I asked. I had put a white apron around my waist and my braids were back in a ponytail. I knew there was flour in them already. Wouldn’t surprise me if I had purple marzipan icing on my cheek, either.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Coffee?”
She smelled like honeysuckle and mint. I learned later that she somehow always had a plastic bottle of scented lotion with her.
“Juice?”
I saw a flash of confusion in her eyes, then she opened a sugar packet and tipped it into her mouth. She did it with a second one, too.
I thought I’d leave her to her sugar. “I’ll come back in a minute.”
I returned to icing about two dozen blue, pink, and green whale cookies.
Ten minutes later I headed back out. “Decided yet? I have cookies in whale shapes.”
No answer. A smile.
About three seconds later, she leaned over and curled up on the red bench. She made a gurgling sound in her throat.
She slept.
“Ma’am?” I shook her shoulder softly. “Ma’am? No whale cookies?”
A snore escaped her nose.
We learned later her name was Belinda.
Life had not been a whale of fun for her.
At three o’clock, we’d been mass cooking all day, and we were still empty. Belinda had woken up, snuffled, snorted, and left after using the bathroom. I could tell she’d used our sink to take a minishower, though the bathroom was perfectly cleaned up when I checked.
I had dug through the trash where Janie and I had tossed pies and cookies and bread. Now, to be fair, these goodies were several days old and wouldn’t taste fresh.
Still. The bread tasted like sand and water mixed with a dead scorpion thrown in. The doughnuts tasted like soggy sugar and the cookies tasted like corrugated cardboard laced with paper. I gave a bite to Janie. She spit it out.
“Good. That helps me with my book. I needed to know what dead flesh would taste like.”
“It wasn’t dead flesh.”
“I know. But I needed a way to describe it.”
What do you say to things like that?
People ambled on by outside, some carrying windsurfing boards, others pushing strollers. Two women with briefcases. A man wearing a blue apron. Three teenage girls giggling, followed by three strutting teenage boys.
Now why weren’t they all in here? Spending money?
Easy. The food sucked.
8
T hat night we went to see Momma in the ICU. Janie drove her Porsche, which means we got there only slightly ahead of a turtle traveling backward.
Eventually our turtle made it to the hospital.
On the way my brain had a fight with my emotions over Momma. I loved her, but sometimes I hated her. I did.
Nothing I had ever done was good enough for her and I had stopped trying to get approval or kindness from her long ago. Cecilia had never stopped, and Momma still scared the intestines out of Janie.
Momma would never think I was anything more than a wandering, difficult, loose daughter she couldn’t possibly relate to. Not having Momma’s approval about ripped my heart out for years, but somewhere along the way, probably about the time I went home to visit her in my late twenties after being shot in Afghanistan and still had a bandage wrapped around my upper arm and she told me I was a “slut” and a “disappointment” as a child, I had let it go.
I had to. It was let it go or die emotionally. I was already half dead emotionally anyhow, and survival instincts kicked in.
But I wanted Momma to recover. I did.
I’m not that vengeful. Vengeful, but not that bad. Bad, but not murderously so.
But, man, she was a damn terror.
We met with the doctor on call first. Dr. Gordon was about fifty, short, African-American, and had studious glasses and big green-gray eyes.
“How’s our momma?”
The doctor tensed a bit.
“She’s not bouncing back like we’d like. No energy. Physically lethargic. Complains of pain. So you can go in and see her for a few minutes, but her recovery time is going to be lengthened. She’ll need to stay here longer than we expected.”
“Oh!” Janie whispered. “Tranquility. Serenity.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Bummer.”
“That’s hellaciously good news,” Cecilia mused.
“Why good?” the doctor asked, tilting his head.
Cecilia cackled. “Ah. I see. You have not spoken with our momma much, have you?”
“I had the pleasure of making your mother’s acquaintance.” The doctor stared at the ceiling and stroked his chin. “She could hardly speak, but I heard something about how I was too young and too short and was I really black? As in black black? Were my great-grandparents slaves?”
Janie leaned against a wall. I exhaled, slumped. So tactful, our momma. So sweet.
“I believe she also said that I was not, under any circumstances, to burst into any rap songs or play rap music at any time. I had to reassure her I have never belonged to a gang nor did I carry a gun.”
“That would be our momma,” I sang out. “Cheerful and filled with goodwill and love for all.”
Janie and Cecilia and I then apologized at one time. How many times had we had to do that? A thousand? Eighty god-zillion?
The doctor smiled. “Hey, it’s no problem unless I want to join a gang here at the hospital. Come on in. I’ll walk you there.” He politely held the door open for us.
Even I was shocked to see her.
She was white white white, like crinkled paper, her mouth a crooked slash, her eyes sunken. Our tough, Scarlett O’Hara, perfectly made-up momma (when she wasn’t drowning in one of her tarlike depressions) was one step away from a corpse.
“Momma,” we all said together. “Momma.”
There was no response.
I leaned over her and felt her breath on my cheek. “She’s still breathing.”
Janie put a hand on Momma’s chest over her heart.
“Her heart is still beating.”
“Good God!” Cecilia said. “She’s shrunk. Shrunk and shriveled.”
“Shhh,” said Janie, wringing her hands together. “She can still hear you!”
“How can she hear me?” Cecilia said, flicking her blond hair back. “She’s not even fully conscious. She’s whacked out.”
“Do you have to say whacked out?” I asked, my tone mild. I felt like having a Kahlúa snack.
“Yeah, I do have to say whacked out. Because that’s what she is. Watch this.” She leaned in close. “Momma! Momma!” No response. “See? She’s whacked out. For once she’s not nagging. Or criticizing. Or telling me I’m fat, and ‘enlarging’ each day. For once. ”
“You shouldn’t…” Janie said.
“Shouldn’t what, Janie?” Cecilia stage whispered. “Shouldn’t raise my voice? Shouldn’t be honest? Maybe I should be like you. Over there with your hair in a bun and those brown shoes you always wear. Always quiet, cringing