She stopped and touched my arm.
“I don’t know how much you know about what happened here.”
“I don’t know much. She left my daddy and me and ran off with someone.”
“I see.”
She hesitated and then, from the look I saw in her eyes, decided she had to be truthful, even to someone as young as I was.
“Your mother tried to commit suicide,” she told me.
“Suicide? We didn’t know that.”
“I did leave a message for your aunt.”
I shook my head.
“She never told me,” I said more to myself than Doctor Young.
“It’s not uncommon to see patients with problems like this get this depressed and try to take their own lives.”
“What did she do?”
“She cut her wrists with a ballpoint pen, but fortunately, an attendant was nearby and we were able to prevent serious consequences. At the moment she’s quite withdrawn. It’s not uncommon, given the drugs, the alcohol.”
“Nothing seems to be uncommon,” I commented.
She stared at me a moment and then nodded.
“I’m just trying to prepare you. You don’t look that old,” she said as we continued. “With whom do you live now?”
“I was living with my aunt.”
“Your aunt? But I thought… I mean, as I said, we’ve tried to get her to call us. Does she know you’ve come here?”
“I’m making other living arrangements,” I said quickly, hoping she would stop asking so many questions.
She widened her eyes.
“I see. Okay. We have your mother under twenty-four-hour observation in here,” she said, taking me through another door. We paused in the hallway. “She’s in this room. Don’t be alarmed about how stark it is. With cases like this, we have to limit the patient’s ability to find ways to harm him- or herself.”
A tall black man in an attendant’s uniform peered out of a doorway, holding a cup of coffee.
“How is Mrs. Elder doing?” Doctor Young asked.
“No different. No problem,” he said.
She reached into her pocket and produced a key chain. Then she unlocked the door of Mama’s room and opened it. Mama, in a patient’s light blue gown, was sitting on a bare bed looking at a bare wall. There was no other furniture, not even a chair.
“Charlene?” Doctor Young said. “I have a visitor for you. Someone’s come to see you.”
Mama didn’t turn. She didn’t look as if she had heard.
Doctor Young nodded to me, and I stepped forward.
“Hello, Mama,” I said.
Mama’s eyes fluttered, and then she turned and looked at me, but her expression didn’t change. I saw the bandages on her wrists, but shifted my eyes away quickly. Just the sight of that made my heart thump hard and fast.
“Your daughter has come to see you, Charlene. Isn’t that nice?”
Mama looked at Doctor Young.
“I want a cigarette,” she said as if I came to see her every day and it was nothing unusual.
“Now you know you can’t have cigarettes yet, Charlene. Why don’t you just visit with your daughter now. Have a nice visit, and we’ll be talking again this afternoon.”
Mama pursed her lips the way I knew her to do when she had an angry or unpleasant thought. Then she grunted and turned back to the wall. I looked at Doctor Young, who nodded some encouragement.
“I’ll be right outside,” she said, and left the room, but leaving the door slightly open.
“Hi, Mama,” I said.
“What are you doin‘ here?” she snapped back at me. “This ain’t no place for you, girl.”
“I came to see you. I had to see you, Mama. I was hoping you’d be better and—”
“You got any cigarettes?”
“No, Mama.”
“They keep me from having cigarettes. I’m dying for a drink. It’s like prison. I get outta here, I’m gonna get even with Sammy for dumpin‘ me like that.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and then looked at me sharply. “Your daddy send you here hopin‘ I’d come back?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you about Daddy, Mama?”
“They don’t tell me nothin‘ ’bout nobody. All they tell me is what I can eat and drink, when I should sleep, and how I should try to care more about myself. That doctor drives me crazy with all her talk. Makes my head spin. If you got a cigarette and you’re not givin‘ it to me, Phoebe…”
“I don’t have any cigarettes, Mama. Aunt Mae Louise won’t let a cigarette ten feet near her.”
“Mae Louise?” She blew some air between her lips. “She only let that man of hers near her twice, to have those brats, and that was that. I can see it in his face when he looks at me. Man’s starving for some lovin‘,” she said, smiling. “Mae hates it when I’m around.”
She looked at me again, angrily.
“Why didn’t your daddy come here himself? Man has no spine, sending a girl to do his work.”
“Daddy can’t come here even if he wants to, Mama. Daddy’s dead,” I said.
She tilted her head a bit and narrowed her eyes.
“I don’t know why no one has told you that. Maybe they have and you forgot,” I added, more for my own thinking than hers.
“Dead? How’s he dead?”
“He was killed in a car accident, Mama. I’ve been living with Aunt Mae Louise and Uncle Buster since you ran away with Sammy Bitters. Daddy thought it was better than my being alone in the city, only it’s been worse,” I continued, since she looked like she was really listening to what I had to say now. “It’s a snobby place and—”
“You say Horace is gone?”
“Yes, Mama. Daddy’s gone.”
She nodded and then rocked herself.
“He was like dead anyway,” she told herself. Then she stopped rocking and looked at me.
“So who you living with now?”
“I just told you, Mama. I’m living with Aunt Mae Louise and Uncle Buster, but I can’t stand it there so I ran away.”
“Ran away?” She smiled and then chuckled. “I wasn’t much older than you when I first ran away. Runnin‘ is in the blood, I guess.”
“Mama, I want you to get better and come out of here. We could go off together, start a new life somewhere, far away from people like Aunt Mae Louise.”
“You can’t ever get away from people like your aunt Mae Louise. They’re everywhere, like locusts,” she said angrily, and started rocking herself again.
“We can, Mama. Just you and me.”
She looked at me with a smirk.
“You and me? Girl, you don’t even have a cigarette,” she said. “You come here and you don’t even have a cigarette for me.”
“Mama, you can get all the cigarettes you want when you come out of here and we’re together. We’ll get jobs together, maybe even in the same restaurant or something, and we’ll have a nice apartment and take care of each other.”
“Who told you to say all that? Your daddy tell you? He’d try anything to get me to come back.”
“No, Mama.” I squinted at her. “Daddy’s gone. I told you. He was killed in a car accident. Don’t you understand? We don’t have anyone but ourselves now.”
She stared at me, looking like the things I was saying were finally taking hold.
“We can’t go off, Phoebe. I gotta wait here for Sammy. We’re goin‘ to California. His cousin owns a beauty parlor in Encino and there’ll be a job for me. I always used to talk about goin’ to California,” she said, smiling. Then she stopped. “He shouldn’t have left me here so long.” She leaned toward me. “Those people, that doctor, they ain’t nice at all. They want to keep you here because they get more money that way from the state.” She smiled and nodded. “They don’t think I know about such things, but I do.”
“You can get out of here, Mama. You can get out of here and be with me. We’ll go to California. I promi
se,” I said. “I’ll just get some part-time work and raise the money for our trip. I can do that.”
“Can you go out and come back here?” she asked.
“Yes, certainly. I’ll find some place to stay and I’ll find some work.”
“Well, go on and buy some cigarettes and come back,” she said, and waved her hand as if I was dismissed.
“Mama, why are you talking about cigarettes? I’m talking about starting a life together, a whole new life.”
“I started a new life,” she said. She rocked herself again. “I don’t know where my clothes are or anything.” She stopped and looked at me. “You know what I’ve been thinking, Phoebe? I’ve been thinking your daddy did this. Somehow, he did this, got me in here. Well, you go home and you tell him it’s not going to work. I’m not going back there, you hear me, girl? That’s my message and make sure he understands it’s firm and final.”
I stood there staring at her, watching her rock herself, start to say something, stop, and then rock on.
“Mama,” I said softly. I reached out and touched her shoulder. She didn’t turn to me. She kept staring ahead.
Whatever it was that you had to reach back into to find yourself was still quite buried under confusion in her, I thought. I had been too optimistic, even arrogant, to think that I merely had to appear and all sorts of good thoughts and dreams would be revived, the mother in her would come rising to the surface like some corpse dead and under water for too long. The sunshine would resurrect it. The new hope would renew all that naturally binds a mother to her child and a child to her mother. Memories of the umbilical cord would be vivid and startle her and she and I would walk out of here like mother and daughter should.
When do you stop believing in fairy tales? I wondered. Or is it that you never stop? Even on the day you die, you think about doorways to paradise, to places without pain and sorrow where the only shadows that hover alongside you are the ones that want to dance with you.
Well, you don’t dance, Phoebe, I told myself. You walk out of here alone.
I lowered my head.
Doctor Young appeared in the doorway and opened it a bit more. I shook my head at her, and she beckoned me to come out.
“I’m going now, Mama.”
She didn’t turn to me. I drew closer and I kissed her on the cheek. She felt my tears, tears that moved to her skin, and she brought her hand to it.
“Am I crying?” she asked me.
“No, Mama, I am,” I said.
She nodded.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said.
“Me neither, Mama. It never does anymore. Goodbye,” I said, and walked out.
“You shouldn’t be discouraged,” Doctor Young said. “We’ve only just begun to work with her. Give it time.”
I smiled at her. Another one who believes in fairy tales, I thought.
“Where are you going now, Phoebe?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted.
“Come to my office and rest awhile. We’ll talk some more about your mother’s condition and maybe I can help you understand,” she suggested. “Are you hungry?”
I hadn’t realized it, but I was now that she mentioned it.
“Yes, I am.”
“Good, let’s get you something to eat first.”
She took me to a cafeteria and told the cashier to charge everything to her. She told me how to get to her office and left me. I had a small salad, some macaroni and cheese, and a piece of chocolate cake, much more than I thought I would eat.
Afterward, I walked to her office. She said she had to attend to a patient, but she would be right back and told me to make myself comfortable. There was a very soft leather sofa, and I sat on it and glanced at some magazines. My eyelids grew heavier and heavier. I wasn’t aware of how tired I was from the strain of traveling here and the emotional tension I had just experienced with Mama.
I’ll close my eyes for a little while, I thought, and leaned back and to the side on the sofa. I guess I fell asleep quickly. I woke up when I sensed someone looking down at me. My eyelids fluttered like the wings of a newly hatched baby bird, and I focused on a pair of gray pants. My eyes traveled up until I confronted a state policeman.
Doctor Young stood right beside him. I sat up quickly.
“You weren’t supposed to leave your aunt and uncle’s home,” the state policeman said gruffly.
I looked at Doctor Young.
“They say you ran away, Phoebe. Is that true?” she asked softly.
“I wanted to see my mother.”
“But you didn’t tell your uncle and aunt you were coining here,” she said. “Everyone was worried about you.”
“Sure they were. Just sick with worry,” I said. Then I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you couldn’t reach her. I thought she wasn’t interested.”
“Your uncle spoke to me when I told him you were here. They have the police looking for you. You don’t want to be on the road alone, Phoebe. You’ll only get yourself into more trouble.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“We have to do what’s best for you, Phoebe. You won’t help your mother’s situation by getting yourself into trouble. I’ll keep your uncle and aunt informed about your mother’s condition,” she promised.
“Don’t waste your time,” I said.
“Let’s go,” the state policeman told me, and shook his head at Doctor Young, who stepped back.
“I wish you the best,” she called after us.
“Best of what?” I muttered.
I already had the best of nothing.
What else was there for someone like me?
7
Waiting for the Music
I was surprised when the state policeman did not bring me straight back to Uncle Buster and Aunt Mae Louise’s home. I wasn’t even sure we were going in the right direction. Most of the roadside looked unfamiliar to me. The late afternoon sun played peekaboo through trees and around houses, putting me in a daze. I dozed on and off. After about two hours on a main highway, the policeman pulled off and into the parking lot of a roadside diner. It was one of those silvery-sided ones shaped like a railroad car that looked like it had been built fifty years ago. It wasn’t very busy. There were only four cars in the dimly lit parking lot.
“I’m not hungry,” I said immediately.
“I’m not bringing you here to eat,” he replied. “Get out.”
Confused, I got out of the vehicle.
“Take your suitcase, too,” he ordered.
“My suitcase?”
“Your uncle is waiting for you in there,” he said, nodding at the diner.
I looked at the other cars and realized one of them was my uncle Buster’s. I could see he was sitting in a booth by a window and looking out at us. I gazed back at the state policeman, who was standing by his car door, and I shrugged. Then I reached in, took my suitcase, and shut the door.
Thanks for nothing, I thought, and strolled up to the diner’s entrance. As I opened the door, the state policeman drove off. I entered the diner. The sound of some country-western female singer with a very heavy twang in her voice came through the small speakers on the wall behind the counter. Two elderly ladies sitting at the farthest booth on my left turned to look at me and then went back to their conversation like two swimmers who had raised their heads for a breath.
I walked down to Uncle Buster’s booth and stood there. Where is Aunt Mae Louise? I wondered. Why would she miss an opportunity to tear into me as soon as it was possible for her to do so?
“What’s going on, Uncle Buster?” I asked. “Why did that policeman bring me here?”
“Sit down, Phoebe,” he ordered gruffly through his clenched teeth. His eyes burned up at me like two small candles flickering in a hot breeze. Rage tightened his lips at the corners. Here we go again, I thought.
“Before you start,” I said after I put down my suitcase and sat, “I wanted to see my mother. I should be able to see my mother if I w
ant.”
“You don’t pack a suitcase to go visit someone, Phoebe. Don’t you ever stop lying? Even when you’re caught with your hand in the cookie jar, you claim you didn’t do it.”
“I took my suitcase because I thought…”
“Thought what, Phoebe? Huh?”
“I was hoping Mama would want me to live with her again,” I said quickly.
He lifted his eyes toward the ceiling and pressed his lower lip up into his upper, scrunching his chin.
“You thought she would want to live with you again? Come on, Phoebe. The woman ran out on you and your daddy. If she was so worried about you and wanted you with her, she wouldn’t have done that, now would she?”
“People change. I was hoping—”
He slapped his palm on the table.
“None of this is the point,” he said sharply. “You were released from police custody into our care, and in order for that to happen, I guaranteed the district attorney and the judge that you would not run off and you would be there to answer the charges. How did you get down to Macon?”
“Bus.”
“Where did you get the money?”
“I had some money.”
He straightened his back and peered at me.
“I kept some of the money those boys gave me.”
“What boys?”
“You wouldn’t listen to my side of the story,” I said, “so you don’t know.”
“Listen to me, Phoebe. It’s one thing to slap someone, to kick someone, even to punch him, but when you hit someone with a statue and so hard you hurt him seriously and put him in the hospital, you are always going to come out looking like the bad one, so whatever your story is, you better first face up to that.”
“If I hadn’t done it, they would have jumped me, Uncle Buster. That’s what they got me over there to do that night. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
The waitress came to the table.
“Just some more coffee,” Uncle Buster said. “You want something, Phoebe?”
“Coffee’s fine,” I said.
“What were you doing over at the house with all those boys anyway, Phoebe?”