“Well,” he said, his voice breaking, “that’s the message, if anyone cares.”
“We were shopping,” I said. “Why does he think he has to check on us?”
“I’m just passing along the message.”
When he turned to leave the room, Momma said, “Phil, I can come tuck you in as soon as we’re done here.”
Phil, who was so confident when he was rolling his eyes or making one of his rude comments, froze. His face, without its usual sneer, made him look more like the little boy who wore a lucky rabbit’s foot on his belt and picked up pennies on the sidewalk.
Momma was only a few steps away from his room. All he had to do was say yes, or just nod his head.
Instead, he took another slow step backward.
“Okay then,” she said softly. “I’m sure you’re much too big to be tucked in.”
I almost felt sad for him, the way he had to be the one who didn’t need anything, who could do it himself. But I also wanted him out of my room. This was
my
time with Momma.
“I thought you said you had other things to get to,” I told him, gulping down my drink.
“I did,” he said. “I do.” And then he took the bundle from under his arm and threw it on my floor. “Oh, and I found this ugly thing downstairs. I figure it’s yours.”
My sneaker caught on the sheet when I sprang out of bed, which just made me all the madder. Never letting go of my cup, I grabbed my new jean jacket. I knew he’d meant to hurt
me, thinking
I
was the one who punched the metal studs onto the back of it, but that didn’t keep the tears from streaming down Momma’s face.
“Don’t mind him,” I said, picking it off the floor. With my finger, I traced the crooked star she’d begun, then slid my arm into the sleeve. Just the weight of the jacket, as I pulled it around me, gave me an immediate sense of importance, though it also hurt to wear it. The metal prongs that weren’t clamped all the way down scraped my skin. “I love it,” I said, turning in a circle to show her until I came to a dead stop.
In the doorway, Dad stood breathless, the veins out in his neck and forehead.
“I’ve been looking everywhere!” he shouted, his voice hoarse. He turned to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Where have you been?”
I jerked away from him as Momma whimpered behind me.
“We were shopping,” I told him. “We were having fun until now. And we’ve already eaten,” I added, my way of telling him we knew how to feed ourselves. We weren’t idiots or pets. We weren’t his prisoners.
“We decided to have a little fun while you were visiting with the congressman,” she said, her voice chilly, but weak. “Did you enjoy your meeting?”
Annoyed at the change of subject, he said, “It was a fine meeting. It was a
very
fine meeting, if you want to know. We talked about some civilian uses for the technology—navigation for commercial airplanes or even ambulances—and he says we’ll get the funding we need.”
“Isn’t that wonderful,” she said, sniffling. “I’m glad you enjoy your work so much.”
“Do you know what I like about my job?” he shouted. “When I work hard, I actually see progress.”
While my father had been saying this, Momma slowly moved closer to me and reached out with shaking hands to take the empty cup.
“What is that?” he asked. “What’s going on here?”
Without answering, she began to walk toward the door when he lunged forward, grabbing the cup. She shrieked in surprise while he dipped his finger inside to take a taste. Everything about his face tightened.
“I can explain,” she cried.
He squeezed the cup tight and drew back his arm.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I screamed, as Momma whimpered and covered her face with both of her hands.
His arm shot forward and my cup slammed against the wall, smashing to pieces. I turned toward the orange stain it left, and felt a fury building inside. “Dad! What’s wrong with you?”
“Tillie, get into bed,” he said. “Right now.”
He put his hand on my shoulder, guiding me, but I flailed my arms and bolted from my room. I passed Phil in the hallway, turned down the stairs, and kept going out the front door.
“Tillie!”
My father had taken away everything important to me. Momma. The decorations in our home. Now my ruby cup.
I ran hard, pumping my arms and legs faster than I knew I could go. I cut through one yard and then another by the time I heard my father yelling from our porch. I knew he’d head to the school, so I took a different street and followed the route of Bus 14.
• • •
I could hear myself breathing and panting. My chest burned. It felt good to run, to hear the soles of my tennis shoes slapping against the street, to feel my legs on fire, to run faster than the cars that waited at each traffic light. I took shortcuts and ran places I’d never run before. Someone shouted from his car, “Run, girl, run!”
Finally, I stopped to catch my breath, proud of how far I’d gone so fast, like I’d shown him something—that he could measure my anger by how far I’d run from him.
It was chilly, surprisingly so for how warm it had been during the day. I found myself on a street with no people—all the buildings dark, except for a bar on the corner with steamy windows and a light that blinked on and off. I turned in each direction, hoping to see the YMCA building that was so big and well lit I shouldn’t have missed it. I felt unsteady and reached out to grab a signpost. I could see cars blurred in the distance, and closer, small animals with glowing eyes, scurrying around the dumpsters, but there was no sound at all, as if my ears were clogged with cotton. The buildings and streetlamps began to sway, and I held tighter to the pole. I knew this feeling.
I turned round and round, taking in the pawn shop, the bar, the small grocery store, and wondering how far Shirl’s house was, and in what direction. It was getting dark so fast, and each street seemed to lead somewhere even darker.
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid.” I spoke out loud, but the words didn’t sound right because my tongue was heavy. Someone, however, heard me. A man walked toward me, not saying a word.
“I’m trying to find …” I couldn’t remember what I was trying to find. My brain wasn’t working right. I didn’t remember the name of the building near Shirl’s, and I couldn’t remember her last name. Finally I said, “I’m lost.”
“I’ll say you’re lost.”
Soon, there were many people gathered around me, all brown, and moving closer. I felt dizzy. Confused. A metal prong from inside my new jacket snagged my shirt, pulling it down in back so my collar tightened against my neck. Someone reached for me and I realized I was on the ground.
“I know this girl. She goes to the school I work at.” A man stepped through the crowd. It was the janitor, and he knelt beside me, trying to lift my head off the sidewalk.
“I’m trying to find Shirl,” I said, but my words were slurred.
Several voices asked, “What did she say?” And then there were many voices talking at once. “She’s looking for someone.” “What’s wrong with her?” “Is she sick?”
It was harder and harder to stay awake. I felt myself cradled in the janitor’s arms, both of us on the sidewalk. And I heard him tell someone Shirl’s last name.
The beauty of sleep is the way the world around you disappears. You forget you’re cold, forget there is something poking into your back. The problems you had, the worries, the dark, all of that fades away. You forget to care if your face is mashed against a near stranger’s shirt buttons, or if your feet hurt from blisters. For a moment, there is a perfect peace. And even as voices interrupt that sleep, the sound is far away, like a dream.
“Tillie!”
“Tillie!”
I heard my name and that, alone, soothed me. I nestled back against the janitor and let myself fall into a deep sleep again.
“Tillie!” It was my father. And the shaky, high-pitched voice that came after it was Momma’s.
The janitor continued to hold me but he sat up straighter, and the cold rushed in where my cheek was no longer pressed
against him. I tried to call back or wave my hand to let them know where I was, but I was too tired, and the janitor was warm and sturdy. I shut my eyes again.
“Tillie!”
“That’s my mom and dad,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
“Over here, sir,” the janitor said, his voice vibrating in his chest and against my face. “Over here,” he called again, and this time, the noise jolted me awake.
There was a whole crowd of people surrounding us—until they parted and my father pushed through. Momma stood farther back, near the car. The janitor helped me stand, and when I was steady, he let go. I felt a second wind, enough strength to make it to either parent—Momma, with her hands to her mouth and the car door open for me, or Dad, who made me so angry.
Every step felt like effort, and I steadied myself on strangers as I walked faster until I was running. I ran toward my father, who stood soldierlike until the very last moment when he caught me in his arms.
“You’re fine now,” he said. My earrings hurt when he pulled me close.
“I’m so tired, Dad.”
“I’ll carry you.”
I kept my face pressed against his cheek, which was stubbly and wet with tears. I didn’t even hold on, but put all of my weight onto him and trusted he wouldn’t drop me.
O
VER DAD’S SHOULDER, THE
blinking sign above the bar lit up the crowd at intervals, as he carried me to our Volvo. The windows of the car were steamed, and even through the glass you could hear Momma sobbing. When Dad set me down, I reached for the handle, but the door was locked. The same thing happened when Dad tried his door. He knocked on the window. Momma shook her head, and Dad reached into his pocket for the key. Even more hysterical, she placed her hands over the lock so it wouldn’t open.
“Mara!” he shouted. “Mara, for crying out loud!”
I held to the side of the car, tired of the commotion, and not quite certain whether I was hearing my name or not. I stood up straighter. “Shirl?”
She made her way down the street, and I called out louder, “Shirl!”
“Ernie called our house,” she said, jogging closer. “He said, ‘Come get your little friend. Get here right away.’”
“Who’s Ernie?” I asked, my lips and tongue moving too slow.
“How can you not know Ernie? He cleans up your trash every day at school.”
The man who’d let me sleep in his arms. I started to speak but was just too tired.
“My mom didn’t want me to come. She called your house so someone could pick you up, but she said it’s too late for me to be out, and I have no business being on a street with a bar on it.”
I was certain the woman glaring at me farther down the sidewalk was her mother. But she soon took her eyes off of me and turned, along with the rest of the crowd, to watch my mother move from lock to lock as Dad tried his key in the different doors.
Shirl put her hands on her hips and shook her head in disbelief. “You better go before someone calls the cops,” she said.
“Cops?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. If some black folks had gone to
your
neighborhood and acted like this, they would have been arrested. Or worse.”
“Not funny,” I said.
“Who says I’m being funny?”
“Tillie, get in.”
Momma had finally given up her control of the locks, and Dad opened the door for me. He did not remind me to buckle, so I didn’t. As soon as I got inside the car, I felt how cold I’d been, how much my legs ached from running.
Shirl stood beside our car, her mother now holding her hand and staring at me with the same expression of deep disappointment on her face that Shirl’s grandmother had shown. Dad slammed his door and started the engine.
“Unbelievable!” he said, choking the steering wheel.
Normally, in a neighborhood like this, we would lock our doors, even in the afternoon. That night Dad didn’t bother. As we drove past Shirl, I raised my hand to the window and she raised hers in reply.
We moved down the short, dark streets, Dad gripping and ungripping the wheel while Momma wailed almost silently, her mouth open and drool running down to her chin. I used to work so hard to stop Dad from fighting with her, but I was exhausted and wanted to return to that feeling of sleeping against the janitor while everyone around me rushed to figure things out. I lay down in the backseat and watched the streetlamps fly by.
“Do you even understand what you did?” he finally asked, practically spitting. He turned to the backseat to see if I was awake. I quickly closed my eyes. “You
drugged
her.”
“I didn’t
drug
her,” she said, hysterical. “You’ve given her the same medicine before.”
“Was she swelling from a bee sting? Did she have hay fever?”
“Not so loud.”
“You can’t give someone medicine when they’re not sick,” he said, not remembering to keep his voice down. “It’s wrong. Do you have any idea what could have happened tonight?”
She answered with her face to the window. “I didn’t know she’d leave the house. I wasn’t the one who upset her so much that she ran off!”
I couldn’t concentrate on the words, just let them float through my ears and back out.
“Didn’t you even
consider
what happened before?” he said.
“Of course I did!” Her voice was high-pitched, desperate. “I never meant to hurt her.”
I’m sorry, Bear. I never meant to hurt you.
He looked behind again to see if I was asleep, and once more
I shut my eyes. “Don’t you remember how cold she felt? She hardly moved.”
“Of course I remember. What do you think I am, a monster?”
“Then what on earth was going through your head?”
“Do you think I’m the only mother who gave her child something to help her rest? We had a little girl who wouldn’t sleep through the night. She always had more to say. More questions and requests. They taught me to add a little Sudafed to her drink at bedtime. The other wives. It was just to relax her.” She spoke too fast, squeezing her hair in her fists like she might pull it out in handfuls.
“I can’t believe you’re defending yourself.” He lifted his hand off the wheel and she backed away. “It was to relax
you
. And it’s wrong!”