The Dear One (13 page)

“They're friends.”

“That's how it starts out.”

“They're like sisters!”

“I know, Feni. I'm just messing with you. Jeez!”

“Anyway, my ma probably won't date anybody else for a long time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because, soon as Dad left, she stopped drinking. And the people who run the no-drinking programs think you should be sober awhile and work on your own life before you start working on a life with somebody else.”

“I guess I can't ever be sober, then.”

“You don't drink!”

“Oh. Then I guess I can be sober.” Rebecca giggled. “This is such a cool place to be, Feni. You're so lucky.” Rebecca got up and came over to my bed. “Move over,” she said, and I made space for her. “I like the view of the moon from this side of the room.” The bed sank down with the weight of her and the baby. It felt good having company.

“Before you came, Rebecca,” I whispered, “the house used to be so quiet. Marion and Bernadette were hardly ever here. It was just me and Ma going about our business.”

“You miss the quiet?”

“I didn't know anything else, I guess,” I said, putting my hands behind my head and staring up at the ceiling. “I didn't want you to come here. Now I don't want you to go.”

“You afraid your house is going to get all quiet again?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll give you something that will keep the house from getting quiet and keep you from forgetting me, okay?”

“What is it?” I asked, raising myself up on one elbow.

“This,” she said, then her voice dropped.

“Against a day of sorrow

Lay by some trifling thing

A smile, a kiss, a promise

For sweet remembering

So when your day is darkest

Without one rift of blue

Take out your little trifle

And dream your dream anew.”

After a few minutes had passed in silence, I said, “That's really pretty.”

“You have to memorize it. Then when the house gets all quiet, you can say it over and over. Danny taught it to me.”

We recited the poem in the darkness until I knew it by heart. Then Rebecca turned and faced the window.

I put my hands behind my head again and recited the poem until I fell asleep.

“FENI! FEEEENI!” REBECCA SCREAMED FROM THE TOP OF the stairs.

“What?” I screamed back, taking the eggs off the fire and bounding to the stairs. “Rebecca, what?”

It was Friday morning, and I had been in the kitchen making breakfast for us. The Robertses would be by soon to visit Rebecca.

When I got to our room, Rebecca was lying across the bed. The spread was stained with blood. “Call someone,” she cried, her face contorted in pain.

I threw a blanket over her and ran to the hall. Ma was at a breakfast meeting outside her office but had left the number on the kitchen wall. Running downstairs, I realized I should call an ambulance first. I turned around and ran back to the top of the stairs, dialed 911, and told them where we were and what was happening. Then I headed for the kitchen again.

Ma picked up on the first ring.

“Ma, it's Feni,” I said quickly. “Rebecca's sick, Ma. She's bleeding and everything and I can't find the—”

“Slow down,” Ma said calmly, and all of a sudden I wanted to cry. “Did you call an ambulance already?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then. They should be there soon. Just be calm, Feni. Are you okay?”

“Ma, I'm scared,” I whispered.

“Oh, Feni, it'll be okay, sweetheart. I wish I was there with you.”

“I wish so too, Ma.”

“I'll call Dr. Greenberg and meet you at the hospital. Did you call the Robertses?”

“I'm calling them now.”

“I'll call them, Feni. You stay with Rebecca.”

“Ma . . . ?”

“She'll be okay, Feni,” Ma said.

I hung up the phone and ran back upstairs.

Rebecca was holding the brown doll. Her eyes were closed.

“You can keep the doll, Rebecca. Just don't let anything happen to you,” I said, pushing curls out of her face.

“Feni,” she whispered, and I moved closer to hear. “Don't let anything happen to little Feni.” She took my hand and pressed it against her stomach. Beneath the soft skin, the baby was still.

“Afeni,” I said. “I love you, Afeni.”

“I love you, Afeni,” Rebecca echoed.

In the background the ambulance siren grew closer.

AFENI ROBERTS CAME INTO THE WORLD AT FOUR-THIRTY Friday afternoon with soft, wrinkled skin, chocolate-brown fingers, and Rebecca's wide gray eyes.

“All the rest must be Danny,” Ma said, pressing her face against the nursery window. Marion, the Robertses, and I were gathered around her, staring down at Afeni. Long and thin, Afeni lay struggling out of her swaddling between two sleeping babies, wide-awake.

I watched her silently. She was the reason Rebecca was here, and she was the reason Rebecca would be leaving soon. Still, Afeni was not real to me.

Mrs. Roberts sniffed. “Thank you, Jesus,” she whispered, reaching for Mr. Roberts's hand. He nodded slowly, saying nothing.

“That child is going to be something, isn't she?” Marion said proudly, cooing at the window. “Look at those eyes. Look how focused she already is.”

I felt alone suddenly, far away from everything.

“Can't believe the hardest part is over,” Ma said.

But I didn't want it to be over. I didn't want Rebecca to ever go home. I looked back into the glass and Afeni was staring at me. We stared at each other unblinking until she kicked once, yawned, and closed her eyes.

When the nurse came into the nursery, Ma said, “Why don't you go on up there to see Rebecca, Feni?” and gave me a quick, unexpected hug.

“Aren't you guys coming with me?” I asked.

The Robertses looked at Ma and Marion.

“We'll wait until you two talk. We have time,” Mr. Roberts said, taking a seat.

“We have plenty of time.” Marion winked, sitting down beside him. “Just like you and Rebecca.”

“ISN'T SHE SOMETHING?” REBECCA ASKED HOARSELY.

I nodded, not knowing what to say. All of a sudden I felt like a stranger, a little kid who didn't know anything about having sex or babies.

“It sure was hard, Feni. I don't think I'll ever do it again.”

“Did it hurt a lot?”

“You didn't hear me screaming? I thought I woke the dead!”

“No. I didn't hear anything. They made me stay in the waiting room.”

Rebecca turned to me, and I stared at her stomach, surprised that it was still big. “What's wrong?”

I shrugged, uncertain.

“I know what it is. You're missing me already, aren't you?”

I nodded and looked at her. Beneath the stark white sheets she looked older and weak.

“Come on, Feni. Soon's I rest a little, we'll really hang out. I'm going to sit in on your classes and blow those Roper kids away. I'm gonna say I'm a new kid.”

“Really?”

“Then I want to go to Jake's and Joe's.”

“Jack and Jill, Rebecca.” I laughed. “Jack and Jill!”

“Then maybe we can go back to where those shacks are and see that girl. Remember her?”

“How could I forget?”

“See, nothing's changed, Feni. I'm just going to be moving a lot faster.”

I felt better then. Nothing
had
changed between us.

“Danny called twice,” Rebecca said.

“Yeah. I called him to give him your number here. He sure has a nice voice.”

“And a nice everything else to go with it.”

I laughed.

Rebecca was leaning back against three pillows, wearing the blue-and-white-striped dressing gown Marion had bought her. Her cheeks looked thinner now and the dimples were small permanent half-moons. A stack of magazines rested on the table next to her bed. Beside them sat a box of tissues and a pitcher of water. Blue elves ran across the television screen.

“So is this what you'll be doing here all day?” I asked, lifting a magazine and dropping it down again.

“Mostly. I guess I'll feed and talk to Afeni.”

“You gonna breast-feed her?”

“For a little while. Everyone thinks it'll be okay. Then maybe I can get these things back down to size,” she said, holding her breasts in her hands.

“She's not hard to look at at all, Rebecca.”

“What do you mean ‘not hard to look at'? That is the most beautiful baby in that whole nursery!”

“Okay,” I teased. “Maybe she is a little cute.”

Rebecca sucked her teeth. “Man, you better grow some eyes. You see that pretty nose and those ears?” She laughed. “Those are her daddy's ears!”

“But she has your eyes.”

“They might not stay that color. Babies change like that. Sometimes they come out light skinned, then two days later, zap, dark and sweet as a berry.”

“Really?”

“Yup,” Rebecca said. “Sometimes they have gray or blue eyes for a day or two and then, next thing you know, they're little brown-eyed girls!”

“Well, we'll just have to see. You gonna stay around for the changes, right?” I asked hopefully.

“I don't know how much longer I'll be here. Maybe until the end of the month. Then I have to go home. I miss my family so much. Yesterday Bobo and Shaunney called me. They wanted to tell me that they know their two-times tables. So then they recited them for me over and over again until my ma got on and asked how I was doing and all that stuff, then said they couldn't afford to talk any longer. I miss Ma.”

“I wish you could live with us, Rebecca. I wish you could stay forever!”

“I'll be back to visit, you know. I like Seton. The other night, when we were lying in bed, I was thinking. We're gonna grow up and do what we have to do, and we're gonna be so different from each other just because of where we live.”

“I don't want us to forget each other.”

“You crazy?” Rebecca said. “How could I forget a brat like you?”

“How could I forget a pain like you?”

We laughed for a long time, then grew silent, staring up at the TV screen until the nurse came in with Rebecca's dinner: fish.

“Remember
fishes
?”

“Oh, I hated you that day,” Rebecca said, and we laughed until she coughed. I patted her back and held the plastic cup of water to her lips. Rebecca took a small sip, then looked at me for a long time. “Thank you,” she said softly.

A few minutes after dinner the nurse brought Afeni in for her feeding, and I watched as her tiny mouth searched for Rebecca's breast. I stared at the small eyes for a long time.

“She looks a little like an elf, doesn't she?” I asked, giving Afeni my finger to hold on to.

“Hey, Elf,” Rebecca whispered, kissing her forehead.

“Elf beats Stinky any day, doesn't it?”

Rebecca looked up at me and smiled. “Anything beats Stinky!”

I stared at Baby Afeni's tiny fingers. In that moment I knew that she, like me and Ma and Rebecca and Marion and Clair and Bernadette and especially my grandmother, was another part of a long line of dear ones. No one knew yet if she'd be light or dark, gap toothed or dimpled; if her hair would be kinky, curly, or straight; no one knew if she'd find her roots back to Harlem or settle in Seton, or whether or not she'd hate Jack and Jill and White Gloves and Manners; but we were certain of one thing—through the toughest, the saddest, the hardest, and the best of times, all of us would be around somewhere, pulling for her and pulling her through.

Downstairs, Ma and Marion and the Robertses were waiting for me and Rebecca to finish talking. They were waiting for the moment when they could come upstairs to coo over Baby Afeni some more and be reminded of other babies in their lives. They were waiting for Rebecca and me to say good-bye to each other, not knowing if our paths would ever cross again. They were waiting for the time to come when they could sit back in rocking chairs and remember this, hold on to it, and tell it to their grandchildren.

But most of all they were waiting for us to grow up and wondering if we'd grow into Marions, Catherines, or Clairs.

 

“What are you standing there with your mouth open for, Feni? Go downstairs and get the gang!”