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Authors: Margaret Robison
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one, then the other—and pat Yardley’s bath powder under them with a large puff, clouds of powder rising all around her. I felt my own chest, smooth and flat under my T-shirt. I thought of Tarzan’s chest, smooth and muscular. And Jane’s chest, too, with its breasts. Maybe the problem after all had to do with breasts. Maybe when I grew up, I could find a doctor who would slice mine off. But as I thought this, I felt a rush of guilt flood through me, threatening the fragile hope I held in my heart. How could I think about doing such a thing? The thought itself felt like a sin. What would Mother think of me if she knew I had such a thought?
I went inside. My father and brother were already seated at the kitchen table waiting for their supper. Mother was spooning grits onto Daddy’s plate. I sat down and put my napkin in my lap. “I wondered where you were,” Mother said, spooning grits onto my plate. “I thought that picture show should have been over by now.”
“I was out back on the trapeze.”
Mother went to the stove, got a platter of fried eggs and bacon, and set it on the table along with a stack of toast. Then she sat down. I scooped a large spoonful of grits onto my plate, slid an egg onto it, and took two slices of crisp bacon, crumbling them into my grits. I cut a large slice of butter and dropped it into my grits. For a few seconds I stared down, watching the butter melt to a yellow pool. Then I chopped my egg up, mixed it with the grits and bacon, spread grape jelly on a piece of toast, and propped the toast on the edge of my plate. Without looking up, I began to eat.
V
1947
Dear God, don’t let my mother die
, I prayed.
The ambulance had sped past as I was walking home from town where, at age twelve, I’d taken my little brothers while Mother gave birth to my sister, Harriet, at home. I thought the ambulance turned into our drive, not into the road past Miss Sadie’s, where in fact it did turn.
The baby, not my mother
, I prayed over and over, my heart thumping frantically in my chest.
Opening the front door that day, I’d opened the door to a world suddenly gone out of control and nightmarish. My sister’s shrill screaming filled the house.
She’d been born blue, umbilical cord twisted like a noose around her neck. Old Dr. Rogers had stretched a piece of gauze over her mouth and blown his cigar-soured breath into her lungs, pronounced her healthy, and left the house. But the atmosphere in the room was charged with pain, and Mother was unreachable.
After a while the nurse began to time my sister’s screams. She found that she stopped screaming for no more than two minutes in three hours. Then she screamed the whole night through. The nursedecided that she had pressure on her brain, which was true. My sister had cerebral palsy.
Those first days and weeks after her birth have dissolved into a blur of confusion, pain, and despair. Mostly I remember my sister’s screams.
Often I paced back and forth across the polished oak floor of my parents’ bedroom, holding her in my arms. I walked between the mirror and the closet door until she fell asleep. That she could relax enough in my arms to fall asleep gave me as much comfort as it gave her.
Chapter Four
I
1948
“I F THERE IS A WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU AFTER I ’M DEAD, IF there is a way to cross over that threshold, I will come back to you,” Mrs. Clemons said to me.
My mother was late in picking me up, and the cold winter light had drained from the room. A warm yellow glow from her chairside lamp illuminated Mrs. Clemons’s hands, long-fingered and arthritic, articulate and dramatic. She was as old as my grandmother. A silk scarf fell around her neck in elegant folds, concealing the goiter on her throat.
“When I die, dear, lean close to my dead body,” she said, leaning toward me as she spoke. “Perhaps it will be easiest to speak with you just after I cross over.”
I lowered my eyes for a few seconds, staring at her feet,
I went inside. My father and brother were already seated at the kitchen table waiting for their supper. Mother was spooning grits onto Daddy’s plate. I sat down and put my napkin in my lap. “I wondered where you were,” Mother said, spooning grits onto my plate. “I thought that picture show should have been over by now.”
“I was out back on the trapeze.”
Mother went to the stove, got a platter of fried eggs and bacon, and set it on the table along with a stack of toast. Then she sat down. I scooped a large spoonful of grits onto my plate, slid an egg onto it, and took two slices of crisp bacon, crumbling them into my grits. I cut a large slice of butter and dropped it into my grits. For a few seconds I stared down, watching the butter melt to a yellow pool. Then I chopped my egg up, mixed it with the grits and bacon, spread grape jelly on a piece of toast, and propped the toast on the edge of my plate. Without looking up, I began to eat.
V
1947
Dear God, don’t let my mother die
, I prayed.
The ambulance had sped past as I was walking home from town where, at age twelve, I’d taken my little brothers while Mother gave birth to my sister, Harriet, at home. I thought the ambulance turned into our drive, not into the road past Miss Sadie’s, where in fact it did turn.
The baby, not my mother
, I prayed over and over, my heart thumping frantically in my chest.
Opening the front door that day, I’d opened the door to a world suddenly gone out of control and nightmarish. My sister’s shrill screaming filled the house.
She’d been born blue, umbilical cord twisted like a noose around her neck. Old Dr. Rogers had stretched a piece of gauze over her mouth and blown his cigar-soured breath into her lungs, pronounced her healthy, and left the house. But the atmosphere in the room was charged with pain, and Mother was unreachable.
After a while the nurse began to time my sister’s screams. She found that she stopped screaming for no more than two minutes in three hours. Then she screamed the whole night through. The nursedecided that she had pressure on her brain, which was true. My sister had cerebral palsy.
Those first days and weeks after her birth have dissolved into a blur of confusion, pain, and despair. Mostly I remember my sister’s screams.
Often I paced back and forth across the polished oak floor of my parents’ bedroom, holding her in my arms. I walked between the mirror and the closet door until she fell asleep. That she could relax enough in my arms to fall asleep gave me as much comfort as it gave her.
Chapter Four
I
1948
“I F THERE IS A WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU AFTER I ’M DEAD, IF there is a way to cross over that threshold, I will come back to you,” Mrs. Clemons said to me.
My mother was late in picking me up, and the cold winter light had drained from the room. A warm yellow glow from her chairside lamp illuminated Mrs. Clemons’s hands, long-fingered and arthritic, articulate and dramatic. She was as old as my grandmother. A silk scarf fell around her neck in elegant folds, concealing the goiter on her throat.
“When I die, dear, lean close to my dead body,” she said, leaning toward me as she spoke. “Perhaps it will be easiest to speak with you just after I cross over.”
I lowered my eyes for a few seconds, staring at her feet,
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