“He’s always asking after you,” she said.
The way she described him and Paris told me how much she longed for family now, longed to go home. Whenever she described a place, she would break into a warm, deep smile, the smile of someone who cherished a memory.
“We should go soon,” I said.
“Yes, we will. As soon as . . . as soon as we get a few things straightened out,” she said. I knew she was talking mainly about her health but also about me.
I told her to go rest after dinner while I cleaned up. By the time I was finished and looked in on her in the living room, I found she was asleep on the sofa, her right hand on the arm of it the way she had kept it there when Papa was sitting beside her in his chair. Sometimes they had held hands while they watched television. I didn’t wake her, although I wanted to. I couldn’t stand the look of exhaustion on her face. I needed to see her smile and hear her voice. She had the television on, but the volume was low. I went upstairs to get my homework and then returned and sat in Papa’s chair doing it and waiting for her to awaken. When she did, she looked terribly confused.
“Oh, I fell asleep,” she said, realizing. “I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry? You’re tired, so you slept. Good,” I told her. “I wanted to finish all this anyway,” I added, showing her my books and notebooks.
She nodded, holding her smile. Then she remembered something and rose like a woman years older. “I have to do a few things our accountant told me to do. Get some numbers together. Your father did all of this for us, but he made sure to show me how.”
“Can I help?”
“No, it’s nothing terribly complicated. Just finish your work. I won’t be long,” she assured me.
I completed my homework and took my books back upstairs. After I dressed for bed, I checked to see if she had come up. She hadn’t, so I went down to the office to look in on her. She was asleep in Papa’s desk chair, her head in what looked like a very uncomfortable position.
“Mama!” I cried.
She looked as if she had gone beyond sleep, her mouth slightly open. Her eyes fluttered, and she sat up. “Oh.” She looked at the papers on the desk. “I finished everything and just . . . I took a pill earlier,” she said.
“What kind of pill?”
“A pill the doctor gave me to stay calm. It’s nothing, but it does make me a little drowsy. I’ll just go to sleep. Wash that worry off your face,” she told me, smiling, and stood up. “Come on. Allons. We’ll both go to sleep.”
I walked alongside her and then behind her as we climbed the stairs. She turned to hug and kiss me good night and went to her bedroom.
What ages someone faster than deep sorrow? When people were together as long as my parents were, what happens to one, happens to the other in subtle ways. It was as though sadness was as contagious as any disease, and death didn’t just slip in and out silently. When it touched someone close to you, it left its mark on you, too. A little of the darkness slipped in and settled on your soul, waiting patiently for the rest of it.
I was afraid for Mama, but I channeled my fear into an almost obsessive determination to do well in school during the following days. Suddenly, coming to life again seemed to be the best way to help Mama get healthy and stronger. My hand was up in every class, answering questions almost before my teachers asked them. I aced one quiz after another and put smiles on the faces of my teachers. My new energy and efforts attracted everyone’s attention. Some of my classmates began to talk to me again, joining me at lunch or walking with me in the hallways.
Chastity watched timidly from the sidelines, unsure of how I would react to any attempt she made to reconnect with me. I didn’t discourage her, but I didn’t pursue her, either. Nevertheless, she soon began to attempt some small talk, hesitant to have longer than a ten- or twenty-second conversation because I didn’t appear that interested. I just didn’t want things to get back to the way they were. I wanted her to understand that I wouldn’t tolerate any more talk about Roxy.
One afternoon, I let her walk home with me after school. She parted with “Maybe we can do something together this weekend.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t pursue it or bring it up again.
Of course, I was eager to get home every day to find out how Mama was and what her doctors were telling her. She told me everything was good. I shouldn’t worry. She did seem a little more energetic. She even began talking about our trip to France when my vacation began. Buoyed by this, I even flirted a little with a tenth-grade boy, Richard Erikson. He had dark brown hair, eyelashes that would make any model jealous, and an infectious smile. He wasn’t part of Evan’s group and was quite shy himself. Right now, that seemed to be the safest type of boy to know. We sat at lunch together a few times. He was a good student and a very good reader, and he seemed to know something about almost any subject I mentioned. But he was far from an egghead or a nerd and very humble about his brilliance.
Chastity was disappointed again when she saw that I was starting another relationship. I knew she was hoping that we’d renew our friendship and be satisfied with just each other. She retreated and worked on a friendship with some other girls in our class who were almost as unpopular as she was. I didn’t care at all. I could feel that I had changed in many ways, grown older, yes, but even a little calmer and more self-assured. I was settling into a new groove, finding myself comfortable again in ways I didn’t think I would while I remained at that school.
I still looked forward to the end of the day and rushing back to see how Mama was and what she needed. Richard wanted to walk me home, but he was also on the school’s basketball team and had to stay after for practice every day. I hung around for a little while occasionally to watch the team practice. He wasn’t a starter, but he did get in often and would look toward me to see if I was watching.
And then, one afternoon after I had watched his practice for about fifteen minutes, I left to go home and stopped like someone who had walked into an invisible wall when I turned onto the sidewalk and started to cross the street. She was standing beside the rear door of a sleek black limousine and for a moment looked like a model posing for a photo to advertise the car. Dressed in a green skirt and jacket with her hair pinned up, Roxy beckoned to me.
I hesitated like someone who first wanted to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. Papa’s angry words returned. He had repeated them more than once, and once not long before he died. “You’re never to mention her name in my presence and never to speak to her for the rest of your life. If you do, you’re as good as dead to me, too.”
Anger, I told myself, causes people to say and do things they wouldn’t do if they could think calmly, clearly, and intelligently. I had to believe that. I didn’t want to see such venom in my father, no matter what Roxy had done.
I started slowly toward her. When I was nearly there, she opened the limousine door.
“Get in,” she said.
I looked into the limousine like someone about to enter enemy territory.