As She Grows (10 page)

In the morning I hear my mother’s voice. She’s saying my name—
Snow
—soft, like whispered kisses in my ear. Snow. I roll my body onto its side, skin sticking to plastic as I float on the air mattress down a blue ocean carpet. I slide my hand down to my thighs, fingertips tracing the three rough-lined scabs. I carefully pick at the dried blood, flicking the scabby testimonies of craziness into the sheets. “Snow.” I hear my name again. Only now I realize the voice is not my mother’s, it’s Aunt Sharon. She is talking to Brenda, her social worker friend. She is desperately trying to find a place to leave me, as if my very presence in her apartment makes her uneasy.

“Great,” Aunt Sharon says enthusiastically. “Snow will be ready to go tomorrow.”

In some cultures you are given a name only after you have lived long enough to earn it. In other cultures, you grow into your name the way a snail grows to the size of its shell.

“She called you Snow because it’s beautiful and mysterious,” Elsie said, compelled to explain because it’s what everyone asked. But I could tell Elsie didn’t approve and, in some small way, that made me happy.
Such an interesting name,
people would say in a way that was more like a question, and I’d proudly explain a poetic mother who dressed like a gypsy and had a passionate longing for the exotic.

I lie on my inflatable mattress and imagine my mother choosing this name. I imagine her at a library, with wood panelling and ceiling-high shelves, perhaps scanning a thick book on mythology or Celtic literature or modern science. I picture a woman with a round face and long fingernails and expensive socks. I imagine her arguments with Elsie, who couldn’t possibly understand the breadth of a name.

My mother gave me a puzzle, a destiny I’m to figure out. And I’m determined to find my meaning. My high school science projects are on things like the James Bay Project, flash floods, and avalanches. At university I’m going to study Earth sciences. I’ll study hydrothermal systems, glaciers and glaciation, oceans, hot springs, and geysers in New Zealand. One day, the epiphany will strike me: something someone says, a line I read in a book, a textbook photo. Suddenly, in one small moment, I’ll understand my purpose. At least I have a choice of matters: solid, liquid, or gas.

•       •

I saw you for the first time today. A tiny, thin blue line. Just millimetres long, yet the biggest thing I could ever imagine.

Positive.

I think how strange a word to first associate you with:
positive
. I rip open another package and dip the plastic dispenser in the urine cup. Again, a thin blue line and again and again. I frantically search for the second line, the negative. I wonder, hope, the Tylenol I had last night may have affected the results. I try four more times with the packages I stole from the drugstore, slipping them in my knapsack while all the time smiling at the stock boy who was staring up my skirt.

A fist pounds on the bathroom door; metal bangles grate my ears. “Hurry up!”

I ignore the command. Jasmyn can wait this morning. I whip the last empty package against the wall; its weightless flight is unsatisfying. Sitting down on the toilet seat cover, I feel pain in
my stomach and wonder if that’s you. Then, I think,
That’s my
second word to associate with you:
pain.

The fist pounds again, so hard this time the mirror vibrates.

“Fuck off!” I hurl the words at the door.

“Snow?” Jasmyn’s response is one more of surprise than anger.

“Fuck off, I said!” And there is silence. Jasmyn knows I never swear, except when it’s absolutely essential. When I need a word to bite; to actually
feel
sound as teeth scrape my lower lip.

I stare with disbelief at the small white stick and close my eyes, promise aloud that if the results change in the next five seconds, I will never have sex again. Then peeking through the slit of my right eye I add another promise: I will never smoke again. I try this a few more times, thinking of all the sinful things I do, but nothing changes. I collect the wrappers and boxes into a plastic bag and tuck it in under my towel, concluding that it’s probably a mistake, because I used condoms almost every time. I open the door. Jasmyn’s crossed-arm body blocks my way, her mouth squeezed tight and pushed to the side. Our eyes lock and I know she is registering the hairline crack that, if touched, will implode me. I brush by her. She doesn’t move out of the way, or retaliate, but absorbs my shove instead. It will fuel her. She will transfer it to someone else later on today.

I met my roommate, Jasmyn, on my first day at the Delcare group home three weeks ago. She was assigned to show me around the house, something she did begrudgingly, ensuring I knew it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. I followed her toned body squeezed into a black dress, the impatient click-click of her fake red nails tapping on walls when I paused too long. She barely mustered the energy to flick a finger in the direction of closed doors. “There’s a bathroom down there, but it don’t have no shower, only a toilet, and that room got air conditioning, but
you only get it if you have asthma.” After showing me only the top floor, we skipped the second and the main levels, down the back stairs, and ended up in the gravel backyard spotted with weeds and overgrown bushes. Jasmyn lit a smoke and leaned against the rotting picnic table.

“Your name’s Snow,” she questioned, flicking her ashes in my direction, “as in Snow White?”

“No. Snow, as in Snow,” I said firmly, my arms fumbling around for somewhere to be. I was unsure if she was messing with my mind, trying to make some black-and-white point. Even though she looked mostly white, her coarse black hair and dark eyes told me she wasn’t. And the Jamaican flag tattoo on her right shoulder blade told me she didn’t want to be.

“Eh, Snow White,” she said. “It’s tradition to give your tour guide payment, like a pack of smokes, good ones. If you don’t, I’ll stash weed in your bag and get you kicked out by tomorrow.” She firmly exhaled smoke in my face.

“It’s Snow,” I said, my blood boiling. “Call me that again and I’ll kick your ass.” I regretted the words the second they came flying out of my mouth, because I could tell that Jasmyn was one of those girls who wanted to start something for the pure pleasure of it.

“Bitch,” she spat back, bolting up from the table and pushing me back into the brick wall. Before I could say or do anything, Jasmyn stormed into the house. I watched her through the glass, talking to a youth worker, fingers ferociously pointing and zigzagging in the air, as if she were spelling out each letter. A couple of minutes later, Pat, the house supervisor, poked her smiling face out the back door. “You must make a good first impression. Jasmyn asked for you to be in her room. Is that okay?”

I shrugged my shoulders unconvincingly, as if it didn’t matter, which seemed to satisfy her and she went back inside. And I sat on
the picnic table, finishing my smoke. Thinking maybe I was mistaken to believe that leaving my home was the same thing as leaving my life.

I return to my room, hide the plastic bag in with my dirty clothes, and climb into bed. I can’t handle school today. I curl up in a fetal position, realize what I’m doing, and then unfold into a straight line. I get all hot and sweaty and I start to see fuzziness out of the corners of my eyes. My heart feels like a basketball thrown up against the walls of my hollow chest. A few minutes later Jasmyn comes back into our room, hair dripping, wet feet slap-slapping the wood floor. She looks my way and kisses her teeth. I switch to face the wall. I feel her eyes on my back and hear the
psshh
of my expensive L’Oréal hairspray. There’s a pause and then the
psshh
again and I picture Jasmyn spraying the can into the room like it was air freshener. My hairspray, the cause of many past arguments, seems stupid to me today. Everything seems stupid to me today. She turns the radio on, loud bass vibrates my bed. She tries her hardest to get a reaction out of me, but I retreat under the covers like an unimpressed animal at the zoo.

When Jasmyn leaves there is silence for only a few moments before, next door, Nicole begins her morning routine of refusing to get out of bed. She has composed it well: the rattle-bang of clock radio hitting the wall, the hollow-thump of a pillow, a bassthud of a foot hitting drywall by my head. And then there are words. Nicole has the foulest mouth of all the girls in the house and can combine swear words together in ways I never thought possible. The chaos is intercepted with Staff’s warning of grounding, which means Nicole won’t be allowed to visit her boyfriend this weekend. Minutes later, I hear the shower running.

We are a family of women. We have no fathers. Only eight shift-work mothers who proclaim themselves rule-maker, lesbian, feminist, activist, college graduate, do-gooder, “I’ve been there,” and rah-rah cheerleader. Together, they are a collective, featureless being named “Staff.” It’s unimportant to specifically name them. They are all the same. But no matter what I call them, they’re still better than Elsie.

I hear a faint knock which is meaningless, because Staff are entitled to enter any time they want. I stay buried under my covers, closing my small air hole around my mouth.

“Snow, you okay? Feeling sick?” I feel the bottom corner of my bed sink, springs squeaking. It’s Miranda, my “primary,” the youth worker who has been assigned to me, which essentially means she’s the one who is paid to annoy the hell out of me. I know it’s her because I can hear the crazy collection of bangles lining both her wrists clang and jingle as she speaks. Fortunately for me, she’s the coolest youth worker in the house. She gives us all henna tattoos on our birthdays and sometimes teaches us how to make the wire-and-stone jewellery she sells as a side job. Unlike the other youth workers who recite psychology textbook words from their mouths, Miranda will talk to us straight up. Tell it like it is. Which makes me wish it were Tina at the end of my bed today because if you feel sick, Tina is the one who’ll make you tea and tuck you under cozy blankets in front of the TV. Miranda is more likely to just tell you to get the bug out of your ass and get on with it. And Staff lets her get away with this kind of talk because she’s the first one to clean a girl’s puke or unclog a toilet.

“Yeah, my stomach hurts,” I groan, in my most sleepy, pathetic voice.

“Jasmyn mentioned something was up. Should I call the school and let them know you won’t be in?” Her voice is warm and soft,
unlike the annoyed, harsh tone I heard a few minutes ago outside of Nicole’s door. It makes me believe she’s up to something.

“Okay.” I am taking advantage of this. Of being new. Of being good. Of being a resident who hasn’t yet slipped sleeping pills in Staff’s drinks in order to extend a curfew. There are benefits to being well behaved in a house of six troubled girls. I am spared the threat of consequences, loss of privileges, and time-outs in a locked room, for now. Staff calls it “honeymooning,” because I’ve only been here three weeks. They are waiting for me to flip onto my damaged side like a helpless bug, legs flicking in the air, so they can reach out and turn me over. They are convinced that one day I will snap: throw a chair, stab a fork in an unsuspecting hand, take the van for a joyride. They can’t imagine that any girl who leaves her home is a person in control of her life.

“You’ve been really tired lately,” Miranda says. “A lot. Maybe you’ve got a bug. Do you want me to make a doctor’s appointment for you?”

“No appointments,” I murmur from under the covers.

“What about your appointment at four with Eric? Think you can go to that?”

“I’ll try,” I say, knowing that if I don’t go, I’ll be on “sick routine” and won’t be allowed out of the house tonight. I poke my head out from under the covers, just halfway, my chin still hidden. Miranda is smiling at me. She raises her hand to move her dyed cherry-red hair, cut like a geisha girl’s, out of her eyes.

Left alone in the silence of my room, my reality pulsates in my head. Tears start spilling out of me and I press my face to the pillow, muffling the ugly noises coming from the depth of me. For the first time since I’ve arrived at this house, I want to go home. I want my piss-stained curtain, my Billy Bee glass, my fraying pink towels and sixties flowered sheets. I want things that aren’t bought
in bulk or bleached white. I want that dull tint of colour: a yellowed mug, a yellowed pillowcase, the yellowed rim around the toilet bowl. I want stains.