A Girl Like Me (15 page)

“And we thought you weren't coming back,” Sydney added.

“So I asked Aniyah to cook me something to eat,” Mica said sadly, “and she did. But it was only a small fire, nothing big.”

“But it could've been worse!” one of the social workers chimed in. “Now, can you tell us where your mother is?”

“I don't know.” I looked at her. “I really don't.”

“Well, since Deniece Jones here said you could stay with her, we have to take your brother and sisters to a foster home.”

“What?” I was in disbelief.

“Here.” She handed me a card. “Have your mother call the office first thing in the morning.”

I couldn't believe it, but I tried to be as strong as I could. “Listen,” I said to Mica and the twins, “everything will be okay. You listen to what the ladies say and be on your best behavior.”

“I don't wanna go!” they cried.

“And I don't want you to go, but you have to. Okay?”

“Yes,” they cried. “Are we gon' see you again?”

A lump filled my throat as I realized the answer to that question was that I didn't know. “Yes,” I said to them, holding my tears back. “You will.”

I stood up straight and as I watched them leave, I felt as if someone was slicing my heart out, and just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I realized the world had ended. I wasn't sure if my feet were moving as I followed Neecy out of the building and watched my sisters and brother leave in the back of a state car. I didn't know how I was living and breathing because my heart had fallen out.

Neecy placed her arm around my shoulders and I completely fell apart. I felt Naja's hand on my back, rubbing it, as if she were trying to make me feel better, but at that moment I didn't think that anything ever would.

As we headed back to the car, I felt like we'd stepped into a sea of flashing cubes, as reporters were taking my picture, sticking microphones in my face, and asking me questions.

M
y whole world was spinning. I had a headache, and I felt like I might just curl up and die. It was like…I wanted to cry but I didn't know how to cry. Even though when I don't want to cry, I can't make myself stop. I had been sitting in the middle of my apartment floor for hours, with my knees pulled to my chest, listening to the echo of my own voice or the sighing of my own breath, not understanding why this was happening to me. All I wanted to do was take care of my sisters and brothers, and somehow in the midst of all of it, be a teenager, too.

But my pain wasn't about me being a teenager, it was about me disappointing Ny'eem, Mica, Aniyah, and Sydney. They'd depended on me, and look what I'd done.

I held my head down and cried into the fold of my knees until tears filled my eyes and snot clogged my nose.

An hour into wondering exactly when I'd died and gone to hell, I heard a key turning in the door, my mother laughing, and Gary saying, “Hur' up, I gotta pee.”

I continued to hold my head down as I wiped my face.

“Elite,” my mother called to me as I heard Gary run toward the back. “Why you sittin' there?”

I held my tear-stained face up and looked her directly in the eyes. All sorts of nasty things to spit at her ran through my mind, but instead of slapping her with what I really wanted to say, I sat quietly and watched her look around the room. “Where the kids?”

I just shook my head.

“Elite? You hear me talking to you?”

Silence.

She walked over and stood directly in front of me. “Why are you crying?” She walked away from me and started roaming the apartment. She threw open all the doors and started calling their names, “Aniyah, Mommy's home. Mica, come 'mere. Syd!” She repeated herself, “Aniyah, Mommy's home. Mica, come 'mere. Syd!” Tears formed in her eyes. “Lee-Lee, where the babies?”

I stood up and squinted. “Babies?” I couldn't believe she said that. “‘Lee-Lee, where are the babies?'” I turned my head from side to side in disbelief. “‘Where are the babies?' How about this: where you been? Where's their mother? Where's she at? Getting high, sucking a glass pipe? Being a junkie in the hallway, in the street, running off with some scallywag ass bum—”

“Excuse you?” Gary said as he came out of the bathroom. “What you say?”

“Scallywag ass bum!” I jerked my neck so hard, it was a wonder I didn't spit in their faces. Tears were threatening to spill down my cheeks again, but I was determined not to cry. “Huh, Ma?! ‘Where are the babies?' For the last eight years, you haven't had no dang babies. All you had was some rock! I had the babies. I had them. You have done nothing but run the streets and leave us here to fend for ourselves. Do you know how many nights we went to bed hungry, crying, wet, wondering where you were? Babies?! Do you even know them? Do you know their favorite color, what they like, their favorite television show? Do you know why Mica dresses in that stupid ass sheet? Because he thinks that Superman is the only one that can save you, and that's what he wants to become—Superman! All of this for you. Do you know I was arrested for stealing? And instead of being able to call you, Naja's mother had to come and get me? Do you know anything about me? Do you even think about Ny'eem, who's locked up and can't come home until you are able to take custody of him, and you knew that, and what—what has changed about you? I'll tell you what has changed. The time of the day—nothing else—and if anything, you've gotten worse!

“So you wanna know where your babies are? They're in foster care, where they're going to be adopted because you don't know how to be a mother. All you know how to be is a junkie!”

No matter how hard I tried to hold them back, tears poured down my face to the point where they were blinding me.

My mother stood there in shock. I'd never seen her look like this. Almost as if she'd seen a ghost, or better yet, was going to kick my butt. But the way I felt, I was willing to take on the challenge. I didn't care anymore. I really didn't. I had nothing, and she had even less than that.

She leaned against the wall beside where I was standing and slid to the floor. She pulled her knees and cried into the folds. I just looked at her. I wanted to hold her and hug her and tell her everything was going to be alright. But this time I couldn't…because honestly I didn't know what being alright was anymore.

I turned around, walked toward the front door, and slammed it behind me.

Track 22

F
or the next two days I was a zombie. Haneef called me a million times but not once did I answer the phone. I'm not sure if I was embarrassed, or I simply wasn't feeling it anymore. Truthfully, I couldn't tell if I was coming or going and really, I'm not sure I cared. I felt like…like, everything was lost. What had happened to the mornings where I would wake up and get everybody together, and yeah, maybe, deep down we all missed our mother and wished she was there, but I did what I had to do.

I really thought I had it together, but…I had nothing to show for it…nothing…

I turned over on my side, looked at Naja's wall that was covered with pictures we'd taken in downtown Newark in front of a spray painted backdrop which read Brick City, and cried myself to sleep.

“Elite.” I felt someone lightly shake my hip and when I turned over, I realized it was Neecy.

“Yes.” I rubbed my eyes.

“Someone's here to see you.”

“Okay.” I stretched, slid on my slippers, and dragged myself to the living room, where my mother was standing in the same clothes she had on two days ago, and her eyes looked as if she'd been crying that long.

I shook my head, looked toward the ceiling, and sucked my teeth. “Yeah,” I said, feeling an iron fist clog my throat. I was warring inside, trying to keep tears from falling from my eyes. “What do you want?” I snapped.

“How you doin'?” She nervously leaned from one foot to the next.

“Psst,” I frowned. “What, I need to tell you again how I'm doing? You didn't get it the last time we spoke? What'd you do? Get high and forget?”

“Lee-Lee,” she said, shocked.

“My name is Elite. Remember, you named me that,” I said sarcastically, “because you thought I was destined—or whatever that mess was you said—to be the best.”

“It wasn't mess.”

“Oh, yeah,” I grimaced. “I guess I was the best kid a crackhead could have. Hmph, seems we found something you did right.”

“Don't speak to me like that!” she snapped as tears formed in her eyes.

“Please.” I waved my hand as if I could care less. “Get on with it, what are you here for?!” I flopped down on the couch and crossed my arms. My stomach was doing backflips and for the first time in my life, I felt like if I never saw my mother again, it would be fine.

“Listen, I don't expect you to understand, but I have a lot of problems and things I've had to deal with that have nothing to do with you or your sisters and brothers.”

“Yeah…” I crooked my neck. “I couldn't tell.”

“Let me finish,” she said. I could tell I was trying her patience. “I have some plenty ugly things,” she continued, “that have happened in my life, and I didn't know…I really didn't know how to deal with them, so I turned to drugs—”

“Yeah, and ruined our lives.”

“I know that—I've always known that I wasn't a good mother, so I kept running away from reality. My reality, your reality, our reality. So to medicate and feel better, I stayed gone for days at a time. I got high—”

“So we're to blame for you getting high?” I couldn't believe this.

“No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I'm the mother and I never acted like one. I've done some things I'm not proud of. And maybe this is what it took, the twins and Mica in foster care, Ny'eem in jail, and you hating me. Maybe I needed this so that I could see how much help I really need.”

My throat was trembling; her saying this was the last thing I expected. Tears were clouding my eyes to the point where I could no longer see.

“And that's what I've decided to do. Get some help.”

“Uhm hmm,” was all I could say as I wiped my tears away. I was doing all I could to act tough, like I didn't care, but for some reason my emotions were defeating me.

“And I know you may never understand and you may never forgive me…and I'm not sure I even deserve your forgiveness or your love, but I'm determined to get some help, and this time, I'm getting help for me. No one else but me, and I can only pray that one day we'll be mother and daughter again.”

She stood there and stared at me as if she were expecting me to clap, run into her arms, or say that I understand or something, but instead I let my silence speak for me. I stood up from the sofa, wiped my face again, went into Naja's room, and slammed the door.

 

After replaying the argument I had with my mother over in my head at least a thousand times, I heard a soft knock on the door. “Elite.”

“Yes.”

“May I come in?”

“Yes.”

Neecy walked into the room and pointed to the bed. “You mind,” she said as she sat down on the edge of the bed, “if I speak to you for a minute?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good, 'cause I wanna talk to you about something.” She grabbed my hands and placed them between hers. Then she gave me a sly smile and closed one eye playfully. “Look, I try not to be nosy, but sometimes I am.”

I laughed a little, especially since I knew she was beyond nosy.

“And I just want you to listen, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I think you should really think about some of the things your mother said to you today, because I believe that she means it—”

“You don't know—”

“I said listen,” she said as she placed her index finger against my lips.

“I know she may have done some things to hurt you and maybe I don't know what it's like to have a mother on drugs, but I do know what it's like to have a father who's an alcoholic. Ever since I could remember, my father drank.” She closed her eyes as if she were fighting off a bad memory. “And he drank and he drank, and he drank so much that I often wondered if he knew who and where he was half of the time. And I'll tell you, Elite, he did some pretty bad things.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He would cuss us out, accuse me and brothers of things, you name it—he said we did it. And it took many, many years for him to realize he had a problem, and when he did, I wanted nothing to do with him.”

“You didn't?”

“No, and when he came to me to apologize and seek my forgiveness, do you know what I did?”

“What? Forgave him?”

“No. I told him I never wanted to see him again, that I hated him, and to get out of my life.”

“I know how you feel,” I said more to myself than to her.

“I'm sure you do, but not long after he came and apologized to me, he died, and I never got a chance to tell him that I forgave him. That I loved him and was only angry with him. I was hurt and I wanted to hurt him the same way he'd hurt me.”

“So,” I asked, scared of what her answer might be, “did you ever stop hurting?”

“Well…over the years, it's gotten better and I've learned to live with it, but who knows what would've happened had I forgiven him. Maybe the hurt would have gone away. But now I'll never have a chance to undo my telling him to get out of my life. You understand what I'm saying to you?”

“Yes. I guess…I never thought of it that way.”

She rose off the bed. “Well, maybe you should. Now while you get some rest, think about what I said. You've had a hard couple of days, but around here, I may let you miss one day of school, but two in a row is a no-no. Feel me?” she teased.

I laughed. “Yes, ma'am. I feel you.”