Call Me Tuesday (6 page)

12

When it was time for me to return to school in September, I was sure my life would get back to normal. But it didn’t. Every day as soon as I got home, Mama met me at the door and ordered me to go to my usual spot outside her bedroom, and stand with my face to the wall.

One afternoon she decided she would get up and prepare a fried chicken supper for the family. She had me follow her to the kitchen, and stand behind her, across the room facing the wall.

When I was sure she was busy at the stove, I took a chance and turned around so I could see her. I knew I’d be in trouble if she caught me, but I loved watching her cook. To me, it was like wizardry when she lifted the lids from the pans and the puffs of steam rose. She could perform wondrous acts in the kitchen, like turn grease into gravy, or put a liquid batter in the oven, and minutes later pull out a cake.

She looked good that day, almost like before her accident. She had changed out of her gown into snug black pants and a simple, peach, button-down blouse that she’d tied up in a high knot around her waist. She could get by with dressing a bit on the sexy side, because even after four kids, she had kept her tiny waist and her full, taut bottom.

Daddy said she’d been built even better when they first starting dating. “I could put my hands completely around her waist with room to spare,” he had once said proudly, as he formed a circle in the air with his long fingers. “I was the envy of every man in town. Every guy I knew wanted to go out with Rosie, but she picked me.”

The air in the tiny kitchen was dense with steam, and rich with the scent of Mama’s cooking. I inhaled deeply and took in her every movement. She jabbed a chicken leg with a fork, suspended it above the frying pan to allow some of the grease to drain, and then transferred it onto a plate lined with paper towels.

She made the best fried chicken. It was super crunchy with a hint of sweetness, and the batter had a spicy kick to it. Daddy claimed it was the best in Spring Hill, if not in entire the state of Tennessee. She used a family recipe passed down from her grandmother, to her mother, to her, that was so sacred, no one had ever written it down. She’d let me help her make chicken before, and I knew she dipped it in buttermilk, and double-battered it, but even I didn’t know the secret spices. She had promised to tell me someday.

Piece by piece, she pulled all the fried chicken from the pan, and then she scraped the crusty bits of batter that had stuck to the bottom, preparing to make the gravy from the drippings. She scooped some flour out of a canister and sprinkled it into the pan, and the hot grease hissed. When she added cold milk, it purred.

While the gravy simmered, she whipped up some cornbread batter and then dumped it into a cast-iron skillet. As she was bending over to put the cornbread into the oven to bake, something, possibly a small sound, or maybe the curious, uneasy sensation you get when you think someone is watching you, made her turn around.

Quickly I turned my face to the wall again. But it was too late; I had already been caught. I heard the oven door slam, and in the next instant, felt the hair on one side of my head being pulled. I saw the brown specks in the floor rushing toward me, and then my cheek smacked hard against cold linoleum.

“Weren’t you supposed to have your face turned to the wall?” she asked.

I didn’t answer her; I was too stunned from the fall. But when she started for me again, I somehow found the words. “Yes, Mama! Yes!”

She reached down and grabbed me by the hair again, this time with both her hands, one on each side of my head, and lifted me up from the floor. I could hear my scalp crunching as she drew me in to her, close, until my nose was almost touching hers, until I could feel her breath, hot and moist on my skin. “Well, then, why were you watching me?”

“I love you, Mama! Please don’t be mad at me anymore!”

“Since you like watching me so much, do it now!” she screamed. The veins in her temple turned purple and bulged, as if they might burst at any minute.

As she held me there in front of her, with my face less than an inch from hers, my legs dangling, I looked into her amber eyes, and they reminded me of the eyes of a lioness. I was so scared I began to shake all over. “Let me down!” I pleaded. “I’m sorry, Mama, I won’t do it again!”

She dropped me to the floor. “You’re damn right, you won’t do it again.” she said, plucking strands of my hair from between her fingers.

She stood and stared at me for a minute, and then said, “Do you want to know what you
really
did wrong?” Her voice was husky, and her jaw was clenched so tight she had to squeeze the words through her teeth. “You were born, that’s what!”

She kicked me in the side, and a wave of nausea shot through my body. I saw her pull her leg back to kick me again. I coiled into a ball, tucked my head and knees in to my chest, and tensed all my muscles.

“On top of that, you were born ugly!” She kicked me and screamed, “Go away! Why won’t you just go away?”

With every thrust of her foot, my body rocked, and then slid, rocked and slid across the kitchen, inches at a time. Finally, my back hit the table, toppling a bowl of wax fruit onto the floor. Apples, pears, and bananas bounced all around me, sending hollow echoes through the room.

All of a sudden, she spun around on one heel, and marched toward the back door. I pulled my body in tight, into the hardest ball I could manage and watched, as in a single, swift motion, she lifted the flyswatter from its hook by the door, and with the wire handle first, reared it behind her head, and made a running lunge for me.

Instinctively I brought my hands up to protect my face. I felt the wire slice across my forearms. I pushed one hand forward to block the next blow, leaving part of my face exposed. The wire hit my mouth, and I screamed.

As if my screaming had enraged her even more, she broke into a barrage of blows. The flyswatter came at me from every direction, landing on my shoulders, back, and arms. I rolled from side to side, trying to find some padding to put between me and the wire, but I was a skinny kid, and no matter where it landed, it hit bone.

The blows tapered off. She gave the last two everything she had left. “I hate you!” She spat the words as if they tasted bitter on her tongue. “I wish you’d never been born! If you’d never been born, my angel would still be alive!”

Finally, there it was—the reason for her anger toward me. I uncovered my eyes. “What?” I asked.

She stood over me looking at the flyswatter in her hand, now bent in half, as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there. “You heard me. Now get out of my sight!” she yelled. “Go to bed…and stay there until I say you can get up!”

I scrambled to my knees and scooted across the kitchen toward my bedroom. As I bent forward I felt something wet and warm oozing through the crevice of my lips. A red drop splattered the floor in front of me. I wiped it up with my hand, and caught another before it landed.

When I made it to my room, I stood and ran to my bed and got in. Mama slammed the door shut behind me.

With my fingers I gently explored the tender, puffy tissue of my mouth until I found the source of the blood, a small slit in the fleshy part of my upper lip. I wiped my face and chin on the inside of my shirt collar until the bleeding stopped.

As I lay there, I tried not to think about what had happened in the kitchen. But every time I shut my eyes to sleep, my mind deceived me. Mama’s angry face, and the sound of the wire thrashing against my bones, flashed through my head over and over like scenes from a scary movie.

I tried to reason it away, to convince myself that she was only angry, and hadn’t meant it when she said she hated me. Since the accident, she was more easily riled. I had grown accustomed—we’d all grown accustomed—to her frequent fits. I calmed down by thinking her rage had spurned her hateful words, not her heart, and that she would never say such mean things to me again.

Had it not been for what she said, I may have stored the entire incident away somewhere deep in my subconscious, unprocessed. With time it may have even faded into history. But what she had said changed everything. It was proof she thought I was the one to blame for Audrey’s death, and the reason why she had been punishing me.

I defended myself, to myself.
I wasn’t the only one in the house who had the flu. How is she sure it was my fault Audrey got sick? Does she know about the bubblegum? If she does, how did she find out? Did she see it on the nightstand and figure it out for herself? Did Audrey rat on me before she died?

I tossed and turned in bed.
None of it matters anyway because even if I did kill Audrey, it wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t know for sure I had the flu. When Mama gets over her anger and pain, she will realize the truth and forgive me, like she did with Jacque. But what is the truth? Is the truth that I wanted Audrey dead, and then made it happen? That whether I meant to or not, it
’
s still because of me that she
’
s gone?

Mama called out that supper was ready, and the boys ran past my room on their way to the kitchen. I heard their chairs drag across the floor when they sat at the table. Daddy would not be eating with the family, because he was working late. His job as coach of the Spring Hill High School football team often called him away at night to attend ball practices and games.

Soon I heard forks scraping against plates, and ice rattling around in glasses, as Mama and the boys ate their supper. I pictured the platter of fried chicken piled high with crispy wings, thighs, and breasts, glistening with salt and grease, and the mound of mashed potatoes with creamy milk gravy. My stomach ached and rumbled, begging for food.

To get my mind off of eating, I looked around my room, and was struck by how empty it had become. For the past couple of weeks, since Mama had become mad at me, I had noticed my toys had begun to disappear. My Barbie dolls were the first to go, then one by one my troll collection.

As the room darkened, my eyes were drawn to the few glints of sun escaping the blinds of the window. I stared at the slivers of light and watched them grow dim and then finally disappear. Gradually the smell of Mama’s fried chicken was gone too, and I knew with it went my chances of getting anything to eat.

In the dark I listened to all the usual sounds the family made in the evenings: Mama gathering and washing the supper dishes, my brothers scuffling around in their bedroom.

Before long I heard Mama coming up the hallway. I could always recognize the cadence of her walk—soft, but fast and deliberate.

She’s coming to tell me she’s sorry.

She stopped in front of my bedroom. As she opened the door, the light from the hall surrounded her, marking the familiar curves of her silhouette. Without making a sound, she stood there in the doorway, her face shadowed by the dark room in front of her. For those few seconds, with the pure optimism only a child could have, my heart held on to the possibility that she hadn’t meant what she had said in the kitchen, that she had come to soothe my wounds.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said. “Can I get up now? I’m hungry.”

She pulled a towel from the linen closet in the hallway and tossed it to me. “Here, take this and clean your face,” she said.

“Please, Mama,” I cried out to her. “Please don’t be mad anymore. I love you!”

She turned and left, pulling the door to behind her. The darkness swallowed her up, along with all the light, all but one thin line that shone through the crack under the door. In the slice of light, I watched her shadow skim across the floor, until it was gone.

She and the boys settled in for the night in front of the television set in her bedroom. Crying, I listened to the distant drone of their voices, broken by occasional bursts of laughter, until I drifted off to sleep.

13

I awoke to the sound of the front door opening. My heart leaped. Daddy was home.

Nick and Jimmy D. met him as soon as he came in the house. Jimmy D. said in a low, urgent voice, “Tuesday did something bad again, and Mama spanked her really hard.”

I heard Daddy walking up the hallway, taking his usual long strides. The door to my bedroom opened. I kept my eyes shut, but I was aware of the light from the hall shining across my face. Through cracked eyelids, I watched him walk in and turn in the direction of my bed.

As he approached me, I pretended like I was asleep. I wanted to appear innocent, like a sleeping angel, not an evil killer. I wanted him to see the cut on my lip, and the bloody towel by my head, and to feel sorry for me. I wanted him to get mad at Mama for hurting me, plenty mad. Mad enough to jerk her up from bed and demand an explanation.

He knelt on the floor beside me. With his hand he brushed the hair away from my face. I winced when his thumb found a fresh knot on my forehead that I hadn’t been aware of. “Honey, you awake?” he whispered.

I couldn’t pretend any longer. I sprang up, wrapped my arms around his neck, and buried my face into his shoulder, inhaling the sweet, spicy scent of his cologne.

“Just wanted to say good night,” he said.

I told him what had happened earlier with Mama, and about what she had said.

He held me in his arms to comfort me. “Try not to pay much attention when your mama says crazy things like that,” he said. “She hasn’t been in her right mind since the accident.”

He held me a few minutes longer, and promised me he would have a talk with her.

“It’s late, honey; time to go to sleep,” he said, laying me down. “I’ll come back and see you in the morning.”

As he had said he would, he went to Mama about my injuries. He didn’t jerk her out of bed like I had hoped, but they did have an argument. I could hear curse words being thrown back and forth between them. I got up and tiptoed across the room to the door so I could better hear what they were saying.

“How did Tuesday get the big bump on her head?” Daddy asked.

“She defied me…and so I spanked her.” Mama said, like it was no big deal.

“And the cut on her lip?”

“I don’t know. She must have hit it on something. You’ve seen how she flinches and dodges me when I’m trying to discipline her.”

“What could she have cut it on?”

“What are you trying to insinuate? You have no idea what happened, because you weren’t here. You’re never here to help with the kids anymore, so stay out of it!”

“Why are you harder on her than the other kids?” Daddy fired back.

“I’m
not
harder on her!” she shouted. “I’m not going to sit here and let you accuse me of being a bad mother.”

I heard the mattress springs squeak, signaling that Mama was getting up, and then she came storming down the hall. I raced back to my bed before she got to my door. When she passed by, I shuddered because I was afraid she might attack me again. But more than anything else, I was afraid Daddy would one day find out what I had done, and turn against me too.