Should Have Known Better

“Oh, Sharika said she’d help me out while I came to see about my husband.”

“So you took your children out of school and left your job to find your husband when you knew exactly where he was?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t know where he was. I knew, but I didn’t know.” I covered my mouth with my hand. I heard it now. I heard my own confusion. What was going on? I didn’t know. I knew I hadn’t used drugs, but right then I didn’t know anything.

“I’ve been working in this area for fifteen years and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

I looked back at her.

“And in my opinion, and I’ll be honest with you, you don’t really seem like the type of mother who’d use ecstasy, and judging by your response, you hardly know what it is. But that doesn’t exclude both science and investigation,” she said and I could tell by her voice that she was a mother to someone or many. “The test was positive and your coworker, the people at the library, your husband, your best friend, your mother, your children, everyone says they’ve noticed a change in you. So something is going on. Maybe in time we’ll find out what it is, but right now, you need to prepare yourself for the fact that your husband has temporary custody of your children and you’re going to jail. I would suggest that you get a lawyer.”

8

I had to spend a day in jail. And when it was time for me to go before the judge, he was less than understanding. I sat in a row of women with our legs chained and when the judge called my name, the only lawyer my mother’s limited savings could afford came shuffling up to the front of the courtroom searching for my name in a stack of wrinkled papers.

I wanted to hate him, but inside I was cheering for him. I needed to get home, wherever that was, just to remember who I was. They’d taken my clothes and shoes, felt through my hair, humiliated me so many times I’d stopped eating and going to the bathroom.

I could see my mother sitting in the back of the courtroom in one of the wooden rows that looked like pews. She was quiet, kept her eyes on the judge and her hands on what I was sure was a Bible in her lap.

“Reginald had to bail you out,” she said in the car as she drove us home. “After I used my savings for the attorney, I had nothing left, so I had to call him. Couldn’t put up the house. That’s all I got in the world.”

“I’m sorry, Mama. Sorry about all of this.”

We rode in silence the rest of the way. I looked out the window and she looked at the road. We were together, but I don’t ever remember feeling so alone. In fact, counting cars flashing by, I thought of how I don’t recall ever having a real intimate moment with my mother. She’d try to slow down, to touch me, or hold me, but if it wasn’t the church or my father, it was the Bible or God coming between us. My first breakup, my period, when I lost my virginity, when I pledged my sorority, she missed all of it. Even my wedding. Reginald and I decided to have it in a park in downtown Atlanta that was just a romantic stroll to the reception hall, and she and the Good Reverend decided that it was against God’s orders not to have the service in his house. I called and begged her to come, cried into the phone that I couldn’t find it anywhere in the Bible where it said I had to get married in a church and I needed her to be there. She said she’d think about it and then I heard my father’s voice. The phone went dead.

That’s how things went all my life with my mother. And after a while, I put her and all of the other people in the same category—do not disturb. If my trouble was too much, I’d keep it to myself. I was safer that way.

Like glasses of Scotch, after the first day in bed, the second is just easier, and the third feels like home.

I remained rolled up in the old sheets in my old twin-sized bed upstairs at my mother’s house for four days. I took calls from the lawyer about when I’d be able to see the twins and organizing my mandatory community service activities to complete the judge’s sentence. I still had months of community service and a fine. He also suggested that I get a clinical evaluation for alcohol and drug dependency and a therapist. I refused. I knew what was wrong with me. And it wasn’t drugs or alcohol. I didn’t know how to explain to anyone that I was telling the truth. All they saw were the results, and after the attorney had me tested, they came back positive for MDMA three times. It didn’t make any sense. I was lying in that bed, not sleeping and not dreaming, trying to figure it out.

“You have a phone call,” my mother said, popping her head into the bedroom.

“The lawyer?” I asked, not bothering to lift my head from the pillow or look directly at her.

“No, it’s a woman.” She came toward me and I looked up to see her holding the phone’s receiver cupped in her hand. “I think she’s from your job,” she whispered. “Her name, it’s something African or French. Not American.”

“Sharika?”

She nodded and I reached out for the phone.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“You eating dinner tonight?” my mother asked, handing me the phone. “I’ll just warm up what you didn’t eat last night.”

She walked back to the door and turned to look at me like I was an insect.

“Sure, Mama. That’ll be great,” I said, lifting the phone to my ear and waiting for her to leave.

“Yoooooooooooooooo,” Sharika howled into the phone. “Dawn! I’ve been calling you! Tried your cell phone like a million times. What’s going on over there?”

I don’t know if it was because I’d hardly heard another human’s voice in days—aside from my mother’s and the attorney’s—or how quickly Sharika’s sound flipped me back into my past, but I started crying nearly immediately after she said my name. Big, sloppy tears welled in my eyes and when she asked a question and went silent I couldn’t speak for the knot doubling in my throat.

“You there?” she asked. “Are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I murmured. “It’s just, just so nice to hear your voice.”

“Ohhh,” she purred. “Well, I’ve been trying to call you, but the line went straight to voice mail.”