierra merely shrugged.

“He missed my birthday in October. I didn’t even receive a card.” Ginger’s shoulders heaved. The pressure of another disappointment from a loved one nearly overwhelmed her.

“Open it, Ma,” chided Sierra.

“You know how cheap Dink is. He didn’t even spend five dollars on me for Mother’s Day when he was home working at the grocery store.” Ginger tried to lift her spirits. “I know it’s the thought that counts.” She smiled awkwardly at Sierra, saying a silent prayer. Her heart leaped, wishing her prayers would be answered in a matter of minutes. She flipped the small package over again.

Desperate, Ginger tore the brown paper package, then hesitated. “You know,” said Ginger thoughtfully, “I really loved that silk rose Dink gave me. It was real pretty.”

Sierra kissed Ginger. She sensed that her mother was under a lot of pressure. “Open it, Mom,” she said. It had to be the perfect gift. It just had to be.

Inside was a black velvet box. A white folded card, printed in red and blue bold letters read: DIAMOND CROSS OF DEVOTION: TO MOTHER, WITH LOVE.

“Look, Sierra, isn’t it beautiful?” said Ginger, holding up the necklace. The light above them illuminated the rainbow prisms of each blazing gem.

“It’s lovely, Mom,” Sierra said excitedly.

But Ginger hadn’t heard a word she said.
I love you Mom,
the attached letter began.
Every time I call you make me feel loved and missed. Thanks Mom. Each night I read the Bible. I pray that God guides my life the right way so you’ll be proud of me. I’ve got a problem I’m trying to break, I don’t feel safe unless I’m close to you
.

Ginger pressed her right hand over her heart, feeling the love swelling up inside her. As tender as a baby’s touch, she felt Sierra’s loving arm circling her shoulder. She read on:
The three red rubies in the necklace symbolize the gratitude, love and devotion that’s in my heart for you. Seven white diamonds symbolize all the purity, beauty and love that’s in your heart, seven days a week. Seven blue sapphires thank you for the seven days each week you sacrificed that I might have. Always wear this necklace Mom, and I’ll always be close to you
.

Tears she had kept welled inside poured down her face like a raging brook. She slid off the couch, onto the carpet, hugging the cross to her chest, hiding her head in her hands. She felt the warmth of Sierra’s arms around her, and easily leaned against her small body.

“Let me put it around your neck, Mama.”

Ginger’s hands were trembling as she handed Sierra the beautiful necklace. She read the words over and over while Sierra folded back her thick housecoat, placing the cross around her neck. Only God knew how much it meant to her. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her robe.

Placing her hands on her mother’s shoulders, Sierra held her cheek next to hers. “You okay, Mama?”

Ginger patted her hands, rubbing a tear-stained cheek against Sierra’s silky skin. “Mama’s going to be just fine,” she whispered more to herself than to her daughter. “Just fine.”