Page 18 of It’s Me They Follow

Dear Elle,

I had a random memory or dream or flashback—maybe because it’s January.

Remember when Mommy was diagnosed as “legally blind,” when we were kids, but there was nothing wrong with her hearing?

So how she did not hear my head smacking into the wall repeatedly that New Year’s Eve is an unresolved mystery for me.

The day started wrong. Mommy was spinning in the kitchen, lost in a maze of her own making. I came in to say good morning and hoped she’d remember to wish me a happy twelfth birthday. But instead, she wished me a happy New Year’s Eve.

“Thanks, Mommy.” I understood what she meant.

It was a special day, so she let me set her table with place mats and cloth napkins and designer plate set on top of designer plate set alongside her collection of angels.

“These’re cute,” I said, admiring her collection. “But I want to set the table WITHOUT so many angels this year.” I poked around in her decoration box for other options.

“No, you will put ALL my angels on that table, Little Miss Ma’am. Every single one.”

“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” I whined. “What do angels have to do with that?”

Mommy changed the subject. “Is it dark in here, or is it me?”

It was not dark.

“Yeah, it’s dark,” I lied. And that was the sin that did me in.

I lied because the darkness was her eyes going from legally blind to actually blind, and I knew it.

I didn’t think she could handle hearing It’s only dark for you on New Year’s Eve morning.

How do you tell your mother that her veggies are moldy?

That her butter is hairy? That her bread is fuzzy?

That she’s got eggshells flying everywhere because she can’t see?

You don’t.

We waited hours and hours to eat because it took her longer than usual to prepare her Southern-style barbecue ribs, golden fried chicken, sweet potato pie, black-eyed peas, and—what I wanted most—her famous extra-sharp macaroni and cheese.

We thought we were waiting for the food to be done, but actually we were waiting because Ma had invited our father over so we could eat as a family for the holiday even though they were legally separated—again.

“Set a place for your father at the table,” Ma said.

“Malcolm X?” I asked.

“Not funny,” she responded.

I did as I was told and set a place for Pa while praying my make pretend father, Malcolm X, would show up instead. He did not.

When Pa finally got to dinner, it was too late.

He had driven himself while drunk, sitting too long in New Year’s Eve traffic.

He stumbled throughout the dining room smelling like his favorite mix of vodka, orange juice, and cigarettes.

Pa was using the wall to prop himself up.

Sweat seeped from his pores like a fattened holiday pig.

He didn’t speak as you and I sat playing a game of Name That Angel at the holiday table.

“Let’s name that one Mother Mary,” you said, pointing to a porcelain angel with praying hands.

“Imma name this one”—I held up an angel with real feathers for wings—“Ms. Harriett.”

“Imma bless the food,” Pa cut me off, settling into his seat at the head of the table. His teeth a burnt brownish yellow. His skin a kidney-failing purplish gray. “Dimner looks perfect,” he slurred.

“Thank you, darling.” Ma shook her head and encouraged Pa to say grace.

“Dear Lord,” Pa began, “I know I’m not perfect—far from it, Lord—but thank you for being a Lord of forgiveness and mercy. Thank you for helping my children and my beautiful wife to see past my faults and understand my needs. Please keep us together and make us better. In the name of Jesus, amen.”

“Amen,” we responded. We all had faith that one day we could be normal.

“I missed you all,” he said, teary-eyed from his prayer.

“We really missed you too,” said Mommy, also teary-eyed.

And for a minute, we were kind of like a normal family, passing dishes around and serving one another.

When it was my turn, I spooned heaps of macaroni onto my plate to make myself a macaroni and cheese birthday cake, but on the top of the last heap, I noticed half an eggshell baked into it poking out like a candle.

“You better eat every bite too. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” Daddy said. He did not see the half an eggshell sticking out of the top of my mac and cheese cake; he just thought I was being greedy.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Excuse me?” His bloodshot eyeballs bulged. “What do you mean, you can’t? Your mom slaved all day in that kitchen, so we are gonna eat this food. Do you hear me?!”

Ma got up and went to the bathroom. Maybe to defuse the situation. Maybe because she felt guilty. Maybe she had to pee. Regardless, she was gone.

I stared for a good long minute at Pa and then looked at the Ms. Harriett angel. I prayed to her to intercede.

Ms. Harriett, please help Daddy see this eggshell without making a scene and embarrassing Mommy. Please resurrect this eggshell from my plate so I can eat my macaroni and cheese cake. Please let them remember it’s my birthday. Ms. Harriett, can you hear me? I am talking to you. I need you.

Ms. Harriett did not respond. None of the angels did—not the seraphim or cherub or Michael or Gabriel or Mary, not the naked ones draped in cloth, not the haloed ones with battery powered lights. No one said anything.

The longer I stared at Pa in silence, praying to the angels, the more blood rushed to his pulsating eyes, which made it harder for me to respond to his question. “Do you hear me?” He said it again, slowly.

I still didn’t respond. Which he must have seen as disrespect. Daddy did not stand for no disrespect. So he picked me up by my disrespectful throat and held me against the wall. My head hit it with a few thumps that my mother apparently did not hear from the bathroom.

Being held off the ground by the neck is like levitating against your will. I was barely breathing, crying and not crying. Father, why hast thou forsaken me? I thought. I caught eyes with Jesus in the painting my mother hung across the dining room on the wall. Jesus wept.

“Daddy!!!!” you screamed, trying to remind our father that I was a child, even though you were just a baby. You tried to remind him that it was my birthday, that I could die, but Pa could not hear you over the vile and ravaged words that he spit into my face. Ma also did not hear this part.

“You speak when spoken to. Got it, little girl? DO YOU HEAR ME?” Pa said to me.

But I couldn’t respond because I couldn’t breathe.

“Daddy, Daddy,” you continued, likely because my lips were turning blue or because my body was going limp, my head tilted to one side like a snapped turkey’s neck.

“O”—I got that breath from Ms. Harriett—“kay.” And fell asleep.

Then I guess he put me down, calm, like nothing had happened because I woke up upright in my seat.

“Eat up,” Mommy said, coming back into the dining room from the bathroom like she hadn’t seen or heard anything. Maybe the angels had protected her from it. Maybe it was all in my mind.

I ate every bite of my cake.

After dinner, Mommy and Daddy went out for a drive and got into that terrible car accident. They never made it back home. I always blamed myself. That’s how we ended up with our grandparents.

We would never be a normal family. Happy birthday to me.

But I say all of that to say, is that how you remember it? I know you were young.

Love,

Your Sister Friend, Gee