Ellen Foster (10 page)

I always think on my own when I sit with him.

Yes?

I understand from your teacher that you’ve taken to signing your papers differently.

I wondered when somebody would catch it.

Well Ellen he says like he might be a little confused his own self we could understand if you were misspelling your name
but you’ve been signing Foster as your last name this entire term. Did you realize that?

Of course I know my last name I tell him.

OK then tell me your name.

Ellen Foster.

But that is not your last name. Would you like to talk about it?

About what?

About why you are using that name. You see Ellen sometimes children such as yourself who have experienced such a high degree of trauma tend to have identity problems. Do you follow me?

OK go on.

And these children express these identity problems in several ways. What I am thinking of in particular is the child who has experienced what he or she feels to be an unbearable amount of pain, and this child might not want to be himself anymore. Are you with me so far?

I understand.

I told him the first day that if he had to talk to me then he could talk to me like I have some sense. Just so he doesn’t get ahead of how fast I can think.

OK go on.

It is not uncommon for such a child to pretend he is somebody else. He doesn’t necessarily have to know that other person. Just so he does not feel the pain anymore is all that matters.

OK go on.

I don’t know who this Foster is but it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you open up and talk to me. Get that pain out of Ellen and she won’t have to be somebody else.

Lord I say to him. I hate to tell him he’s wrong because you can tell it took him a long time to make up his ideas. And the worst part is I can see he believes them.

Go ahead Ellen. Tell me what you’re thinking. It’s OK.

That may not be the name God or my mama gave me but that is my name now. Ellen Foster. My old family wore the other name out and I figured I would take the name of my new family. That one is fresh. Foster. I told him all that.

I’m starting to see your point. Go ahead he told me.

Before I even met Stella or Jo Jo or the rest of them I heard they were the Foster family. Then I moved in the house and met everybody and figured it was OK to make my name like theirs. Something told me I might have to change it legal or at a church but I was hoping I could slide by the law and folks would think I came by the name natural after a while.

He laughed like I had said a joke.

After he explained it all to me I felt like a fool for a minute. Then I asked him if I could keep using that name anyway or if I needed to pick out another one.

I just don’t care for my old name I said to him. I sure could use another one. If I have to give up Foster then give me a while to think up a flashy one.

When he stopped laughing he said we were back to where we started.

But I thought we had everything figured out I said. Foster is not the right pick so I’ll think up something else.

No Ellen. The problem is not in the name. The problem is WHY you feel you need another identity.

Not identity. Just a new name I wanted to write that big across the sky so he would understand and the picking into my head would stop.

You are the one who is mixed up about me I told him.

He wrote that down right fast and then said we would discuss it again next week.

I said I do not plan to discuss chickenshit with you and then I left.

He will not be seeing me again. I might be confused sometimes in my head but it is not something you need to talk about. Before you can talk you have to line it all up in order and I had rather just let it swirl around until I am too tired to think.

You just let the motion in your head wear you out. Never think about it. You just make a bigger mess that way.

13

I was too smart to let somebody find me living with a dead lady the second time around.

They list names of funeral homes in the yellow pages so I called one and said for them to come load her up and she did not need to stop at the hospital by the way. I picked the funeral home that advertised in fancy letters We Specialize in Embalming. That sounded reasonable so they got our business.

Then I called my aunts Betsy and Nadine and broke the news about their dead mama. I know it is a ugly thing to say but I think they were put out by her dying so near the holiday season.

Betsy said well what do you think of that and so near Christmas?

I was dying my own self to tell her well Betsy why don’t you see if the undertaking driver will stop and let you shop a minute on the way to the grave? but I just said I thought now was as good a time as any for her to go. At least she didn’t die and
lay up in the house like they say my daddy did. That seems unnecessary to me with all the people walking around that could find you dead and report you right away.

Nadine just said she would be over right away like I had just told her she had won a prize off the radio and she’d be over to claim it in three shakes.

And she was not kidding. Quick as a wink before I could finish taking care of my project here comes Aunt Nadine bustling in through the back door asking me where is her mother. I pointed to the bedroom where you would expect her to be.

If she had choked in the kitchen I would have toted or pulled her somehow to her bedroom. Does she think I would leave her mama propped up at the kitchen sink or stretched out by the stove? I wondered. Anybody with any decency would honor the dead and fix them up in their own bed. Especially after my experience.

You learn by your mistakes.

But I had this one fixed pretty as a picture. I did not want a soul to say I had not done my part even down to the decorations.

I found her Sunday hat she never wore and tilted it on her head the way a live woman might pop a hat on to ride to town in. Then the best part I will always be proud of was the nice frame I made all around her body. I put all the artificial flowers I could find from all those show jars around her end to end so she looked set off like a picture. A still life you might say.

I finished up about the time the undertaking men and her girls showed up.

The colored boys that loaded her up got a big kick out of my project but Nadine said I was sick to do such a thing.

But I feel fine I told her.

I stood in the door and watched the boys work. One asked me if I thought I ought to be in the room now and I said I wanted to watch this time.

Did you really fix her up like this? the other one wanted to know.

There was only two of us here and she is one and the other one is me I said for them to figure it out.

Well I ain’t never seen nothing like this before he said.

Thanks I said. I worked hard and I was in a hurry to finish up before folks got here so I could show her off. She does look fancy.

It’s a shame she has to leave I thought.

But they carried her off and I sat in the room and heard Nadine and Betsy now start a fight in the front of the house. They fought over which one knew she was sick and one accused the other of ignoring her and look what happened.

You two go ahead and fight over who did not take care of the other one’s mama. You two pass the blame back and forth like butter at your tables and I will stay out of this circle and time of blaming because I am not guilty today. And even when she was so dead I could not help her anymore I made her like a present to Jesus so maybe he would take her. Take this one I got prettied up and mark it down by my name to balance against the one I held back from you before. But I do not trust this newly dead one and when you look at her face you in your wisdom and seeing will know that her smile is a trick for you. But please take her anyway. And be sure I get the credit for it and if you can please show me some way that you and me are even now. I do not think I want to go through this again. I
know I told her she had her soul to worry over but I lied to her out of spite. I am the one who worries about souls and I do not want to now no Lord I just want to worry about my own self now and all the living I got to do. So you fix this little deal up for me and I will appreciate it. You just mark down how I tried this time and did not sleep to forget. This last one might already be standing at the gate. I do not know how long the trip takes. You might look at her and say old Ellen might have prettied her up but she still is too mean to be here. You might say that to yourself or to whoever puts the checks by the names. But Lord you have to remember how good the first one was and forgive her for leaving your world. My mama did not know what she was doing. She was too sad to think straight. We get like that down here. You just fix that up for me if you will. And I will wait for a sign one way or the other that will show me how I am supposed to live.

So that is how I prayed in my mama’s mama’s room where I sat close so long by the curtains that hung heavy and blocked the light of everything that happened outside.

Nadine came in the room and told me to pack up that I was going to her house to live with her and Dora.

So I put my things all in my box and felt my whole body moving slow now to the record that had been on the wrong speed but was winding down now I could tell by the changes I heard coming on. And I put my things in my box and hoped I would not spin again to hear the same sound with nothing changed but the voices of people telling me when to come and go. And as I laid out my clothes and folded them to leave I reminded Jesus that this is not the way a girl needs to be. I
told him again to please settle up with me so I could be a pure girl again and somebody good could love me.

I went home with Nadine and felt lonesome on the way to her house to leave all the flower jars I fingered in secret and the colored path I walked down with the same fear I had when I took the lid off a figured jar to peek inside. And I never found cash or silver change stashed in the jars but every night when I went to bed I knew I had found a little something on that colored path that I could not name but I said to myself to mark down what you saw tonight because it might come in handy. You mark down how they laugh and how they tell the toddler babies, you better watch out fo them steps. They steep! Mark all that down and see if you can figure out what made you take that trip every night. Then when you are by yourself one day the list you kept might make some sense and then you will know that this is the list you would take to a store if they made such a store and say to the man behind the counter give me this and this and this. And he would hand you back a home.

So I went back with Nadine knowing this time this would not be home so I do not have to feel sad about being here in the middle of a place so far from the house at the end of the colored path.

I will treat this like a hotel I told myself. I will stay for a while until I find the next place maybe with God’s help but more than likely without it.

It was winter then and I had all but quit going to school. I kept expecting the police to come after me but they never did. If I failed tests the days I did show up then they might have
punished me but I never missed spelling words and the numbers I did wrong were careless errors.

I always thought I would have more fun going to a harder school.

The second day I was at Nadine and Dora’s was my mama’s mama’s funeral. They just had a graveside service I suppose because it is a waste of money to rent out a big church room when you only expect three or four people.

And I did not go with them because I knew all that would happen and it was not anything I needed to see twice.

So Dora and Nadine dressed up alike and left me in the house alone. On the way out Dora said for me to keep away from her room.

Which I took as a invitation to ramble through and feel what all she kept hid in the back of the closet and the dresser drawers.

I should not even have to say all that I found. Dora does not have any secrets from me but she has the idea that there is more to her self than there really is. Dora keeping romance books in the back of her underwear drawer was not a surprise. And I was not exactly blowed over by the boy movie star pictures under her mattress.

But I bet her mama would be shocked and she would cry because Dora let her down. And if I was anywhere near she would finally decide that I planted all that nasty stuff there because I am jealous of Dora’s good fortune.

That might happen while I am staying here and I have to gear up for that kind of situation because that is how these two folks operate. I decided the best thing to do is ignore them like I always have and keep to myself as much as possible.

I declared to stay in my room except to go to the bathroom, talk on the telephone if somebody called me, and go to school. I thought about taking my meals in my room but I did not like the picture of me eating off a tray slid to me like I was on death row. So I would eat at the table like normal.

I decided too that one of my mistakes had always been lack of planning. But not anymore. While they were at the graveyard I decided that if I quit wasting time I could be happy as anybody else in the future and right now with one year ending and a new one starting up I thought now was the time to get old Ellen squared away for a fresh start.

And that is what I did. That is why I think I am somebody now because I said by damn this is how it is going to be and before I knew it I had a new mama. And I looked her over plenty good too before I decided she was a keeper.

I stayed in the spare bedroom Nadine’s old husband lived in. He did not die flat out but he had a stroke of something and wasted away in here. I feature Nadine hiring a colored woman to look after him and saying impatient to her don’t tire me with the details just say FINE when I ask you how he’s doing. Nadine would probably not need to hear the truth much less see it for herself.

That sums her up.

So you have Nadine and Dora making up lies with the way they carry on together like they are getting prettier every day and what does not come in a shiny package from town is not worth the trouble of opening.