Crave (6 page)

White Wash
White Wash

My hospital room seemed to have been bleached around me. My body, sprawled across the middle of the railed bed, was the only splotch of color in the room. Sedated and cloaked by a plastic curtain, I resembled a sleeping doll in cellophane. The first few days, I barely moved. Fed through IVs, my thin frame grew portly. Creases trapped between rolls of infant chub appeared faster than they had on the evaporated milk Momma fed me. Watching was all Momma could do. She couldn't feed me, couldn't hold me with all the tubes and needles hanging from my body. There were times when the nurses weren't looking that she'd climb behind the tent with me, lower her head to my chest, and feel my breath against her cheek. Some days, she conducted her own examinations, starting with my fingers, plucking imaginary dirt from my nails, nipping at the frayed edges with her teeth. Then she tended my feet, where she rubbed each pinprick seated in a blue blemish, and marveled at the patchwork of congealed blood on my heels. Then my head, where she used fingers to part hair, massaging each line as she twined clumps of strands into plaits along the landscape of my scalp. Throughout her tending, I remained motionless on her round stomach, oblivious to the care I was given.

All was quiet with Momma and me in that hospital room. Not even a history existed behind the plastic wall. There, she was not my father's wife, his punching bag, nor his cash register. She was not eighteen and soon to be the mother of four minus one. She was a nurse, a nurturer, things so easy to be when all is quiet.

That is why I think my sister died. Too much noise. She might have made it if she'd have lived behind a tent like I did. I sometimes dream of her, the one who is dead, and I see her inside Momma, rushed to the hospital, doctors barking orders, white all around swallowing her existence. Momma must have cried the same tears,
averted the same discerning eyes, but with a profoundly different outcome. I am here. She is not. That baby, my big sister, a casualty before birth. Momma reminds me I would not have been conceived if she had lived. I owe her my life, this girl I do not know.

I was seven when I first learned of my sister's death and I felt immense guilt, as if my living had stolen life from her. I feared my spirit had celebrated from the Heavens, knowing her death meant life for me. Once I learned of her passing, I set out to right the wrong I was certain I'd caused. My job was to give her life even though she'd never had breath. I gave her an identity; she was my twin. And a name; she was LaTanya. I worked to see her running with me through grass, heading to the bus stop on chilly mornings, but she was never there. I tried to imagine us, together, playing house and combing the hair of the one doll we shared, but only my hands tangled through the doll's hair.

No matter how I tried, no amount of rewinding could undo LaTanya's brief existence; one in which Momma's insides churned with hunger while she sat quietly, pressing the side of her belly. My brother, Champ, barely one-year-old, sat next to Momma on the floor. Hungry too, he rocked side to side, gumming his lips as if they were something to be savored.

There was no food for Momma, which meant there was no milk for him. When water mixed with the last of the sugar didn't satisfy, Momma let him gnaw on her nipples even though they were dry. She sat in a chair, one of the only furnishings left in their sparse apartment, waiting for my father to come home. He had not been at work, nor had he been running errands. Rather he'd been riding life from one woman, one party, one drink to the next. Momma's home, his family, was the pit stop he slammed into only after his wheels had worn off and his body was dented past the point of function.

Despite his less than pristine condition, he was the man she'd married, which meant he was Champ's daddy since he'd graciously given his name. Now, he was not so gracious. He had not lived in the titles of
daddy
nor
husband
since Champ was born.

Momma heard the door pull open. The incoming cold sucked the warm out of the room. My father's frazzled frame chilled the space even more. He wore a Kangol hat, unfashionably tilted to the back. His skin, the color of cigarette ashes, was dry. The whites of his eyes were a rusted red. His lips held a cigarette pressed between them. His pants, once a sandy beige, were decorated with dark, camouflage-like splotches. He wore a striped shirt, one that used to be too small, which now draped over him like a poncho. He saw Momma sitting in front of the door, straightened, and then pressed one shoulder into the space behind him. He fingered his Kangol, slipped the lip to the front, turned his head to the side, and smiled.

“Hey Lois,” he cooed, as he slunk to her and placed his hands on both arms of the chair, becoming a living cage around Momma. He leaned in, went for a kiss on the lips, even as Momma's hands were raised and her head pressed into the fabric of the chair. He kissed her anyway, tongued her neck, stuck his hand down her shirt and asked, “Did you miss me?”

When his kisses weren't returned, he clamped his hands around her wrists, raised her body to his, fixed one hand on the small of her back, and held her other arm in place. They danced. He swung her around the room, as her feet slid in objection across the hardwood floor. She arched her back outward, attempted to bend away at the waist, but his grip was stronger than her opposition. Finally, her body went limp. That, he found less entertaining, so he hustled her back to the chair. Then he found a new partner, Champ, whom he raised over his head and swung around the room. A squelch exited Champ's mouth. Not finished with the crying that had occupied him minutes before, his body stiffened and tears covered his face. Momma grabbed at my father and jumped to reach her son. Carl laughed, amused by what he deemed her aspirations to rejoin.

He welcomed her back to the dance. The higher she jumped, the higher he held Champ. Eventually, he was holding him with one hand, arm fully extended, over his and Momma's head. She continued jumping, reaching, afraid Carl would decide to play keep-away even though there was no one on the other side to catch.

The jumping dance continued until his arm cramped. Annoyed with his own amusement, he went to Momma and slapped her across her face. Accustomed to his beatings, she did not cry, so he slapped Champ in the face and pulled tears from her that way. Momma screamed until he lobbed Champ into her arms, rubbed his belly, and asked, “What's to eat?”

Momma, watching him through the slits of her eyes, saw a shadow of the man she'd loved so briefly, the one who'd courted her at Cradock High despite the fact that she was pregnant, the one who'd spoken to Champ in her belly with a tenderness that made her envious. During the earlier days, when they shared lunch in the school library, where they read poems he'd written, he begged softly for a kiss and promised he'd take care of her.

Less than two years later, he'd grown into a lanky, drunken man who broke everything he touched.

“What's to eat?” Momma responded. “Where is the money I gave you?”

He did not look at her as he opened and closed the refrigerator door.

“What money?” he said as he checked the cabinets and donned that smile again.

“The last of the money we had.”

“Oh, that money,” he said, this time with a laugh and no smile. “I lost it on the way to the store.”

Momma thought of the fives, tens, and twenties that should have been littering the sidewalks of Portsmouth, Virginia. He'd lost money, time, wedding vows, and memories. More of him was lost than she'd ever found.

“Carl, you know that money was for food. I pray you didn't drink it up again,” she said.

“Look, girl, I was just having some fun. Ain't nobody drinking nothing up.” He said this as he slid toward her. “Lois, you so serious, gotta learn to live hard, girl, 'cause when you get old, you gone be soft.” He accented his last sentence with a thrust and a wind of his pelvis.

“This is not funny, Carl,” she said. “We have no food.” She rubbed her belly. “Champ is hungry.” She pointed at him on the floor. “I am tired.” She pulled her hand through her hair. “And I am alone.” With that, her hand went to her face to stop tears she did not want to fall. “All I have is two dollars and that is only enough to buy milk. I can't take this anymore. I'm sick. The baby's sick and I can't even count on you to go to the store.”

“Give me the money,” he said with a grin. “I'll go to the store.” She initially intended to ask him to go, but once he volunteered, she knew she couldn't give him her last two dollars. Before she could say “no,” he shot into the bedroom.

They raced to the dresser and squared off.

“I'll be right back,” he claimed. “I'm just gonna flip it and make more.” Momma wanted to believe him, but his “flipping,” rather than multiplying, had always divided. After so many times, she knew what could be flour, rice, and navy beans would be poured down his throat. He was still playing, laughing, and smiling as he pleaded. But it was not a real smile, not a real laugh. A jagged snigger snaked out of his throat. He pushed her from the drawer. Momma bounced back with each shove. He laughed, as the bounce became part of the game. He finally granted her entry into the drawer. She grabbed the money and clenched it behind her. He reached, pressing his body against hers, rubbing his hands up and down her thighs and around her chest as she cried, “Stop playing, Carl.” But he was not playing anymore. He wanted her, tears and all, on the bed under him.

He pulled her from the dresser, as she caged herself behind her arms. She thrust all of her power against him with her belly. He fell to the bed. She fisted the money, stuffed it under her breast and turned to see his smile, the real one and fake one slathered together in a scowl. She knew then he didn't want her anymore. He just wanted the money and he wanted her to shut up.

Her heart thumped too heavily in her chest. She felt it in her neck, in her temple, in her belly. Cramps tightened with each beat. The baby inside thrashed violently. I sometimes wonder if LaTanya
were gasping for amniotic air or bracing for what was to come. Momma, wailing, ordered him to leave, and warned she'd call his parents, Ms. Mary and Mr. Frank, if he didn't act right.

An image of his father, green eyes, red whites, slurring words, and his mother's arms crossed around herself, a hug meant for him holding her together, angered him even more. Hands flailing, he paced the room, stopped, looked at her, pointed, screamed something incomprehensible, and charged toward her, pressing her back into the dresser. He clamped her forearm and began turning, turning, turning, as if he were wringing out a washrag. Momma's arm remained wrapped around her breasts and her belly. When he released her, his hand impressions were hot against her flat skin. Despite the pain, she held on to the two dollars.

“Lois,” he said her name repeatedly, as if it were a nail he could tap flat.

“I have to feed Champ, Carl,” she said. “I got to get some food for the house.”

“Give me the damn money, Lois,” he snarled. Spittle sprinkled the side of her face. Momma trembled, shut her eyes, moved her lips in a silent prayer. Her closed lids lapped tears eager to carve lines down her cheeks. He shook her and pushed her to the floor. She choreographed a landing on the softest part of her, clutching her stomach, curling into the fetal position.

He snatched the money while she lay twisted on the floor. She scrambled to her feet and chased him to the door, coming away with a fistful of air as she grabbed for his shirt. When she tried again, she connected, grabbed his arm and twirled him around to her. His face held no anger, no sadness, just emptiness, which revealed how far from her he had grown. Momma knew then that he had it in him to hurt her and sprung back. But, it was too late.

He grabbed her arms, turned both of their bodies, and hurled her down the stairs like a sack off a bridge. She thumped heavily, her fluttering arms reaching, without success, for the banister. Her face contorted into a soundless scream. When there was the final
thud that denoted the falling was done, she lay sprawled there, hands on her stomach. My father looked down from the top of the stairs, toppled down, stepped over her, and walked out of the door.

Later, after Carl and the money were gone, while Momma made another bottle of water for Champ, she vomited. She was too late in her pregnancy for morning sickness and there was nothing to expel anyway. Still, her stomach turned into a blender, crunching her insides. She went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, waited for something to come out. Then there was a plop, but the expected feeling of release and relief did not follow. Then another and another. Then just red drops diving past water's surface. She gripped the side of the toilet with both hands. If it hadn't been porcelain, the seat would have molded to her grip. Another jolt, one that made her stand as if her body were called to attention. Blood ran down Momma's legs like rivers to a red ocean. Her brown thighs were the canvas, and the blood, in lines and clumps, sketched patches of life along her skin.

Momma later woke in the hospital. She sat in the bed, pressing her belly, trying to see if any parts of my sister were still there. Blood pouring from her body, the call for help, the ride to the hospital, the news her baby had died were all clear memories that could not belong to her. She imagined them suspended in air, waiting to be picked up by someone else. She pressed her flat belly. It had never been large and round like most mothers'. It had always had that not pregnant, just full look, so “she” could still be there, hiding, waiting to see if it was safe to come out.

People passed Momma's door, but no one came in. Her thoughts went to Champ as she wondered whether he had something to eat. Worry turned to guilt as a nurse brought her a tray of food: Jell-O, green beans, chicken and rice, grape drink with foil covering, and milk. Momma looked at the food, breathed in its aroma. She could taste each morsel through her nose. That meal cost more than the two dollars Carl took and it alone could have fed them for days if she managed it right.