Laura sits on the back porch steps, waiting in the dark after dinner while Melissa’s in the bathroom. Her words get carried off gently by the scent of lavender on a light breeze. “Gee, how lucky can I be, just having Melissa?” She suddenly casts a glance behind her, toward the kitchen light behind the screen door. “Hmm. Ten minutes after dinner, and I’m hungry. Oh, pooh, no point in going for it. What a poor example if she finds me slurping a second dish of ice cream! What a really good mom I am! Is it selfish? She needs a mom who’s, what…? Well, what if I eat ice cream after she’s in bed? I feel so empty, I might eat two. No, what message is THAT? If a tree falls in the forest….Why am I torturing myself like this? How can that child be such an angel? Do I really deserve the joy she’s brought, no matter how I got….” She breaks off in alarm, hearing steps, and the screen door’s clack.
“I’m back, Mommie.” She sits beside Laura. Laura’s feet are on the walk, and Melissa’s on the first step, their ringside seat to an ocean of luminous dust, scattered onto inkiness by a cosmic hand. A cool breeze caresses, then hides, then ruffles hair, then sighs to nil, teasing them. Trees, mere shadows, lazily sway, and whisper, now and then.
Laura, transfixed, murmurs, “It’s so empty, so far to those stars. We’re so small, and so alone in the universe.”
“No we’re not, Mommie. I’m little, but you’re big. And we’re not alone. We’re sitting right here, together, Mommie.” She looks up in earnest, waiting.
“What would I do without you, Sweetie? You’re lucky, you live in Camelot.”
“No I don’t. I live in Omaha.”
Laura’s staring back at the stars again. “Yes, true. But kids live in a magical place, where dreams come true.” She looks down at Melissa. “My dolls would have tea parties with me there. And I could tell them if I was sad or scared.”
“Didn’t you tell your Mom?”
“No, sweetie.” Laura’s suddenly silent, her gaze captured by a certain star, for a long time. “No sweetie, I didn’t. I guess I should have. But I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know.” Maybe there was something wrong with me. Yes, I think maybe there was. That must have been it.” Laura looks oblivious, lost, and Melissa jumps up, urgently, and puts her arms around her Mom, who smiles weakly, and puts her arms around her daughter, draws back to look at her, and whispers, “Precious.” Then she stands, hands on hips, “Okay, time for bed. Special day tomorrow!”
Early the next afternoon, the sun slants onto the deeply scratched oak flooring, through dusty Venetian blinds. Two rickety card tables are pushed together, butcher paper is a kid-proof table cloth. “Melissa, look! We have birthday place mats! Put those out. Then I’ll give you the place cards for each of your friends. You can put out those, and cups for orange juice. And each place needs a paper plate and a fork and a spoon.”
“Mommie. Wait. Mommie, tell me two. Mommie. Just two things.”
“Melissa! You don’t know how lucky you are! To have a real Mom, instead of a caretaker.”
Melissa runs to her, and reached up, hugs her waist, very alarmed. “Mommie, it’s okay. I’ll do it. Tell me again.”
Flash of flustered urgency, “Oh sweetness, sorry, but we can’t let the Moms,…Wait till I get the place cards finished.” She concentrates, wielding a black marker, “B-r-a-n-d-o-n. “Okay, that’s the last one. Okay, just two things, placemats and cups. Here.” She hands Melissa the whole stacks of tattered blue-quilt mats and Happy Birthday paper cups, then turns to folding place cards.
“That’s too many, Mommie!”
“Melissa! Just bring me the rest when you put out eight,” she snapped. “Your guests are on their way. What will they think of us if we’re not ready?”
“Oh, Mommie. Okay. See? I can do this really fast. Three, … Look how fast, Mommie! Seven…Don’t get mad.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not mad.” She exclaims, folding the last card. Laura takes back unused place mats. “Okay, here are the cards, sugar.”
“One, two, three….there are only seven, Mommie.”
“Yes, you have seven guests.”
“And me!”
“Oh. Of course! I’ll make yours in red letters, instead of black. So everyone knows you’re the special one. Sweetie, everybody’s special on their birthday.”
“That’s the day you had me, Mommie, right?” Laura is stunned into a coughing fit so hard her eyes water. Amidst coughs she blurts,
“Yes, sweetie, that’s the day, when your loving Mommie had you.” She pulls a tissue from her apron pocket and blows her nose hard. “Here’s your special card, darling.” Melissa reverently lifts it, a thumb and index on each upper corner, then ceremoniously places it near the tan stain on her placemat. Laura smiles sunshine, with a tiny cloud.
“There.” Pure pride.
The doorbell immediately rings six times in a row, knocks beat up the door. Melissa’s eyes are saucers, Laura smiles beneath raised eyebrows. Melissa dashes to the door, and a blurred riot of multi-colored energy bursts into the room. Cacophony drowns the living room and submerges the waiting card tables and eight folding chairs.
“Kirk, slow down!” Jill yells at her son, over the din. “The balloon will wait for you.” Jason, his friend, spells out the name on a place card. Margaret, Jill’s daughter, shyly extends her arms, presents three gifts to Melissa, who plops them, and runs toward Laura.
“Mommie, Mommie, look what Margaret brought!” stabbing her index at the multicolored packages.
Now this is repeated: four more kids add to these first three, followed by Katherine and Anita, the other mothers, laughing merrily at all the tumult. Somehow, the four mothers manage to channel this fountain of youth to the table, produce hot dogs drowned in ketchup, which are inhaled by eight mouths starving for cake. A small parade of three moms, Anita, Katherine, and Laura emerges from the kitchen, marches toward Jill, Melissa, and the children. Anita sets down the cake, topped by seven flames.
Laura reads from it, “Happy Seventh Birthday to the Love of my Life.” Melissa flushes, from her hiding place behind her hands. Jill glances toward Anita, who shrugs a question mark. Anita starts “Happy Birthday,” and a rag-tag chorus joins.
Laura coaxes, “Go ahead, Melissa, blow out your candles!” Melissa strains, succeeds, and expectant tension bursts into applause. Presents get opened, a few games played. Party over, Anita has lingered with Sally, her daughter, and Brandon, Sally’s friend from next door. “Go ahead, Sally, you know I said it was all right.” Sally’s gazing back up at her.
“Okay.” Sally shifts to her friend. “Melissa, my Mom says you can come for dinner and a sleepover! Want to?”
“I thought Brandon was with you overnight,” Laura’s brow darkens.
“No, his folks are back in an hour or two,” Anita responds. Laura blushes.
Melissa, jumping up and down, exults, “Mommie, Mommie, can I go? A sleepover.”
Laura stiffens, “Melissa, I think we have things to do before church tomorrow, things to put away.”
“That’s not fair!!” Melissa shouts.
“Melissa, I’ll fix your favorite breakfast for dinner tonight, French toast, with real maple syrup.”
Melissa spits out, “French toast, poohey! I want Sally. You’re a really bad Mommie.”
Laura whips a forehand to Melissa’s left cheek. A light mark of four fingers quickly develops, like a photograph catching a crucial moment, emerging from blankness in the developer bath in a darkroom. Seeing this, Laura looks bewildered, staring at her own hands. She’s bleating, “Oh Melissa, we were supposed to be so happy, so happy. Not like my seventh birthday, when my Mom fired Bessie.
Sally blurts, “Mrs. Chambers! My mommie said good moms don’t….”
Anita’s glowering cuts Sally off wordlessly.
Melissa chants, “So happy. Smappy. Dappy!”
Laura turns pink.
“You are so lucky. Listen, I took you when your mo….Oh!” Her hand flew up to her mouth. “Okay, look, you just don’t know how lucky you are, sweetheart. Sometimes when we’re little, we don’t understand everyth…..”
Anita herds her pair, “Come on, Sally, Brandon, we better leave Mrs. Chambers and Melissa to their discussion. I’ll be in touch, Laura.
Laura runs to Anita, “Oh, wait,….please!”
Anita is backing away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
Laura quavers, “Oh, my, Anita, you know, right? That’s not me. Never in my life….right, Melissa?”
Melissa is stony, watching Sally, Brandon, and Anita disappear..
The two stand wordlessly for an eternal minute before Laura dashes to the door, shouting, “Wait, maybe….” Anita is busy backing her car into the street.
Laura returns to Melissa, greeted by a frown and protruding lower lip, and says, “Okay, dinnertime. I promise a sleepover before two weeks.” Melissa folds her arms and turns her back to Laura.
“I don’t want dinner. I hate presents. I hate you.”
Laura walks around and leans down, whispers, “I’ll start the French toast, then we can go to your room.” She stands, continuing more audibly, “We’ll have to find some places for your presents.”
“I’m not hungry. I’m going to bed!” Melissa hisses. She stalks off, arms still folded imperiously. Seven year-old hauteur slams her door.
As she tenderly lays lacy-brown slices on the pristine white platter, Laura gazes softly on them, for a long moment. She blinks, triggering little pools to jump their pink banks, and freely course silently down her cheeks. She wipes her cheeks, walking down the hall, murmuring, “Gee, I wonder what Bessie would do, now?” She knocks at Melissa’s door.
Muffled, through the door, “Go away! I’m sleeping!”
A wan smile. “Okay, sweetheart. I’m coming in to check on you while you’re sleeping.” She slips in, approaches the outraged child, and caresses her hair.
“Get away!”
“Precious. Calm down, you were wanting to sleep. You need to calm down so you can sleep.”
“Stop patting me!” She shoves Laura’s hand away. Laura stifles trying again.
“Incorrigible!…..Mom said I was.” Her face is down in her hands. She wails, “Oh, no, no, no, no.” Pause. Then pleads, “But I loved Bessie patting me!”
“Well I don’t.”
“Melissa, this is for you.”
“Melissa, this is for you too blue goo!”
“Well, I’m not eating all by myself. You come, even if you just sit there.”
“You can’t make me eat.” She’s shaking, fierce. She roughly throws back her hair with a sweep of both hands at once.
“Well, if you don’t, I think you’ll be pretty hungry during the night.” Now Laura is voracious at her French toast, silently gobbling quarters at a time, while Melissa’s pointedly scowling at nothing so much as the window over the sink. She seems not to notice herself pulling her paper napkin into small flecks. “Melissa, sweet, you must be hungry.”
Melissa’s puffy, red eyes glare, as she throws down the remains of her napkin, hurls her slice of French toast to the floor, and dashes back to her room. Laura, looking dismal, finally pushes herself up from the table, absently pours from the hot kettle into her mug. She stirs in a little decaf. She sits with her i phone, hits “Bessie” in “contacts.” “Bessie, it’s me, Laura.”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘course I know, Laura, what you doin’ callin’ ol’ Bessie at dinnertime, girl? What time where you are? Mus’ be seven o’clock. Mus’ be lil’ Melissa’s bedtime?”
“Bessie. I had to call. Did you get the check this month?”
“Like always. You’re Mama turnin’ over in her grave, she knew you sendin’ ol’ Bessie two cents! Specially her two cents! I bein’ grateful, you know I do, Laura. I be on Los Angeles streets if you not sendin’ me that grand a month. We both lucky you got enough? You do, don’t you?”
“I don’t live like I do, Bessie. Not even close. But that’s you, always worrying about me, Bessie. Well, tonight,…” she breaks into soft sigh-sobs, then in a tiny squeak, “It’s Melissa, Bessie. She hates me. I deserve it. I got so mad.”
“Now, Laura, she don’t hate you. You know, you’re a good one. Ain’t one of us creatures of the Lord who don’t get mad. You the one who shows her. We all gotta be big, know what I’m sayin? She need you more than you need her.”
“No, Bessie, No. I need her more than life itself.” She’s choking as her tear-stained voice manages, “I hit her. Oh, God! Bessie, I’m a monster! I hit her, slapped her. What kind of a…..?” And she breaks into eloquent soft gasps. She quiets while Bessie waits. “I got so mad, I almost…I almost told her.”
“Most time, honey, the truth is what we need. And then there’s them times it can throw us right down, right to Satan, y’ know? When you little, the truth can dang near kill you, you know what I mean, girl? But Laura, honey. That hittin,’ y’ know, that aint right. You don’t want her takin’ that into herself, sweetie.”
“That’s what’s killing me, Bessie. Right in front of Anita, I hit her. She was being so bad!”
“Honey, that chile aint bad, and you not neither.”
I promised Naomi before she died I wouldn’t ever let Melissa go back to her father. But I feel like a fugitive, out here in Omaha. He could find me. She was always telling me how he was a brute and stuff. But she was just like Mom, a cold lawyer . So, how do I know if this guy was so bad? Maybe he’s really okay. Then I’m the bad one.”
“Well, now, that gotta be eatin’ on you. You got somethin’ to work out, there, darlin’. But, honey, to her, you her Mamma. Now, girl, you don’t tell her. You know how it is. She think you her Mamma. She never knew nobody else.”
“Well, I knew somebody else, my real Mom. And I vote for you. Not her. And not Anna.”
Tha’s the truth! Yo’ Mamma got that new, lawyer student of hers takin’ care o’ you an your ol’ Bessie was gone. We all God’s children, you know, girl. Your Mamma, y’ know, precious. She come around. Why, she put you in for all them millions, after all, once you got rehabbed. She still love you even after all that crack, and you runnin’ around with all them boyfriends. Even she love you, God rest her. She just come around too late for herself, sweetie. Close onto too late for you. Now you remember, God loves you, Bessie loves you, your real Mamma come to love you, and you love Melissa, sweetie. You’re ol’ Bessie believe in you. Way deep down, you one of God’s children, like us all. He tries us, honey, he tries us real hard, sometimes. He want us to love, and be strong. You gettin’ strong, Laura, you getting’ real strong. You got to take it. And I know you got it. You sometimes real mad at me, when you little, you remember.”
“Really? No. I don’t remember that. I’ve always loved you, Bessie.”
“O’ course. But gettin’ mad part of life. And, you know, I always love you, mad or not, sweetheart, just like the Lord do. He want us to find our way. Melissa, she findin’ her way, and you can do it, I know you can do it, precious. You findin’ your way, now, too.”
“Oh Bessie. You know just what I need. It’s like magic.”
“Darlin’ jus’ like she need. Aint’ no magic, girl. Just a eighty-seven year-old black girl spoutin’ God’s wisdom. It come through me, y’ know. It just come through me. We all vessels of the Lord. You too. And don’t you forget it.”
“Not today, I wasn’t, Bessie. Bessie, all my life, when I’ve needed some courage, some kinda help, there you are. I never would have made it through rehab without you. I’m so glad for you. If I gave you all the money in the world, it wouldn’t pay for all you’ve been for me.”
“Well, sweetie, just them lovin’ words is the best kinda music to these old black ears. When you lovin,’ the love in the whole world grows. That is what the Lord shows us. This old soul gettin’ tired. You done now, love?”
“Maybe I can go back and face her, now, Bessie. Thank you. I needed this. Okay, sleep tight, bye.”
“Good night, dearie.” And the red button is gone.
She grunts each time she stoops, first to throw away fragments, plopping them into the olive-green plastic garbage container amidst dish soap, sponges, and Softscrub in the under-sink cabinet. Then again, with wet towels, then dry ones, making circles so slow they last forever. The floor is clean again. Finally, bowed in heaviness, Laura slides her index through the mug handle, trudges with it to her room, reaches to the back of her sweater drawer, unearths the carton of cigarettes, deeply stashed. She fetches the soap dish, laying the soap aside, and with a deep sigh, plunges into the noisy recliner, pulling out a Newport, her Bic, and takes a first deep drag. Soon, she sighs out a world-weariness reeking of smoke as she squashes the last quarter inch, in the soap dish by the mug advertising “Best Mom”. She strains up from the recliner, tips the soap dish over the toilet, flushes the butt into oblivion, runs water, scrubs out ashes, as if this soap dish had never hosted ashes. She switches off the exhaust fan, sucking all that smoke clear out of her room. She collapses back, upright, into that wheezy recliner. She drums her fingernails on the bedside table, near the red heart on the “Best Mom” cup. Her drumming slows, and her eyes brim. She resignedly casts her white terrycloth bathrobe, with its stains and hanging threads, onto the recliner, and in one deft move pivots to swing her legs up and covers herself for the night. Shadows slide along the wall, accompanying the swish of the occasional car. She rolls to her left side, for a moment. Pause. Then she suddenly throws herself around to her right side, heaves a noisy sigh, and slouches slowly to her back, staring at the ceiling. Next thing she knows she wakens, the red numbers read 1:23, and she’s buzzing with energy. “Oh Shit.” Up she jumps, dons the bathrobe, and stalks toward the kitchen.
A furtive Melissa crouches over partly crushed pieces of French toast, swimming in a quarter cup of maple syrup. The open microwave, with food spots like the measles, illumines her small figure, barefoot in pajamas. Laura switches on the overhead light. Her tear-streaked child flips up the yellow vinyl print table cloth, concealing her plate of food.
“What are you eating?” Laura draws away the syrup-streaked table cloth. “That looks like the one I threw away.”
“Mommie, Mommie, I’m sorry. I’m eating it. But it was a secret.”
“Melissa, please! You mean you took that out of the garbage? “
Melissa nods, with imploring eyes.
“You could get sick!” You can eat some, but there’s some in the refrigerator that wasn’t on the floor.”
“I had to eat the thrown-away one. I couldn’t have a clean one.”
She leans down and looks straight at Melissa. “You don’t just hide things because you think they’re bad. You’re a good little girl. You don’t need to hide anything. Some people really do have something to hide.”
“Do you?”
Laura bolts upright. Then with a dazed look into the distance, she murmurs, “Maybe a while ago, everything, but not now, honey, not now.” Melissa looks puzzled. Now, Laura takes the plate, dumps the excess syrup in the sink, and re-discards the crushed fragments. Her eyes are red, and she’s still moving slowly.
Melissa looks alarmed, runs to Laura, who leans down to welcome her, and Melissa throws her arms ‘round Laura’s neck. “I’m sorry, Mommie. I was bad.” She’s trying really hard.
Laura’s shoulders drop, “Here, Melissa,” and pulls the last piece from the refrigerator, passing it into the microwave. “We’ll make it nice and warm for you.” She manages a tepid smile, serves Melissa, morsel and syrup. Melissa eats, hunched down again, peeking up now and then. Laura sits, reaches to stroke Melissa’s messy hair, thinks better of it, and, just beaming, croons, “Melissa, my dear, you are such a love, you are such a love!”
“Thank you, Mommie, I love you, too,” Melissa half echoes, mechanically. They each depart for their rooms, Melissa first. Then Laura arms herself with a hopeful smile, peeks her head into Melissa’s room on her way to her own room and, soon, bed.
She timidly whispers, “Good night.” But there is no response. And Laura lets it be.