So Much More (37 page)

I try not to think about what’s happening and bend my knees and scoot down toward the doctor. When he pulls my knees apart, they’re shaking, and I can’t make ‘em stop.

“Stop shaking and just let him look,” Mama snaps at me. She says it like she does when she tells me to go to my room when she has a man friend come over.

That’s when I start crying. I hold my breath ‘cause when I do that the sound don’t come out, only tears do.

The doctor’s gloves are cold and wet on my privates. I don’t like it at all, and it makes the tears feel hot in my eyes. So hot that I squeeze my eyes shut. And when I close my eyes it don’t hold in the tears, and more come.

“You may feel a pinch,” he says.

I don’t understand until there’s something sliding inside me. It feels like a spoon. The spoon’s cold, but it don’t pinch like he said. And then he does something, and it don’t pinch, it hurts. The doctor is a big, fat liar. It feels like he’s prying me open from the inside out.
 

I hold my breath through the pain that ain’t a pinch.

When he takes the spoon out, the pain stops. But then he sticks his fingers inside me. It makes me feel like throwing up. Only Dan’s supposed to touch me there. I keep swallowing, trying not to throw up.
 

“Everything seems normal. Does she have an OBGYN?” He says this to Mama like I ain’t in the room with ‘em.

“I’ll make her an appointment with mine,” Mama says.

And he leaves.

“Put your clothes on and meet me at the front desk. You have a lot of explaining to do.” My eyes are still closed, but I can see her anger. It’s bright red, like fire.

It’s hard to get dressed ‘cause I’m still crying hard and shaking harder.

Mama don’t talk to me the whole way home. I know she’s saving all her mean and mad for when we get home. Inside our house is the only place she lets mean and mad loose on me. And it always hurts when she does. She makes sure of it.

I don’t tell Mama I had sex with Dan. I promised him I would never tell no one, and I’m good at keeping secrets.

*****

The next Wednesday, when Dan walks me home, I tell him I’m pregnant. He looks surprised, and his face gets real pale, like Mama’s face last year when I told her I’d eaten four of her
special
brownies. We go in my room and we kiss for a few minutes, and then he stands up and tells me to get on my knees in front of him. I do. Then he tells me to open my mouth. I do. Then he puts his penis in my mouth. It makes me choke, but he just keeps saying, “Relax, Jane. This makes me feel good. You want me to feel good, don’t you?” I nod ‘cause I do. He tells me to suck and pretend he’s one of the popsicles I like so much. I do, but he don’t taste like a popsicle. He starts moving in and out of my mouth while I suck. Then he grabs my hair by my ears in his hands and moves faster. “That’s it, Jane. That’s perfect. Keep doing that.” I like that he’s using his chocolate crème pie voice. Until I feel something hot fill the back of my throat. It makes me cough and gag and when I do I feel something warm and wet on my chin and neck. I swallow back against what’s in my mouth, it tastes sticky and salty, and I don’t like it. Dan has his hand wrapped around his penis, and he’s jerkin’ it back and forth. It looks rough like it hurts, but stuff’s squirting out of it on my chest, and the look on his face makes me feel good. It’s the same look he wears when he does this inside my privates. “Good girl,” he says. “Very good. I want to try something else new before I go today.”

I don’t know what that means, but most things Dan does to me make me feel good, so I nod. “Okay.”

“Does your mama have any oil for cooking with?” he asks.

I nod.

“Get it, beautiful.”

I like it when he calls me beautiful.

When I come back with the vegetable oil, he takes it and sets it on the floor. Then he tells me to get down on my hands and knees.

I do. I don’t like to have sex this way, ‘cause he can’t kiss me. I like kissing him.

He touches me from behind, and it feels good. Then I hear him tear open the rubber package, and he puts his penis inside me. It feels good, but he’s holding my hips and crashing into me with his, a lot faster than he usually does.

“I’m gonna miss this,” he says. I don’t know what it means. He talks a lot when he’s inside me, and it usually don’t make a lot of sense. Mostly curse words, which I know is a sin, but when he says ‘em with his chocolate crème pie voice, they don’t sound like sinning.

I feel him pull out, and he picks up the vegetable oil bottle and takes off the cap. I don’t look back to see what he’s doing with it. And then I feel the hair on his chest sticky with sweat on my back, and he whispers in my ear, “Just relax, or this will hurt. I don’t want to hurt you, Jane. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

“Deep breaths if it hurts. Deep breaths until I’m done. You want me to feel good, right?”

“Yes,” I say without thinking.

And then he spreads my butt cheeks with his hands, and I feel something slick and warm against my behind. And then he starts pushing his way in, but it ain’t my privates. It don’t feel right. “Relax,” he reminds me.

But I can’t relax. I don’t understand what’s happening.
 

He stops moving. “Breathe.” The way he says it makes me wanna please him. So, even though I can’t relax, I take a few deep breaths.

“That’s it,” he says it like my favorite teacher does when I answer a question right.

But then he starts pushing again, and all I wanna do is push him back out. He’s going slow, but it don’t stop the bad feelings. I feel yucky and like I need to go potty. “I don’t like it,” I blurt. I shouldn’t have said nothing, but I can’t keep it in.

“You’re doing just fine. You’ll be fine. Just keep breathing.” He pulls back a little bit, and it feels better, but then he pushes back in real fast. “I’m sorry, this feels too good. It will be over quick. Don’t think about it.”

And then it hurts. It hurts
real
bad. He’s holding my hips tight. I can’t get away. I can hear his skin slapping against mine, and he’s talking, but I don’t hear most of it ‘cause the pain’s making it hard for me to hear. It’s like I’m wrapped up in a blanket, only it ain’t my favorite blanket Grandma Tressa made me, this blanket’s made of hurt and pain.

I’m crying out, “Please stop, it hurts! It hurts! Please stop!”

But he don’t, not until I hear him yell, “Fuck me, your ass is so tight.”

When he pulls out, the pain’s still there. I don’t wanna look at him, ‘cause he hurt me.

He goes to the bathroom and cleans himself up, and when he comes back to me, I’m lying on the floor crying.

He pulls me into his lap and holds me. It’s real gentle, just like when I held a puppy from the neighbor’s dog’s litter when I was little. “Listen to me, Jane. You’re my special girlfriend. I’m sorry that hurt, but you made me feel so good, beautiful. And I needed our last time together to be special. When I leave today, you’ll never see me again.”

I look up at him. “What about school?”

He shakes his head. “I won’t be there. But we’ll always keep our secret. We won’t tell anyone about our special time together.”

“I’ll never tell no one,” I promise.

He smiles the smile where I can count all his teeth. “Good.”

And then he sets me on the floor, and he gets up and leaves.

And I wonder if he meant what he said and if he won’t be at school tomorrow.

*****

Dan wasn’t at school the next day.
 

I didn’t see him at lunch or in the hallways between classes.

It makes me sad that he’s gone, ‘cause he’s my only friend.

Just to be sure I stop by the office after school and ask Mrs. Peacock, the school secretary, ‘cause the first day of school she told me if I ever had questions I could always ask her. “Is Dan gone? Did he leave for good?”

She looks confused. “Dan? Dan who, sweetie? Do you know his last name?”

I don’t know his last name, so I shake my head and tell her what I do know. “Dan. He sweeps the cafeteria after we make it dirty at lunchtime.”

Her eyes change like she knows the Dan I’m talking about. “Oh, Dan Crestmoor, the custodian. I’m sorry, sweetie, he no longer works here. He called this morning and said he had a family emergency and his family needs him out of state. His elderly mother is sick. He was moving today.” She’s smiling when she says it, like she don’t know her words are making me sad.

Poor Dan. I’m sad his mama’s sick. I hope he can make it better when he gets there.

*****

Going to school is hard when you’re pregnant. The other kids tease me more than usual. They call me a
slut
and a
whore
. I try to ignore ‘em, but it hurts my feelings. I already hear those words enough at home from Mama.

*****

My belly’s getting real big. Mama says my baby girl’s gonna be born soon. Mama also says I’m too young and can’t handle a baby, especially since I ain’t married, so she found a family to be my baby’s new family when she’s born. Adoption she calls it. That makes me sad, but Mama says that’s how it’s gotta be. I haven’t met the new family, but they must be real nice, ‘cause they bought Mama a new car. She says it’s a Toyota Corolla. It’s light blue, her favorite color, and the air conditioning blows real cold. She smiles real big when she drives it. Only it’s the kind of smile that don’t make me happy, and I don’t know why.

You were my hope

present

And then Hope begins the story that I’ve been waiting twenty-two years to hear. “You were born on a hot July day in this room. July thirtieth.”

I clamp my hand over my mouth to muffle my sob. That’s my birthday. The tears blur my vision instantly making Hope only a fuzzy outline in front of me. I tug her hand and urge her into the hallway and back out into the maternity ward reception area before I ask her to continue and tell me everything she remembers. And not to leave anything out.

She takes a seat calmly.
 

I sit next to her dazed, but alert.

She takes my hand in hers and stares at them in my lap.

And then she tells me about the day I was born. “My tummy had been hurting real bad all afternoon. When Mama came home from work and saw the sheets on my bed underneath me all wet, she took me to the hospital.

“Mama stayed in the room with me while you were born. She sat in a chair across the room. She didn’t look at me the whole time, but I saw her crying.” Hope’s eyes look distant with concentration like she’s lost in the memory, reliving it, recalling every detail.

“The second you were born, the doctor said, ‘It’s a girl,’ and you cried. Your cry was quiet but loud at the same time like you were a tiny kitty on the outside and a lion on the inside. It made me smile, ‘cause I knew you were strong. And I didn’t say it out loud, but I named you Hope ‘cause that’s what I felt. I felt hope.

“You were so tiny, just like a doll, when the nurse laid you on my chest. She smiled at me like she was happy and sad all at once, and she whispered, ‘We’re not supposed to let you hold her, but I think she deserves to know you, if only for a minute.’

“The tears started running down my cheeks, and I couldn’t stop ‘em. They weren’t sad tears. You were so beautiful. I stroked your head real soft like and talked to you even softer. ‘I love you, Hope.’ That’s what I told you. I’d never told no one I loved ‘em before. I never felt like I loved no one until I looked at you, and my heart felt so full I didn’t know how else to say it. And then I told you, ‘Your new mama and daddy are gonna take real good care of you. You’re gonna be smart, and nice, and good, and so pretty. I’m glad I got to be the mama who got to meet you first, I’ll never forget you.’” She looks at me. “I was right, you’re all those things.

“The nurse came back, and I kissed you on the forehead, and she took you away. To your new mama and daddy that my mama found for you. I don’t remember their first names, but their last name was—”

“Groves,” we say together. And my heart clenches for Hope and for me.

She nods. “They lived far away and couldn’t have a baby of their own, so they wanted you. And since Mama said I was too young and wasn’t ready to be a mama, I was glad you were gonna live with ‘em, ‘cause they promised to take real good care of you.” She looks at me thoughtfully, and there’s pride in her next words. “You were so special. Special like something that only happens once in a lifetime. When I looked at you, I only saw good things and it made me forget about every bad thing that anyone had ever said or done to me. You took it all away. You were my hope.”

“Did you ever think about me after I was gone?” All my life I’ve wondered. Dreamed that my mom was out there somewhere thinking about me like I was thinking about her.

“I knew better than to ask Mama, ‘cause she said you weren’t mine no more after that day and ‘cause you belonged to another family she said I wasn’t allowed to talk about you to no one. She told me to forget you, but I never stopped thinking about you. Every night since, before I go to bed I say a prayer for you, ‘Please keep Hope safe and happy.’ I don’t pray for nothing else. Just for you. And every year on your birthday I sing you ‘Happy Birthday.’”