"I know you did that with the joint."
"It was yours. You accidentally left it in your lunch bag, but I got it out in time so you wouldn't get in trouble. I thought you would appreciate my hiding it for you," I said, pretending to be dumb.
She stared at me, and then her eyes filled with cold understanding before she stepped onto the bus. Later, I told Terri, and the two of us had fun telling our other friends. Jennifer avoided me most of the day. It was one of my best days at the new school, but I was still wishing it would all come to an end. I had had enough of Uncle Reuben and battling with Jennifer.
My hopes died a quick death when we got home that afternoon. Jennifer refused to talk to me on the bus and walked slowly so I would get to the house first. As soon as I entered, Aunt Clara stepped out of the living room, her hand clutching a handkerchief to her mouth.
"What's wrong?" I asked. Jennifer came up behind me.
"Your mother," Aunt Clara said. "She's gone and run off from the rehabilitation clinic. She's a fugitive."
"Great," Jennifer said, "Maybe she'll come for you, and you can run off together."
"Stop that talk!" Aunt Clara cried in a voice so sharp and shrill even I took note. "I won't have it."
Jennifer's eyes filled with tears. "You care more about her than you do me," she accused. Aunt Clara started to shake her head. "Yes, you do. But I'm not surprised," she added, and flew up the stairs.
"I should leave," I murmured, looking after her.
"Where would you go? You have to be with family," Aunt Clara insisted.
Family, I thought. That's a word I'll never understand.
5 Behind Closed Doors
"C an you believe it?" Uncle Reuben cried as he entered the house. "The police came to my office, came to see- file at work! The police! Everyone sees them and wants to know what's going on. My sister, I had to tell them, has run away from her drug rehabilitation center, violated court orders. She's some kind of fugitive, and the police came to see if she's contacted me. I can tell you this. If she does have the nerve to contact me, I'll turn her in. She's dragging us all down with her!"
I was in my room trembling, but I could hear him slamming things around in the kitchen.
"Please don't get yourself so upset, Reuben," Aunt Clara pleaded.
"Don't get upset?" He laughed madly. "My sister's rotten through and through, Clara. She's like some dark, rancid piece of fruit stinking up the place. Now I got her juvenile delinquent to raise. Why didn't she think before she got herself pregnant by that nogood Cuban bum? The state's going to pay us for this. I'll see to that. I see this kind of thing all the time . . women who can't afford to have children, who should never have children, just raining them down on the rest of us. That's why taxes is so high, you know, because of people like my sister and what she produces."
"You've got to stop this, Reuben. You'll get yourself sick," Aunt Clara said.
"Sick? I am sick, sick of it all." He groaned so loud I thought he was coming through the wall. "It's not like I didn't try to help my sister. I told her how a real man acts . . I showed her. I showed her, all right."
"Reuben ... I don't think you should get so worked up," Aunt Clara said. I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was nervous and wanted to change the subject.
What was Uncle Reuben saying about my mother? What had he showed Mama?
I heard him get up and walk to the stairway, pausing at my door. My heart thumped. I thought he would come bursting through the door and yell at me about my mother and how I was a drain on society. I kept my eyes to the floor and waited, holding my breath. A moment later, I heard him start up the stairs.
My eyes were burning with hot tears. I stared out the window.
Mama, how could you do this to me? Why did you run away? For a moment, I wondered if she would come here to get me, take me away from all this. I'd even hide out with her. Who was I fooling? I thought. I was probably the last thing she thought about when she fled. By now, she must be with one of her degenerate boyfriends, either hiding out or racing off to live in some hovel.
My mother seemed to be two different people to me now. Once, when I was younger, I thought of her as someone to love and someone who loved me, but somehow, somewhere, that all disappeared, and we started to live like two strangers. Maybe Uncle Reuben was right. Maybe my mother was just no good. Something had gone wrong inside her, and she could never be rehabilitated. She would never change.
Was that same bad germ inside me, too? Would I become like, her someday, despite myself? Was Uncle Reuben right about that, too? I was my mother's daughter. I inherited something from her, and maybe that something was evil. I wasn't any sort of student. I had no real friends. I was afraid to have any ambitions, and so, when I tried to envision myself ten years from now, all I could see was the same lonely, lost person.
Uncle Reuben wasn't wrong. I was going to be just like my mother.
I sighed so deeply my chest ached. Then I stood up, wiped my eyes, and went to help Aunt Clara prepare dinner. She looked very tired and very sad herself. The way she held her shoulders slumped, kept her eyes down, and moved with tiny, insecure steps made her look even smaller than she was. It was as if she had shrunk inches since Uncle Reuben had come home. She was the one who looked pitiful, and yet she turned to me with sympathy flooding her eyes and shook her head.
"You poor dear," she said. "I know how you must feel. I'm sorry your mother has done these things. She should think what she's doing to you."
I didn't reply. I set the table, moving