Enter into the House of Women

My three-month-old self lay swaddled and snuggled, nestled on the passenger side floor of a white Austin Mini. My caseworker Helen was taking me to meet her mother. She put me on the floor for safety. So I wouldn’t fly off the seat and smack into the dashboard if she stopped suddenly. It was June 1971, so the car did not have seat belts. Seatbelts wouldn’t be mandatory for another fifteen years.

Helen claims that I stared at her with unblinking eyes for the whole drive. I argued that I must have blinked. Also, wasn’t she watching the road? How could she have possibly kept her eyes on me the whole time?

But Helen wouldn’t budge. “You didn’t blink,” she said.

Helen was taking me to see her own mother, Clara. She hoped that Clara would like the looks of me so that she would take care of me for a while.

I was in desperate need of a savior. My seventeen-year-old mother, Elena, the other half of Helen’s case, was not coping well with me and my infant demands. Elena, a minor herself, was cast out by her family, with me a bastard in tow.

She had been placed in an older woman’s home—an older woman who expected her to help with the housework. A squawking baby was a distinct negative. And a dead tired girl helper was a double negative.

Elena said that if she didn’t get a break from me soon, she wasn’t sure what she would do. A veiled threat Helen decided to take seriously. Elena begged Helen to find somewhere for me, anywhere. But Helen couldn’t find anyone to take a tiny baby who cried too much and couldn’t pull her own weight. The only person left to ask was Helen’s mother, who liked children. My future hung on that one word like.

Helen drove with the fingers on both of her hands crossed as she gripped the steering wheel. I needed some luck to get past her mother, and I hadn’t had much in my short life. 

Helen’s mother was particular, fussy, everything had to just so according to her arbitrary standards.  Anything about me could rub Clara the wrong way. If she thought I was too bald, or had a strange smell, or looked cross-eyed. And most importantly, I shouldn’t be too black.

To Helen, I was a perfectly acceptable baby. She thought that I was cute, a medium brown shade; I had a few sprigs of black curls on my head. Elena said I cried too much, but Helen didn’t think I cried any more than was expected.

Helen turned left at the tamarind tree and into her driveway. She drove past the black wrought iron gates into her garage. She lifted me off the floor of the car, walked into the kitchen, and presented me to her mother, who sat with her arms crossed behind a white and chrome 50s-style Formica table.

Clara unwrapped the thin white blanket swaddling me, then picked me up and turned me to and fro. She fingered the thin pastel animal print shirt and cloth diaper I was wearing.

“Lord, I wonder how many little bodies have been in dis shirt. It’s almost transparent,” she said, with her singsong voice. Clara expertly re-swaddled me. “She is a nice little baby. What you brought for dis child?”

  “She has a diaper bag in the car. I didn’t know that you would take her so quickly,” Helen said.

“What did you think I would do with her den? Bring the bag. Let’s see what we have.”

“Her mother says she cries a lot,” Helen reminded her mother.

Clara sucked her teeth. “How old dat girl?”

“She’s seventeen,” Helen said.

Clara sucked her teeth again. “She doan know nuttin’ ‘bout babies. She’s too young.”

Clara looked at her daughter. “Stop getting dat bag and get it, please. I asked you dat already.”

Helen retrieved my bag from the car and spread the contents on the table. Six cloth diapers, four diaper pins, two glass baby bottles, and three well-worn baby shirts.

Clara surveyed the contents disapprovingly.  “Well, dis will have to do until tomorrow de shops are closed. It’s plain milk for you tonight, Child. What is her name?”

“Melissa,” Helen said.

“What kind of name is dat? Dat is an American name.”

“I think she was supposed to be adopted by Americans,” Helen said.

 “Well, dat can’t be helped.” Clara scooped me up into her arms. “Come, child, let’s meet Granny.”

Clara took me down the hall to meet her mother. Helen went to her room and closed the door, her duty done.

And with that, I was accepted into this house of women. Clara became my mother and Helen became my sister.

Blackbelly Sheep

            I looked out the kitchen door, past the darkened shade of the garage, over the light gray of their newly poured concrete driveway, past the shimmering black asphalt of the road to them. They were slow-moving shapes, their teeth pulling on bone dry grass in the distant field. It was eleven am. and already eighty-nine degrees. 

            "Mum, the sheep look hot."

            Mummy was washing dishes and replied without looking up. "De sheep are fine."

            "The grass looks very dry," I said.

            Mummy snorted, "Those sheep are not bothering you. Doan worry about dem." She then turned on her heel and walked into the laundry room.

            I walked into the garage for a closer look at the sheep. The dancing mirage of the asphalt convinced me that the sheep were hot. I grabbed a grubby white bucket Adrian used to wash his car and filled it quietly with water–no need to alert Mummy. I floated a smaller empty butter container in the bucket and hobbled across the driveway and through her gate. When I crossed the road, my plastic sandals stuck with every step to the searing asphalt. A breeze was blowing, and I could smell the sea air. 

            I set the bucket down at the edge of the field and the road and scooped the butter container full of water. Then I marched across the dry grass to an ewe, her teats heavy with milk. The ewe raised her head to watch me walking towards her. I offered her the water, leaning far over, not wanting to get too close in case she was not a friendly animal. The sheep drank the water eagerly, sucking the container dry.

            I walked back and forth, taking water to the sheep grazing in the field until the bucket was empty. I was thoroughly hot and sweating, but I had at least ten more sheep to get to, another bucketful, I guessed, and I was determined to do it.

            I walked through our gate with the empty bucket and saw Mummy leaning in the garage, arms crossed, looking unfriendly.

            "You’re going to dat all day, take water to sheep that have nuttin to do with you?"

            "I told you they were hot," I replied, feeling triumphant. I ignored Mummy and refilled the water bucket, determined to finish my work. 

The Secret of the Pawpaw Tree

            When I was four years old, on an ordinary Tuesday, I lost my gold bracelet in the front garden. Despite hours of searching Mummy and I couldn’t find it.

  “Girl you better carry yourself otta my sight. I can’t take the sight of you. Dat bracelet was gold,” Mummy said.

I slunk away to Granny’s room, and she decided to teach me the secret of the pawpaw tree to cheer me up. Granny took me outside to the southwest corner of the garden where our stunted pawpaw tree grew. The pawpaw tree’s leaves were as big as two man's hands put together. The tree was supposed to make a large fruit 12 inches long, four inches tall, and four inches wide. But ours didn’t bear fruit.

Mum blamed mysterious underground pipes.

            Granny broke off a stalk which was green and flexible, and then she pulled off the leaves. She placed one in my hand and had me look down the length of its stem. It was hollow. She broke off another one so that we had two.

Then she took me inside to the kitchen sink, and she showed me how to mix water and dishwashing liquid in the right amount. I wondered what she was doing and how it all went together. She took me outside again and stirred the dishwashing mixture with her stalk. Then she blew through the stalk, and soap bubbles floated into the air.

They were big, buoyant, and swirled with transparent multicolored ribbons. They lasted for a few seconds and then bust with a pop. Granny handed me the liquid to try. I stirred my stalk like she had and blew carefully. A wonderfully large bubble rose into the air filled with my breath. I watched it float away. 

I learned quickly that if you blew too hard, you didn’t make a bubble. It popped. Granny wanted the bubble liquid back so she could make some bubbles too. I didn’t want to give it back to her; I wanted to keep all the beautiful bubbles to myself. I was greedy and selfish. I blew an extra bubble, and then I gave the liquid to Granny because I loved her.

Mummy was pleased to see us. “Oh, you are blowing bubbles,” she said. We were keeping busy, and out of her way, so we were doing well. I showed her my stalk.

“Clever, you made a pawpaw straw. I made those too when I was little.”

“Oh, Mummy,” I told her, “You were never little.”

“Of course, I was little, you silly girl. How do you think Granny could be my mum if I wasn’t little?” I hadn’t thought of that, but it didn’t seem possible that Mummy could have been like me once: small, vulnerable, and silly. I would have to think about it some more.