Finding My Thunder (5 page)

And
every once in a while she whispered, “I don’t want to show them.” And she’d
shake her head for a long time and the ends of her hair frizzed out like a dark
kind of halo.

And
I said, “They can help.”

And
she said, “They can’t help.” The way she said it…it was a knife through me.

I
wanted to scream and cry and say why, why, why, but I knew better than to let
such a thing out that would do no good.

She
had said not to tell and I hadn’t, even though it ate at me, I couldn’t face it
any more than she could…her having cancer. I was scared…so I pretended it was
nothing cause the doctor told her most times it wasn’t…and I did nothing, just
like she told me…nothing…it was my fault. Lonnie hadn’t killed her. I had.

The
doctor finally showed up, and he didn’t look too happy to be called in. He was
taken aback when he saw Mama’s breast. He asked a million questions, first and
foremost how it got to this point. He was rebuking Mama and I told him not to
do that. I said it that way and then he got smart with me and I could smell the
alcohol on him and I just took what I deserved.

He
sent her for an x-ray and said they were going to keep her. “This is very bad,”
he told me. He said it looked like late stage cancer and he didn’t think there
was anything they could do for her if it was in her lymph nodes and he could
already tell it was as they were swollen. He had never seen such, the whole
thing he’d never seen it so bad. I was to come back in the morning and bring my
father.

After
they put her in a room she was quiet in the bed, almost peaceful. She lay there
staring at the wall and she didn’t look at me when I said I was going out for a
minute and would she be all right? “Go,” she said. “Go on home. You can’t do
nothing.”

And
I grabbed a fistful of her sheet and I wanted to tell her she would be fine but
she didn’t seem to want it…more of my lies. She was trying to send me away. She
wanted to die. She’d wanted to die for years. That’s what I knew. She was
going, leaving me. I was never enough. Never was…like she looked past me…and I
kept trying to hold on to her…until now…until this.
 

I
ran into the hall and leaned against the wall and I didn’t know if I could
breathe, and no one was around and I leaned over and put my hands on my knees. I
made myself slow down a minute, but I couldn’t get past it so I pushed into the
restroom and turned on the light and kept putting the cold water on my cheeks.

There
was knocking on the door. I pulled it open and it was him…through my window,
pulling along the curb, through my door, this door, Mama moving away, but him
coming toward me, standing here.

He
stepped in and I stumbled back and we landed against the wall and I felt the
sore shoulder and I welcomed the pain cause I wasn’t dead, I didn’t want to die
and Danny had his arms around me and mine were around him.

“I
couldn’t find you,” he said against me.

“She’s
dying,” I whispered.

He
pulled back and looked at me. “They said that?”

After
a minute I got a breath and said, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hilly
it’s okay…what’s wrong with her?”

“They…she’s…it’s
the worst…he’s seen.”

He
held me some more and I didn’t want him to let go. But I willed myself to stop.
Other than Naomi, I had never known comfort like this, like Danny. I didn’t
know how long he held me, but he pulled me off the wall and stood there with
me, his arms tight around me, mine around him and time passed.

Finally
I pulled away and he stepped back. “I’m going to stay…so you can go on home. Thank
you for everything.” I went to the sink and washed over my face again and he
handed me brown paper towels.

“You’re
by yourself,” he said.

“I
need to stay,” I said. “Lonnie might come when he sobers up. But Naomi will for
sure. We’ll be fine now.”

“They’ll
help her,” he said.

I
nodded. My face crumpled, but I got it to straighten out and wiped over it
again. I glanced in the mirror and it was bad.

He
pulled me to him and kissed my forehead. It was so kind I almost started crying
some more, but I willed myself, steeled myself.

We
walked out then, to the door of Mama’s room. I knew it waited for me, my time
in there…what I had to face now. “Thanks again,” I said. “When you get to my
house, just leave the keys in the truck. He’ll be passed out. Don’t try to wake
him. Just…I hope you can sleep some.”

“It’s
almost time for work,” he said, smiling a little.

“Well…that
thing he said about being late? All bullshit.”

We
laughed a little. “I’ll go….” he said.

He
walked off then and he turned a couple of times and waved.

I
went in Mama’s room and sat by Mama’s bed. She had her eyes closed, seemed to
be asleep. I sighed looking at her so small there. I scooted closer and touched
her hair, smoothed it. My mother-child.

Finding My Thunder 8

The
rest of that first morning when they put Mama in I didn’t sleep at all. I
watched
waterbugs
crawl those mint green walls. Rubber
soled shoes marched for miles up and down shiny linoleum halls. Carts rattled
with medicines and food and machines and bodies hooked up to more carts and
bottles of things that dripped. Voices and laughing when no one should, and the
intercom scratching and I wondered could anyone hear…did anyone care.

Naomi
had marched in to Mama’s room around seven that first morning like a spring
storm, clean wind and the washing of water…she rearranged pillows and bottles
and chairs like we had hope now…hope. I had my eyes closed when she came in,
but they were open now and I’d been watching her but she didn’t know it. She
was smoothing the covers over Mama and we finally looked at one another and
that which we feared most had come upon us.

“She’s
dying,” I said.

“She
saw the doctor in January…how is it possible she is this sick?” Naomi said.

I
told Naomi about the cancer and everything the doctor said.

And
she put her arms out wide and I went to her and she held me up against her
cotton dress and the White Shoulders perfume she bought at Woolworth’s. And for
a long time of quiet, she was petting me, smoothing me over.

“Did
Lonnie call you?” I finally asked.

“So
he is Lonnie now? No.”

I
was ready to ask how she knew about Mama, if she’d gone to the house, but she
spoke again, “It was that handsome one. He come to my door and said I had to
come here right away.”

She
pulled back and looked in my eyes. “Lord,” she whispered, “where I been?”

“It’s
Danny.”

“I
know who he is…that little brown one grown up…the one you fancied back.” She
smoothed my hair off of my face.

“What?”
I said. Brown? And how did she know I’d fancied him? We’d been friends….

“The
one who hurt your feelings that day…we made that cake? You like to badgered me
to death. Then you came home looking like you’d rolled in the creek and
wouldn’t talk about it. I know that Danny. He’s the big deal.”

I’d
forgotten what a bird dog she could be.

“But
how are you?” she asked.

I
shrugged and laid my head on her shoulder again.

“Sister
Debra lost the baby you know. That’s where I been. She took it hard with Tad in
Vietnam.”

“I’m
sorry,” I whispered. I pictured Debra…joyful on Sunday, dancing and her slip
hanging and her always telling me to smile.

Naomi
and I parted then and I went back to my chair. We’d been whispering because
Mama was asleep, or she pretended to be so she wouldn’t have to deal with us.

“You
got to get out in the fresh air now. Go have some breakfast,” Naomi said.

“No
Ma’am.”

“Yes
Ma’am,” she said back. She was digging in her big patent leather purse with the
gold clasp. She brought out two dollars and held them toward me. “Go on now,”
she said.

“I’m
not hungry.”

“Get
some ice cream then,” she said waving them. “You always did want ice cream for
breakfast so I’m finally saying yes.”

I
stared at her and broke into a smile. I always did want it.

“Go
on so I can visit with
Renata
.”

I
didn’t know why she couldn’t speak her piece in front of me. Mama seemed feeble
and tiny in that bed this morning, like she was giving up another inch and
another inch ever since she got here.

“Get
goin
’,” Naomi said to me and I took the money and
walked out with heavy steps. I didn’t go far, but I stood in the hall and tried
to listen.

I
didn’t expect to hear Mama speak so soon or so forcefully. I wondered if she
wasn’t also waiting for me to leave. “What you gonna do about it?” Mama said.

“About
this? What can I do, child? You have given up on yourself. That’s what he done.
You forgot how much that girl of yours loves you.”

My
hand went over my mouth and I listened hard.

“She
don’t need me. She never did.”

“I
suppose Eugene told himself the same thing. How true was that?”

After
a minute Naomi said, “Don’t have an answer, do you? Guess we don’t get to say how
other people feel about us.”

“I
been
sufferin
’,” Mama whined.

“We
all been
sufferin
’, Miss
Renata
.
But there is much to do.”

“I
ain’t strong like you,” now petulance had set in.

“I
ain’t strong. I am the weakest coward you will ever meet. When I think about my
own misery that is. When I let it consume me night and day.”

“You
hate me and you got the right. It’s best I go. It’s best….”

“Don’t
be
sayin
’….”

But
Naomi never got to finish before Mama started to wail, “He was so little….”

I
heard shifting around, “There now…get
ahold
…get
ahold
.” And I was surprised at how firmly she spoke.

Mama
whimpered some.

“You
have hid this disease,” Naomi said, and I could tell by her voice she was
touching Mama in some way for she used that same way on me, she would hug you
tight while she confronted your sins.

“It’s
him,” Mama said low. “He has taken hold in me and grown….”

“Who?”

I
could hear Mama gulping and crying some. “That dark one,” she got out.

“You
gonna tell me this crazy talk? You got cancer Miss
Renata
.
It ain’t something else. It is only that.”

“No,”
Mama said. “You don’t know how he comes….”

“Listen
to me. I spoke with your nurse this morning. You are very sick. Looks like you
are at the end. You got a very short time to talk to make your peace. If there
is someone you want to think about now then think about Hilly. What do you want
to say to her before you go?”

“And
there’s you,” Mama said.

“There
is nothing between us. Least ways from me. I have forgiven you way back. And I
have asked you repeatedly to forgive me.”

“I
don’t hold it against you. I told you that,” Mama said. “One for the other.”

“That
is the cruelest way to put it. That is not what it was.”

“But
that don’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“We
have put it back there,” Naomi said.

“But
it happened. It all happened.”

“I
have never denied that.”

“But
you have denied me. You can barely look at me.”

“I
have done right by you. I have always done right by you.”

“I
gave you her. I let you have her,” Mama said.

“That
was not decision. That was apathy.”

“You
have not forgiven me. I know you want to think you have so you can get at that
pulpit and be the righteous one. But you have not forgiven me.”

“I
have given you everything,” Naomi said.

“You
have given me everything but your forgiveness.”

“I
have given you…everything. Now you go to God like I always say. You go to him
and get what you need. For I am empty.”

I
stumbled from there, two hands over my mouth, I walked but I didn’t know where
I was going. I turned a corner and saw the outside doors ahead and I walked
toward them, I ran too.

Outside
I leaned against the wall and I breathed and I felt the sun on my face. And
everything I knew, every rough and dusty edge I’d ever touched…was truth
shrouded by Mama…by Naomi. They hardly ever talked, they didn’t talk. They
didn’t fight. They didn’t argue. They were around me. They were with me. But
they were not together. And yet they were tied. By more than me. They were
locked. Mama counted on Naomi and Naomi was true. But the others…the others
were there before me. And the way they had spoken to one another, not just the
words but the emotion in the words, the knowing in the words….

I
could barely understand why or how, but the purple car was there, and Danny
leaning toward the passenger side talking to me through the open window. “Get
in,” he said.

I
made a sound I was so grateful. I did not know it was him I needed…that God
would give me such a gift when I was toes over a cliff, looking down and
wondering how deep the black hole was.

So
I got in, and he looked at me in all his handsome glory and he grinned. And I
knew that somehow it would be all right, that somehow I would live through it
all.

“I
tried to go to work,” he said, “but Lonnie is still at your house and Robert
ain’t there either and it’s all locked up.”

I
didn’t think about it I just leaped across the space between us and put my arms
around his neck and I squeezed, and he laughed a little and his arms went
around me and he squeezed me back until there was a knocking on the door and a
man’s voice said, “Hey you can’t park here,” and I pulled back and Danny
ignored him and said, “Where you want to go?”

And
I said, “With you.”