716

Kay Moody, Chicago

716

What sets her off this time, I don’t know for sure. I wouldn’t give her money. I asked her to do homework. I found her vape? I smelled weed? I said good morning with the wrong tone? I wanted a hug? I said no. Or is it like the time I flinched when I saw her in a tiny skirt, a skirt that revealed so much, as she pushed past me out the door with a three-day pass to a music festival? I knew never to comment on her clothes, but this was different. The Penthouse tag. That skirt was something different.

What was it today? Was it school? Every day she refuses to get out of bed. She refuses to go to school. Waking her to go to school, it was risky. A waste of time and risky for me. High risk. She won’t do any school work. She’s able. She won’t. Despite working with school counselors to lighten her load or arrange for accommodations - nevermind. I no longer mention it. She stays in her room instead. She refuses to clean her room while plates rot under her bed. Holes are burned through the window screens. Did I dare ask her to stop burning the screens? What was it?

I don’t know what starts it this time. She is screaming at me. Not yelling. Screaming and screaming and screaming. Bloody murder. Screaming bloody murder. She knows if she shrieks, I retreat. I am small. Her voice is not.

I watch her. Her hair is dyed jet black, her bangs are cut short. She used kitchen scissors to cut her hair, and her large beautiful blue eyes are hidden under oddly-shaped false lashes. She is thin. Skinny. But I know how strong she is. Powerful. And how beautiful she is under the makeup. She laughed at me when I asked if it was Goth. Reminded me how stupid I am. “Goth today isn’t what Goth was in the eighties.” I thought, “No “white on white translucent black capes, back on the rack…those bats have left the bell tower””. She forgets she’s named for Stoker’s Mina Murray. Mina Harker. She survived the famed vampire’s attention. Mina, not Mina.

Again she screams that I am ugly. I am fat. This sounds right to me. I am stupid, fat, ugly. She is strong and beautiful. She screams that she hopes I die so those more worthy could use the oxygen I am wasting. She hopes I die so others can breathe. My sixteen-year-old daughter screams for my death.

I stop watching and glaze over, no longer hearing the words. Instead I feel the familiar fury and wait for it to stop. It will stop. I don’t try to parent. I don’t reason. I don’t beg. I don’t hide. I don’t try anymore. “Make it easy, Love, it’s not as heavy as it seems. We could be bouncing off clouds.” Sorry, Tori. Mina wants none of that. And no more doctors. No sessions. No more long car rides playing each other songs, building a never-ending playlist. Trying. Talking. Thrilled for the rare privilege of holding her ivory left hand with my right while I drive. Even that’s done.

I don’t block her blows anymore. Angry hands, hardened fists. I take it. I don’t notice the bruises now. I don’t count them anymore. I stand still and (word that’s not stare). Motionless. Am I breathing? My ears ring.

Her bedroom door is closed, and she is crying on the other side. I hear that familiar ivory fist punch another hole in the wall. I think I can hear her crying outside the apartment, pounding on the apartment door, calling me. “Mama!” That can’t be. Is she still punching the wall of her room? Swearing at me. Wishing me dead. Yes. But there is someone pounding on the apartment door. Someone is outside in the corridor? A concerned neighbor? No. It sounds like my child. My child, crying. “Two Minas”. She used to say, “Two Minas!” when she looked in the mirror at around three years old. Two Minas. That’s not possible. She’s now mewling in her room. Yet the sound at the door is undeniable. Exigent. Clamorous. It’s her. I can’t fathom how.

It doesn’t matter.

I find myself moving toward the apartment door. I open it a few inches, and she pushes her way in, rushes me, slams me. I feel the entire length of her little body.

She cries out, “Mama!! Why didn’t you pick me up at the library after school? Miss Debbie had to drive me home! Mama!”

She is small and squeezing my waist so hard. I can’t breathe. What are you saying? Miss Debbie drove you? A book bag? A Hello Kitty book bag? Her Hello Kitty book bag? Her rainbow and kitten t-shirt with pink leggings? Long, tangled blonde hair? The forehead. The forehead I stroked thousands of times feeding her as an infant. That scent. That scent. I know it. I’ve grieved for it. I’ve longed for it. I hug her back and I don’t think I’m breathing, but I must be. That scent. And I feel her breathing. Her little heart, it beat so fast. “Her little heart, it beats so fast, and I’m ashamed of running away, from nothing real, I just can’t deal with this; I’m still afraid to be there…” My little Hound of Love? Or my little fox? I’m not running away, Kate Bush! I’m not letting go.

She is Seven. My little girl. Mina is seven years old, standing in our apartment after school, like she’s done hundreds of times. She’s come back.

She loosens her hold on me when she hears movement in the bedroom.

“Mama. Who’s in my room?”

I say nothing. The bedroom grows promptly silent. Still. We watch the door. I hear Sixteen’s silence. I can always hear her silence. That silence has terrified me for at least three years. I hear her steps as she walks toward her bedroom door, opens it, and steps into the living room. Her face is docile and still. She doesn’t seem surprised. I can’t tell.

Seven-year-old Mina lets me go, turns, and stands between me and sixteen-year-old Mina. They face each other and look fixedly, saying nothing. Seven turns back to me, squeezes me close again as I kneel down.

She softly, slowly growls in my neck, in my hair, in that low, husky timbre - nothing like most little girls’ voices, “Why is she here, Mama?” Her voice, her breath, having her close to me again, takes my breath away.

She seems to have already made up her mind that she does not like the visitor. She does not seem to understand that she is the visitor.

I look up and lock eyes with Sixteen Mina. Her face is red, wet.

She calmly mouths, “Is that me?”

Yes, I nod. Older Mina starts to say something, and I think I stop her with the slightest head shake - No. She complies?

With my eyes I say, “Don’t speak. Don’t scare her. Don’t scare yourself. You’re so little. So little. So good.” I don’t know if she hears my eyes, but she stays silent..

Seven Mina’s two delicate hands, like butterflies, are now fluttering around me and settle in my own hands again. So small. So small. So sweet. So small and white. Winged. My little girl’s delicate winged hands. I kiss them.

Little Mina soaks me in, but remains oblivious to the teenage girl gazing at her. She lets me go and drops Hello Kitty to the floor.

A quick dart of those large round eyes at Sixteen, Seven Mina asks, “Mama, can I have a snack and use the tablet?”

This is her home. She is the painting under the painting.

I think, “I would love nothing more than to make you a thousand snacks. If I could make you one more snack and hold you, I might forget about vapes and drugs and lies and skirts and online strangers, and even forget oxygen. Forget bruises. I could forget that you would, or did, or will break my ribs. Fracture my hand. I could forget you held me down and spit on me or that you will hold me down and spit on me. I don’t think I understand time anymore, but I could learn to forget. Forget the vulgar words. And now, yes, I can bring you a snack.”

Sixteen shrinks back, shirks back, and watches us from her bedroom door. I can’t make out any reaction. I don’t know what she feels. I wonder if she feels. Seven does not acknowledge her. Does Sixteen feel Seven’s cold indifference?

I bring Seven some snacks on a tray.

“No Nemo plate?”

“No Nemo plate.”

I don’t know where the Nemo plate is stored. She squints at what must seem like an odd snack. No chicken Dino nuggets and applesauce with a glass of milk. Instead, some iced tea with raspberry lemonade and leftover Pad Thai. Sixteen’s leftover Pad Thai. Seven loves it. I wonder if this is or was when she started liking Pad Thai. I’m not sure “when” we are. I don’t think I care. Listening to her chew and watching Seven Mina eat her after-school snack is so familiar. My scruffy puppy. Scruffy puppy, covered in play. You were so missed.

I think, “You are so loved. No Mama ever loved her Little as much as I love you, my beautiful girl. And you are back. My Boodj. My Poola. My Little. My Mina. My angel.”

Does Sixteen remember snack time? Does she see us? Is she watching? Hugs. Hands. Snacks. Is she angry? Sad? Does she remember herself? Wasn’t it just yesterday? Did she forget, in the fog, under the weight of all the smoke, and the sleep, and the friends, the men online, and the ugly words, the stealing, the secrets over more secrets, and the punching, and the broken phones, and the hammer, and the laughing, and the weight of all of my begging. My tears. On the floor. Laughing at me. Mocking me. “So ugly and fat. No man wants you. Loser. No. One. Cares. No. One. Cares. About. You. Awww. Did I hurt your feelings?. Choke and die.” The things I want to forget. The words I will forget. The things I wish never happened. The words I wish I never heard.

My thoughts are broken by Seven asking, “Mama, can we play Pet Shops? Bad Sister?”

Seven is all I see.

Missing scene: Bad Sister

Missing scene: Bath and books

If time is all at once - right now - and I can choose? I choose Seven.

“Remember when I was little, Mama?”

“Yes, Mina.”

“And before we’d go to sleep you’d say to me, “I’ll meet you in a dream on a playground at the park, and I’ll be four, so you can be the big kid and boss me around!” Do you remember that?”

“I remember, Mina.” I think I’m crying.

“Mama?”

“Yes, Mina?”

“I would never boss you around,” and she starts to cry.

“Oh, I know you wouldn’t. I know you won’t. You’re always Mama’s good girl. You are.”

“Let’s go, Mama”.

“Go where, Mina?”

“To sleep. And meet on the playground. I’ll be the big kid, and you’ll be little, but I’ll be your friend. You’ll like me. I’ll be like the good Big Sister. I’ll protect you.”

“I will meet you and I will like you. I do like you! I love you.”

“I love you, Mama. Best Mama ever, right? Please. Come with me. Come with me now.”

“Best Kid ever. I will. I will meet you there.”

And with the top of her head under my chin, I feel her soft curls, her entire body flush with mine while we fall asleep.

* * *

Mina is six now. I am four. Our playground. Our park. We’re laughing on the swings. I notice she’s missing a front tooth. She’s taller, older than me, and she swings higher, taking my breath away.

She keeps her promise. She is kind. She is my friend. Her butterfly hands take my even smaller hands in hers. They are not cold. We are warm.

We watch as a silent ambulance drives past, a police car behind. In a flash, I think I see Sixteen in the car. She’s got her wish. I won’t waste oxygen any longer. She can stop screaming now.

“She can’t hurt her Mama anymore, Little. You’re safe with me,” Six tells me.

“I would have forgiven her a million times. I do forgive her. Thank you, Mina. Thank you for coming back for me.”

And we two little girls, six and four, with our identical curly hair and big blue eyes, laugh and play in the sunshine.