A Knock at Midnight(22)
“Let’s go, Jazz!” I said. “It’s freezing out here. What are you doing?”
When she turned around, she didn’t even need to tell me. I could see the whole story on her face.
“Jazz. Don’t tell me you don’t have your ID. Please don’t tell me that.”
My little sister doesn’t cry very often, but she did then. She looked so lost, standing next to the car with her shoulders sagging in defeat, tears streaking her cheeks the way they hadn’t since we were kids. Jazz didn’t like writing letters, preferred to save her news for their visits. Her last contact with Mama had been a whole month ago, when Mama had fussed over the scarring on her arm from the glass. I knew Jazz wanted to tell her how she’d been putting cocoa butter on the scars every morning and night like Mama’d told her to, to show her the improvement in her finger mobility so she wouldn’t worry. Jazz needed Mama, and Mama needed Jazz.
I was furious, but also heartbroken to see my tough little sister so lost. We were already dealing with the recent devastation of Mama’s parole denial. It would be a whole year before she’d come up for parole again. We’d been so sure she would be coming back to us.
“It’s okay, Jazz. Maybe we could just lie and say you’re sixteen? Then you don’t need an ID.”
“Will it get Mama in trouble, though? What if they find out and don’t let us back in again?”
We agreed we couldn’t risk that. We decided to tell the truth. Surely this happened to people sometimes.
“Please, sir,” I said to the burly red-haired man gripping his clipboard like a rifle, “we drove five hours to get here. It was just a mistake. You can see that we always visit together. Isn’t there another way we can confirm my sister’s identity?”
“No ID, no visit. She can wait for you in the car,” he said, his face immobile. I wanted to snap at him for being so rude and unfeeling, but I didn’t want it to come back on Mama. Our pleas to the other guards at the visitor’s gate also fell on deaf ears.
“It’s okay, Brittany,” Jazz said finally, her voice small. “I’ll just wait in the car. I’ll be fine.”
“Turn the car on so you can keep warm,” I said, handing her the keys. “I’m sorry, Jazz.” I turned to the security line as she walked dejectedly across the parking lot. We’d been up since five and now it was almost ten. And Jazz would be sitting in the car for another two hours at least, not getting to see Mama at all. It was my worst trip through security since my very first visit.
“Where’s Jazz?” was the first thing Mama said as I sat down in the visiting room. We tried to have a normal visit, but all we could think about was Jazz sitting alone in the parking lot. Like our mom, my sister was fragile behind her tough exterior, and we both knew how much she was hurting. We were quiet through a lot of our visit. I tried not to stare at Mama’s hands. Even in Fulbright she had taken great care with her hands and with ours, making even Jazz sit still while she trimmed and filed our nails and pushed down our tiny cuticles with her thumbnail. Hers were soft and smooth from the shea butter lotion she applied every time she washed them, nails short, neatly clipped and rounded, buffed and shining. She took pride in her hands and was stern with nurses who didn’t do the same. “How would you feel if you had to have those rough things rubbing on you all day? Our patients’ skin is sensitive enough! For some of them, we’re all the touch they got. The least we can do is keep our hands soft and nice!”
After over a year in prison, Mama’s hands weren’t soft and nice anymore. A hangnail had recently been torn off one thumb, leaving the skin there red and raw. Her nails were broken, cuticles jagged. And worst, her beautiful copper-brown skin was chapped and peeling—discolored, even, a dry, lifeless gray splotched with painful-looking red from her knuckles to her wrists.
“What’s the matter with your hands, Mama?” I finally asked.
“They are a mess,” she said, turning them over in front of her. “It’s from washing dishes in the kitchen. That’s my job now. On top of the tutoring. You wouldn’t believe how big them damn pans are. You can actually stand in ’em.”
“But why do they look so ashy?”
“From the chemicals in whatever made-up cleaning solution they got in there. It’s so nasty it burns.”
“You’re working two jobs now. They should be paying you a little bit.”
“You know they don’t pay us shit in Texas. Not to work. Not in prison.”
“That’s modern-day slavery for real. Well, look on the bright side,” I said, trying to joke, “at least they don’t have you out there with the hoe squad.”
“Right?” Mama smiled. “Can you imagine me out there in the fields? Lord have mercy. No. I’d rather go to the hole before I sweat a drop in those fields for these people.”
We laughed at the image, laughed as we always did, this time under the heavy burden of picturing Jazz sitting out in the car. Mama’s eyes were clear, and her skin had its beautiful sheen back. She had been sober over a year now, and no matter how demeaning the prison visit experience, being together, and seeing our real mama come back to us, was everything. I made a mental note to tell my little sister how good our mama looked.