Take My Hand(94)

“Walk them to their car,” Daddy told me. He must have seen how torn-up I was feeling. Outside, I watched the girls climb into Mace’s truck. Mrs. Williams stayed beside me in the middle of the driveway.

“Civil,” she began. “I know it was hard for you to hear that tonight. And I probably should have told you before announcing it in front of everybody. I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I want you to know I appreciate everything you done for us. But I can handle my family from here on out.”

Her words cut me, and I couldn’t hide it. “How? How will you manage? You couldn’t handle that house on the farm.”

Her eyes narrowed. When she spoke, her voice was tight but patient. “Mace will stay here and work. When he ready and can find some steady work down there, he’ll come, too.”

“You’re going to just give up the apartment? Don’t you know how hard it was for me to get it in the first place? And does Nellie know about this plan?”

“Now, you know I wouldn’t be saying this if she didn’t. She welcome the company.”

I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it knowing how foolish I sounded.

“You worried about the girls’ schooling, but the social worker say somebody can come to the house for India.”

“You got a new social worker? She can never do what Sister LaTarsha and the nuns can do. They’re trained. They have toys and puzzles and everything India needs to learn.”

“Civil, the girls will be fine.”

Mace started the engine and the headlights lit up the street. Mrs. Williams lingered in the driveway, illuminated by the flood of light. “I meant what I said. You like a daughter to me. I’m always going to think of you, and I want you to know you always welcome to visit the girls. You don’t even have to ask. But I want you to move on with your life.”

“Move on?”

I didn’t understand her words. How did one move on from family? Didn’t she understand that family was so much more than blood? It was shared experience and history and pain. Those girls were as much my family now as they were hers.

“You want me to move on from Mace, don’t you?” I said quietly.

I could not see her face clearly, but I could tell that she was not surprised by the question. She had surely had her suspicions, and Mace taking my hand at the courthouse had probably confirmed them.

“You and Mace are grown, Civil. I ain’t got nothing to do with that. Here is what I do know. You done touched us in a way that no one ever did. And for that, I’m grateful. But you got some things in your heart to work out. I see that. I know that. Take it to the Lord, Civil. He will answer.”

And with that, she walked to the truck, climbed up into the cab with the girls, and they took off. The only one who turned and waved at me was India, the white of her palm against the window.





FORTY-NINE




Rockford

2016


In the years after the family’s departure, I wore the cloak of their absence. Records Erica might like. A doll that might catch India’s eye. An ice cream they both loved. The gap opened wider and wider until ten years turned into twenty, thirty, forty. And now I find myself in their living room, holding on to India as I have not held her in years.

“Let’s sit down,” I say and lead India over to her chair. The woman moves slowly, and my medical training kicks in. “How are you feeling?”

Erica arranges India’s housedress around her so that she can sit comfortably. Then she settles into her own chair. “She on her second round of treatments. With the grace of God, she’ll be done in a few months.”

The mention of her poor health jars me. My memories live in my bones, and I cannot fathom the idea of losing her. I struggle not to wear my doctor’s coat. There will be time enough for that, if they desire it. But I decided before coming on this trip that I was not coming here to save them. I have made that mistake once before, and I don’t plan to make it again. Still, I cannot help but softly ask, “Is the medicine making her sick at all?”

“The first round did. They hoping this one will be better.”

“She eating alright?”

“She love brown rice. You ever eat brown rice?”

“Yes, I love it.”

“So do India. She tried it in the hospital, and now she can’t get enough of it. She like it with a little butter on top.”

“That’s nice, Erica. I’m glad you’re taking care of her.”

“How about you, Dr. Civil? Alicia say you a fancy doctor now. Tell me about your husband and family.”

I lean back into the sofa cushions. Marriage is not a conversation I relish, but there is no avoiding the catch-up. I tell her I have taken care of my mother and raised a daughter on my own. I don’t mention that, for many years, I was the one who all the doctors with families relied upon for relief work. I was the one they assumed did not have plans on a Friday night. And for many years they were right. When my period began to slow and my own personal doctor told me I was perimenopausal, I began psychotherapy for the first time in my life. I had thought it would be liberating to be freed of this monthly inconvenience, especially since I had never desired it or the egg it nurtured, but all I could think about were those girls. As the lid of my childbearing coffin began to close, I did not mourn the loss of all those years of soiled sanitary napkins, the telltale pink stain on a square of tissue. I did not wish I had physically birthed children. I thought only of the sisters and their periods, disappointing them month after month, year after year, for decades. And after a year of speaking with my therapist, I realized that I had changed. I no longer viewed motherhood as a trap or punishment. I no longer owed it to those girls never to have children. I was not my mother, whose mothering was affected by her illness.