I feel terrible.
There’s a rap at the door.
‘Evelyn?’
My mother.
For a moment I consider pretending to be asleep. It would be so easy to keep my mouth closed. My eyes squeezed tight.
‘Evelyn, baby. Ladybug. Please don’t shut me out.’
But then I give in. Something deep inside tells me it’s time.
‘Come in.’
Mama sits at the foot of my bed, still dressed in her uniform from the Shamrock. She rubs my feet under the covers and I let her. She gives me a sad look and I match it.
‘Grandma called me at work,’ she says.
I nod. She doesn’t need to say it.
‘Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me?’ Her voice cracks.
I look down at my hands in my lap.
‘I don’t know,’ I whisper, my heart breaking, splitting in two just like Mama’s voice. I find myself crossing my fingers briefly – for what? Luck? Courage? And then I take a deep breath and hear myself say, ‘I just … didn’t. I thought you’d be disappointed in me. Because you want me to get married and be a good girl, and good girls don’t get themselves into fixes like I did at Winkler’s.’
I briefly hold my breath, ready for any response. But grateful, too, that the words have finally been spoken out loud.
My mother’s face falls, and she crawls up close to me, hugs me to her, and I cry into her shoulder for a little while. She cries into mine, too, but mostly she just pets my hair like she did when Cheryl and I were little and would snuggle up with her after her long shifts. I feel my jaw unclench, just a little. I sense my shoulders sinking in relief.
Finally we pull apart and she looks into my eyes, searching them for something. She takes my hands in hers and squeezes them, tight as she can. I don’t even mind that it hurts a little.
‘Evelyn, what that boy tried to do …’ At this her words drop off into a whisper. She closes her eyes and takes a breath, then goes on. ‘It wasn’t your fault. None of it. I hope you know that.’
The girls never said this to me. Of course I knew that’s how they felt, too, and Juanita tried to get me to talk about it. But I guess they figured everything was implied. Hearing my mother say it, though? Listening to her voice say those sentences out loud? Something about it feels like the heaviest weight I didn’t know I was carrying has slipped off my shoulders.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know.’
She pets my hand and pets my hair, like she’s afraid if she stops petting me, I’ll disappear again. ‘Oh, Evelyn, I’m so sorry all that’s happened. To you … to … us.’
I picture my mom on the floor the night I pushed her.
‘I’m the one who should be sorry, Mama,’ I manage. ‘That night I ran away, I … didn’t mean it. I honestly didn’t! I’ve felt awful about it. I was just so mixed up … and … scared.’
My mother nods, looks down. ‘I’m sorry I slapped you, Evelyn. Never in a million years … You know, Grandpa – I know you don’t remember him – he used to take a switch to me whenever I acted up. Or if he even thought I was gonna act up. And I always swore I wouldn’t hit my own kids if I should ever be lucky enough to have any.’
We sit in silence for a little while. Mama pulls away and opens my bedroom window at the foot of my bed, and a gust of cool evening air draws in. She sits back down next to me. Studies me.
‘Evelyn, I want things to be better between us,’ she says.
I take Raggedy Ann and pull her into my lap, tug at her yarn hair.
‘When you were little, you told me everything,’ she continues. ‘Lord, sometimes you prattled on so long I wished you’d stop so I could think. Five hundred little details about everything that happened in the cafeteria or in the book you were reading or something some little girl said to you in the schoolyard. And then Cheryl got married and moved out and it was like I couldn’t get you to say the alphabet. Why did you stop telling me things?’
I sigh, lean back against the wall behind me. Clutch Ann to my face.
‘I don’t know the answer,’ I mumble. ‘I don’t know. I just …’ I draw Ann down to my lap and hug her to me.
‘After everything happened with Cheryl, I started thinking …’ I begin, then stop. Think. Take a breath. Then I let the words spill out. ‘I know you’ve always told us that what matters most is settling down with some boy who’ll keep us safe. Some steady guy. Not like our father. I want … my life to be good, but isn’t there a way for me to have a good life that doesn’t just mean finding the right boy? I’m not saying I don’t ever want to get married. But what I’m saying is … I think I want to be able to figure out what I want. In my own way.’
Mama takes this in, and I can tell she’s really listening. But she doesn’t say anything. So I keep going, unable to stop, surprising me maybe as much as her.
‘I want … things to matter. I want to feel things. Have adventures. Live. I don’t want Cheryl’s life. I love her, but I don’t. It’s not that I don’t ever want to meet someone or become someone’s wife, but I am saying I don’t want it like that. It seems if you want to really love and feel and breathe in this neighborhood …’ At this I stop, thinking of Diane. ‘No, it seems like if you want to really love and feel and breathe in this city, you’re labeled as trash. Or bad. Especially if you’re a girl.’
My mother runs a hand through her hair, pushes back at the streaks of gray near her temples.
‘Evelyn, I don’t know what the heck to say in response to all that!’ she says, exhaling. But she says it with a smile on her face and a sound of surrender in her voice. She lets herself laugh, there on the foot of my bed. I can’t help it. I smile, too.
‘I don’t think I expect you to have all the answers,’ I say. ‘But … you did ask what was on my mind.’ I shrug, all guilty-as-charged. But I manage another grin and my mother smiles back.
Neither one of us says anything for a little while. Another gust of breeze blows through my open window.
‘I don’t think I have all the answers,’ she says. ‘I don’t. I know I don’t. But I’m asking you, please don’t shut me out. Please don’t forget that I was young, too, once. And not so long ago, really. I just want what’s best for you, Ladybug. But maybe I’m going to have to learn what that is.’
‘I won’t shut you out, Mama,’ I say, then drop my voice to a whisper. ‘I promise I won’t.’
She pats my leg and takes a deep breath, then scoots up next to me.
‘Let’s just sit here for a bit,’ my mother says. ‘We don’t have to talk or anything. Just sit. Let Grandma think we’re still hashing it out. What do you say?’ She rolls her head in my direction to look at me, smiles a tired smile.
I nod. ‘That sounds fine by me.’
So my mother and I sit there enjoying each other’s quiet company, the sounds of nighttime and outdoors floating in through my bedroom window. She yawns and doesn’t even cover her mouth. Her stockinged feet rest on top of my well-worn bedspread, and I find myself staring at them, thinking about how those feet must have walked me up and down the hallways of this house a million times when I was just a tiny, crying baby, even when they were bone-tired.