“Mama. I got to talk to him about Mama. She’s gone, and I don’t know where she’s at or when she’s coming back. I need to ask him what me and Bernie are supposed to do.”
“Do?” the old woman cocked her head. “What do you mean, do?”
“We can’t stay here, Grandma. It isn’t fair to you, and—and—Well, what if Welfare finds us and puts us in foster care? What will happen to us then?” She fought back the tears that were threatening to choke her.
“You silly girl. Ain’t no Welfare woman gonna get you.”
“But Grandma, if they came here...” How was she supposed to explain that this was no fit home for children? “Grandma, children need—Well, growing children need the five major food groups, for one thing.”
“The five major what?”
“Let me outta here!” Bernie was kicking the bathroom door. She moved away, and he fell into the kitchen. “You trying to keep me in jail?” he asked her accusingly.
“No,” she said, and then the tears came. “I’m trying to keep you outta jail, Bernie Morgan. I don’t want you to grow up to be a criminal and leave your wife and b-b-b-break your children’s hearts.”
Bernie looked at her in astonishment. “You not supposed to cry, Angel.”
“Well, I am crying, so there.”
“Oh, hush, hush, the both of you,” said Grandma. “Anybody got a right to cry around here, it’s me. And you don’t see me blubbering, now do you?”
“Grandmas don’t cry,” said Bernie. “Just little kids. So stop crying this minute, Angel. You’re too big to cry.”
She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. Finally, she turned and ran upstairs and threw herself down on the bed and just boo-hooed big shuddering, slobbery sobs into the thin pillow until it was soaked. In one part of her mind she was watching herself and knew she was getting a strange pleasure out of this uncontrolled wailing—as though a huge plug had been pulled and an ocean of the fears and worries and all the unspent tears of her life were pouring out of her in one torrential flood.
Too soon Bernie was standing over her, making worried little noises.
“Angel. Angel. An-gel! Stop it, you hear?”
But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Didn’t even want to stop. It felt too good to let loose, not to be in charge anymore—not of anything or anyone, including herself. She just might spend the rest of her days like this—crying her miserable life away—with nobody expecting her to be responsible for anything ever again.
“Bernie?” Dimly she could hear Grandma’s voice from the bottom of the stairs. “You leave her alone, all right? Come on down and I’ll fix us some breakfast.”
She could hear Bernie shuffling his feet, trying to decide whether or not to obey. But she wasn’t going to tell him what to do. She was not in charge anymore.
“I’m going down now, Angel, you hear? And as soon as you stop acting like a baby, you come down, too, okay? You hear me?”
She didn’t even bother to nod. He hesitated a minute and then started out of the room. “Crying ain’t going to get you nothing, you know.”
She would have laughed except crying felt too good to interrupt. Then she heard him walk over to his own bed and felt him lift her arm and shove Grizzle under it. She grabbed the bear tightly, buried her face in his soft blue stomach, and just lay curled up there like a baby, hollering her insides out. “When you can control yourself, you can come down and have some breakfast with Grandma and me, okay?” he said before clomping down the stairs.
At last it was over. Her body was as limp as laundry after the spin cycle. From downstairs she could hear the drone of Grandma’s voice and the high staccato of Bernie’s. She hugged Grizzle close, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and fell sound asleep.
***
She woke up, her eyes puffy, her mouth dry and cottony. She didn’t know what time it was or even where she was. She sat up slowly. Grizzle was on the floor next to the bed. She picked him up and automatically dusted him off. She was going to have to take a dust mop to this floor, that was for sure. No wonder Bernie’s allergies were acting up.
She stood up, still not really sure what had happened to her. Something important, she knew that much. She felt heavy from the unnatural daytime sleep. She couldn’t remember ever going to bed in the daytime. And hungry. Her stomach felt plastered against her backbone. Somehow the thought of going downstairs filled her with dread. Why? Then she remembered. She’d made a fool of herself. She’d bawled and screeched and howled like a maniac—and it had felt wonderful. She ought to be ashamed. The real Angel Morgan would be mortified. But she wasn’t. Instead, she was, as Verna would say, “going to put it all behind me and get on with the rest of my life,” whatever that might mean.
The two of them looked up from the table when she appeared at the door, both like little puppies waiting to see if they were going to be kicked or petted.
“Are you eating those dang Sugar Pops again, Bernie?
I swear, you’re going to keel right over from sugar overdose.”
“So?” he said, his chin belligerent, his eyes full of relief.
“So we gotta get some meat and vegetables into you, don’t we, Grandma?”