Something Like Hope (8 page)

       
I
’m sick, but not the mental kind of way (for a change). I’ve got the flu. I feel like shit, but I get to spend the day in the clinic. The nurses are nice. They give me ginger ale and broth.

Even though I hate my mother, I wonder about her. Is she alive? Is she safe? Does she think about me anymore? Does she even remember that she has a daughter? I want her to be here on the edge of the cot. I want her to be like she is in my old pictures, before crack: pretty and soft, her skin smooth and beautiful, not all ashy and ruined.

I want her to put a cool washcloth on my forehead and say things like “Poor dear” and “Sweetheart.” I want her to bring me soup and crackers and a glass of ginger ale. I want her to worry about me and be proud of me and braid my hair just like Cinda does. I want her to take me shopping for school clothes and sit next to me on a bench in
the mall, sharing a milk shake. I want her to pull me toward her on the bench so we’ll lean against each other, feeling each other’s weight and pressure. Is that love, feeling the weight of someone leaning against you—someone who is another person but still a part of you? I think it must be. And I wonder what that must feel like, the weight of love.

Questions. I drive myself half crazy with questions that can never be answered. Why can’t my mother love me? Is that too damn much to ask? You hear that, God? I want a fucking mother. A real mother, not some toothless baldheaded crack whore disguised as my mother. But that’s all I get, right? That’s all I deserve. Less than I deserve, because she’s not even here. It’s just me, cold and forgotten in my small state bed with thin blankets. If I get pneumonia and die tonight, it won’t matter. No one will care, including me.

But I don’t die. And in the morning, Mr. D comes to visit and he brings me a couple of magazines, some apple juice, and a container of chicken noodle soup. The magazines are the wrong kind (
Popular Science
and some women’s fitness magazine), and I wonder how he ever managed to get a job working with girls. But it’s so nice of him. Nobody ever bought me something just to be nice. The juice and soup go down easy and make me feel better.

Mr. D pulls up a chair and says, “Want some company?”

“Sure,” I tell him. “That would be nice.”

“You get any sleep last night?” he asks.

“A bit. Mr. D, thanks for these things. I’m not used to people being so nice. I don’t even know what to say.”

“You said thanks. That will do. How’s the soup?”

“It’s good. You didn’t make it, did you?”

“No. I don’t know how to make soup. But my mother, her name was Damaris, she made the best soup you’ve ever tasted. Avgolemono. It’s Greek soup, with egg and lemon. She used to make it for me whenever I was sick, and I swear it worked. Two bowls and you’re all fixed up.”

“She liked to cook for you?”

“She liked to cook for everybody. If someone came to rob the house, she would cook for them. ‘Sit and eat,’ she’d say. ‘What’s the hurry? Have some stuffed grape leaves and a bowl of soup. You can do your robbing later.’ ”

“She sounds nice.”

“Yeah. She was. Only there was so much food in the house and so many cousins and aunts and uncles telling crazy stories, I never bothered to play sports or make friends. It was so much fun to stay inside and eat and listen. It’s how I got to be so fat.”

We talk some more and I tell Mr. D that I’ve been thinking about my mother—how bad it makes me feel knowing that she doesn’t want me or doesn’t even care about me.

“Do you think she’ll ever change?” he asks.

“No. I know she won’t. Not ever.”

“Then what can you do about it?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

“There’s always something you can do.”

“What?”

“How about you rest up and we’ll start on it when you’re well.”

       
“S
havonne, imagine there’s a big red button on my desk. It’s all lit up like something from a video game. If you press it, then you get snuffed out instantly, removed from existence without any pain at all. But that would be the end of your life and you couldn’t get it back. Would you press it?”

For the hundredth time I think about disappearing. Not necessarily dying, but disappearing. I think about Jasmine growing up with her foster mother, who is good and kind. I think about everyone who will be happier, better off when I’m gone. But I’m still afraid to say those things aloud. I’m afraid Mr. D will send me to the psych hospital or put me back on meds. So I stall—because I’m really afraid to answer the question, which means I’d push the button. I’d do it. And then I’d never have to remember the last time I saw my mother, that crazy twisted look on her face like she didn’t even know who I was, didn’t feel
anything at all for me; like she was looking right through me, actually, out the door and down the stairs, to the alley, where some scumbag was waiting for sex.

Delpopolo wakes me from my thoughts. He says, “Okay, let’s try this another way. What keeps you from doing it? Why are you still here?”

“I don’t know.” It’s one of those questions that should be easy to answer, but it’s not for me. “My daughter. I want to see her again.”

He nods. “Anyone else?”

“I had a brother.” My heart pounds because I am getting close to something dangerous. Delpopolo waits like he’s got all the time in the world, like it’s just a matter of waiting long enough to get me to talk. Doesn’t he know I
can’t
talk about this? That it’s nothing against him. I just can’t talk about it. Ever. My stomach cramps up and I wrap my arms around myself, desperate for even that little bit of comfort.

Delpopolo is looking right at me. I say, “Something happened to him.”

And it’s like a key has been turned. Instantly. All kinds of locked-up memories flood in. Memories of my brother, his little hands closing around my own little fingers. The sound of his voice as he’d make those baby words that seem so important, even though they’re not real words. He’d trail off at the end like it was a question, staring right into my eyes, and I’d smile and try to guess what he was thinking, what question could be on his little one-year-old mind.

They’re good memories mostly. Playing with toys I made from cardboard cereal boxes and paper-towel tubes, having tickle fests, lying down for naps together. But then these memories lead to the really bad one, my secret. And, even though it was a mistake and an accident, it’s something that I can’t ever say sorry for … because it’s just too terrible. Shameful. Damning.

Mr. D. gets that far-off look again and he says something strange. He says, “It’s shame that drives us, Shavonne. We are creatures made of shame and guilt.” But even though he says my name, he’s not really talking to me. He slumps into his chair and goes silent.

       
I
’m afraid to go to sleep because I keep having nightmares. I know a trick to keep calm, though: if you draw your knees into your chest and rock, it puts you into a kind of trance that is almost soothing. I don’t know where I learned this. Maybe it’s just something you do when you’re cracking up and nothing else helps. Because I am sick, and not in the sniffling sneezing kind of way. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I hear the voice of one of my old foster mothers, but I know she’s not here. It says, “Come on, girl. You go in there with Uncle Leon.” She’s desperate. Pleading. Her face is pinched and hollowed-out at the same time, from too much drinking and drugs. And she’s close to crying … or cursing at me. “He’ll give us fifty dollars, Shavonne. I need that money for my medicine.”

I am frozen with fear.

She says, “I’ll buy you some damn toys. Whatever you want.”

The man’s face, hopeful. My legs, like cement. Not my own. I am eleven years old, trying to figure out what’s happening. I know what’s happening, but I don’t want to believe it. Can’t believe it. But it
is
actually happening. And I am acutely aware of what I am losing—what is being taken from me forever.

       
A
fter going back and forth about it a hundred times, I bring my “guilt list” to my next session with Delpopolo. I want him to know that I did the assignment … that I really am trying. But there’s no way he’s going to get to see it. No one’s seeing it. I hold it tightly between my thumbs and forefingers, ready to tear it into tiny pieces at the slightest threat.

He points at the paper. “Shavonne, is that your homework assignment?”

“Yes.”

“May I see it?”

Silence. I feel raw, ready to scream out in pain at the lightest touch, like every nerve in my body is on edge. Like this autistic boy I knew when I was at one of the psych hospitals. He could only wear really soft clothes, cotton T-shirts washed in a special detergent. One of the nurses explained that anything coarse would feel like needles to
him. That’s how I feel, but not my skin. Right now my heart feels hypersensitive to any criticism, like a single push or the wrong word could make me cry for days.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Mr. D. Some of the stuff on this list … Can I just go back to my unit?”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I think about ways to get out of that office, maybe by getting loud and causing a scene. Cursing and making threats works with most adults, but not Delpopolo. Finally, he speaks.

“How about this. You take out the list and put it in front of you. I won’t look at it. When we’re done we’ll go to the shredder together and destroy it. What do you say?”

I think it must be a trick.

“What’s the point, then? Don’t you need to see it?”

“No. I don’t. Especially if you’re so worried about it. Now take it out and put it in front of you.”

I still think it’s a trick, but I take it out anyway, my curiosity about what the trick might be overcoming my fear for the moment. I open the envelope slowly, carefully, like Charlie did in that movie,
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
. Only I know what’s inside and it’s not a golden ticket or an invitation to something special. It’s the opposite: a letter saying, “You’re bad. You’re garbage.” It’s an invitation to see, item by item, exactly why there’s no hope for me.

I smooth it out on Delpopolo’s desk and wait. He hands me a thick black marker. I take it, my heart pounding. I’m sweating all over.

“Now go ahead and cross out all the things on your list that other people did to you.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“Is being raped listed on your paper?”

“Yes.” I look down at my shoes involuntarily. I tell myself to pick my head up, that I have nothing to be ashamed of. But I am ashamed, and the shame burns its way through me. It’s such an automatic response and I hate myself for it. And I despise Mr. D for making me feel that way. Fat fuck! Bastard! Cocksucker! But I don’t say any of these things out loud.

“Well, you can start by crossing that one off.”

“But …”

“But what?”

“Never mind. You don’t understand.” Shame continues to burn through me. Remembering. Hating. I want to hate Mr. D, even though he has nothing to do with what I’m feeling.