Authors: Connie Rose Porter

Imani All Mine (2 page)

BOOK: Imani All Mine

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I was standing there in my drawers. I didn't even have my bra on yet. I ain't say nothing. I ain't have to. My titties say it. They was as big as watermelons. My stomach say it. It was all stretched wide, spread out around my body. I know I looked ugly, even though I ain't looked at myself in a mirror in a long time. Not even on my birthday, the month before.

I was fifteen on my birthday. I wasn't all that excited about turning fifteen. Fourteen neither. Last time I was excited about my birthday was when I turned thirteen and I was finally a teenager. They always be having them articles in
Seventeen
about how great it is to be old enough to wear makeup, how to dress for the prom, what twenty pieces of clothes you got to have to go back to school in the fall, how to tell if a boy like you. I ain't think I was going to look like them girls in there, all skinny and all, but I did think I might feel like them. Happy. And I was. We had a ice cream cake and subs delivered. Mama got me a card. The card say something about being a teenager now. It was a joke card with a white girl on the front talking on the phone, and a corny rhyme inside.

I wasn't expecting nothing for my birthday this year. Mama just give me money last year, twenty dollars in my hand. So I wasn't looking forward to nothing great this year. What's so special about being fifteen? But what I ain't count on was Mama hitting the number. She did the Pick Four on my birth date. Month and year.

Mama give me a real nice birthday. I would've liked it if she'd just turned the cable back on. But Mama went all out for me. She got me ice cream and a cake, a real bakery cake with candles on it. She let Eboni come over. We ordered a bucket of Buffalo wings and pizza with anything I wanted on it. I got double cheese, ham, pepperoni, and hot sausage. Miss Odetta come over, too. She June Bug mama.

Eboni give me these gold earrings with my name on them. They not real gold. They that fake gold them Arabians be selling down in the Main Place Mall. The earrings nice, though. They ain't turn my ears green or make break out or nothing. Miss Odetta give me a card with twenty dollars in it. Mama give me a new pair of sneakers. Nikes. She paid some real money for them, or maybe she got them hot. I ain't ask. I needed some new kicks. My feet been growing, so I'm glad to have them. Mama give me a card, too.

It had a black mama and girl on the front. The girl was little, sitting in her mama lap. On the front of the card was
To my darling, beautiful daughter on her birthday
. On the inside it didn't rhyme. It say,
May all the joy in the world be with you on this very special day
. It was signed
Mama
. I closed it real quick and stuffed it in my sneakers.

Before I went to bed that night, I laced up my sneakers so I could show them off at school the next day. Then I did something I shouldn't have. I opened the card from Mama and read it again. I started crazy crying again, like I did that day at school.

That card was lying on me. I wasn't none of those things it say I was. I didn't have to look at myself to know that, to know how ugly and broke-down I looked. All these stretch marks running crazy over me. For months they had been on my titties, on my stomach. It looked like I was going to crack open and something was going, to come from inside me, not just the baby, but something else, like in a horror movie where there be monsters in people and they don't even know it.

I hated Mama for buying that stupid card. At the same time I wanted to go to her that night and tell her everything. I was just so sick of trying to hide my baby. I figured maybe her heart might be soft, with it still being my birthday. But when I got up, I felt Imani kick me. It seemed like she was saying for me to shut up. It's not the right time. I couldn't shut up, though. So I lay down and pushed my face deep in the pillow.

When I be crying crazy like that, all these strange noises be coming out my mouth. They be coming from deep inside me from a place I don't even know, from a place I don't even want to know. I stayed right in my bed until I quieted down all by myself, until when I opened my mouth ain't nothing come out but my breath.

Who know, maybe I should've told Mama that night. I should've say something while my heart was soft, and maybe hers was soft, too. It would have been better that way, with me just saying it, flat out, instead of her seeing me like that the morning I was late for school.

Mama ain't say nothing. She just flew right at me and slapped me in the face. I was too clumsy and slow to get out the way of her hand. Next, she punched me right in the titties. I put my hands up so she couldn't hit me no more, and I backed up and fell on the bed. Mama started asking me questions she ain't even give me time to answer, and every time she ask one, she slapped me again.

What the hell wrong with you? What was you thinking about, doing this? Why you throw your life away? What you think your aunt going to think of you? What am I going to tell her? Why you ain't tell me? Why you ain't tell me? Why you ain't tell me?

It was like Mama to think what I done was all about her, like I done something to her. I couldn't hardly tell myself, but I couldn't say that to Mama. That wouldn't make no sense to her, so I rolled over and put my back to her. I wasn't thinking about her so much as I was thinking about my baby. I had to protect my baby.

That's why I think Mrs. Poole wrong with her stink breath. Because Imani loved me right
then
. I could feel it. I ain't have to wait for her to be born for her to love me. I ain't have to wait for her to be born to love her. She my baby.

Mama kept on asking and slapping. Who the father? What nigger you had the baby with? What's his name?

I ain't say nothing. I just curled myself up around my baby. I couldn't say his name to Mama. I couldn't even say it to myself.

Finally she ask me, without a slap, You happy now? Then she let me alone. She wasn't getting nothing out of me. She left the room and I got up and dressed real quick. I'd missed my school bus, but I could still take the city bus and not miss all of first period. I was relieved it was over, that Mama knew. She ain't really hurt me. I just wanted to get to school.

When I left the house, Mama was in her room. She ain't even come out, which was just fine with me. She was probably still sitting in there when the school nurse called her to tell her my water broke.

I ain't even know what it was. I was in my second-period math class with Mr. Crowley. He this white man who's all sucked-up looking and he got these brown teeth all piled on top of each other. He don't never leave the overhead projector where he be scribbling out problems and they solutions.

I felt like I had to go to the bathroom real bad and I could hardly hold it. I was waving my hand real wild, but Mr. Crowley ain't even look at me. He was explaining how to turn fractions into decimals and decimals into fractions. He finally called on me after I called out his name, and ask me to solve the problem. I told him I had to go to the lavatory, and you know what he had the nerve to tell me? I couldn't go. He had already give out two lavatory passes. I swear, that's the craziest thing I ever heard. He only give two bathroom passes a period because he think we be trying to go to the bathroom just to miss class. Maybe that's all right for boys, but don't he know what girls be having to do in the lavatory sometimes? Don't he think we might need more than two passes during class? I wasn't stutting Mr. Crowley and his rules just then. I got up and headed for the door. Soon as I started walking, I was dripping. I could feel it. By the time I made it out the door, I was starting to gush, and the lavatory was way at the end of the hall. Mr. Crowley was right behind me. He seen it, too. My sweat pants was stained dark. I was so embarrassed. Mr. Crowley grabbed me by the shoulders and ask me if I was all right. I told him I want to go to the lavatory, but he say he was taking me to see the nurse. I think he knew the baby was coming. I ain't want to go, but I knew I should, so he walked with me leaning on him and told me everything would be fine, and I was thinking he was wishing he had just give me a lavatory pass when I ask for one.

The nurse is this black lady. I had never even been in her office before, just past it. She called a ambulance. Then she phoned Mama and tell her to meet us at ECMC.

That's the county hospital. Some people don't like it because it's the welfare hospital, but it's all right with me. I was born there.

I wasn't really even scared until I heard the ambulance come up with that siren going. I ain't want to get in it, but the nurse say it was the best and safest way for me. She say she was going to be with me all the way. She was real calm. Her breath was even calm. It smelled like peppermint. She say she had three children and I would be fine. All the way to the hospital she sat next to me, patting my hand while the ambulance attendant ask me a bunch a questions about my prenatal care, how advanced my pregnancy was, when was my last period. I knew I ain't give the right answers by the way he was frowning.

The cramps I had the night before was back. They was harder and longer. The nurse told me to breathe, like I wasn't breathing or something. She ask how bad the pain was. I told her it wasn't that bad, and it wasn't.

Mama was there when I got to the hospital, looking real worried. I ain't know if she was worried because she hit me that morning and she thought these people would find out about it, or if she was really worried about me. When they wheeled me past her, I looked in her face. It looked like she was really worried about me. It looked like she been crying.

They took me in this cold room and I was all naked. There was nothing but this sheet over me. Some nurse come in and give me a shot. This doctor come and stood over me. He was from some other country. I don't know where, but he had a funny accent. He say they was going to take the baby out of me, just to be safe. I tell him I could take the pain, but he say they want to be safe. You're just a child, he say to me.

That's all I remember until after Imani was born. I don't know what they give me, but the next thing I know, it was dark outside and I was in this room with some other women with babies. Mama was sitting in a chair next to my bed, her arms folded on her chest, and she was staring at a television hung up on the wall.
Jeopardy!
was on. Mama ain't say nothing. She walked around the bed and took Imani out the little plastic crib they had her in. Mama handed her right to me.

I ain't know what to do. I just stared at her, feeling how light she was, looking to see who was in her face. It was only me I seen there, and when she poked one of her hands out the blanket, I seen them flat fingers like mine. I smiled.

Imani wasn't even her name then. Not official. It say
Dawson, Girl
on her ankle band. Eboni had give me that name. She got this baby book from a black card shop and it had that name in it. She was picking out names after she found out she was having a baby. She told me what Imani mean in some African language. Faith. I liked that.

It seem like Mama want to say something to me, but she ain't know what to say. She say I could get some ice chips, but I ain't want them. She say she needed to go home. She was tired. I told her that was all right, she could go. I had Imani.

Every time I go to Mrs. Poole class, I be learning more of what to do with Imani. I know that after the bottle, I got to burp her. Imani like that, I think. She like me patting her back. Her head be wobbling all around. I hold her head like Mrs. Poole say, but I think my baby just plain nosey. She be looking all around when I be burping her, even at two in the morning, like there's something to see.

Just last week when we was up, Imani was looking around when she heard these gunshots. Then she got real still. It was like she was holding her breath. I couldn't feel no breath coming from her. All I could feel was her heart beating fast fast. Mrs. Poole done taught us how to do CPR, but all I could think to do was give her a good shake. I knew I ain't need to when she turned and looked at me like she had a question. I felt a breath come out of her then. Hot and wet in my face. I heard the shots, too. We was on the couch, but I stopped right then patting her back and got down on the floor. I don't even want to sound dramatic, like I dove down on the floor or something. They be shooting around here sometimes at night. But the shots sound like they did that night. Like they a few blocks over. They was still loud, so I slid off onto the floor. I ain't want to scare Imani.

Mrs. Poole would probably say I'm crazy. Ain't no way a baby know what gunshots is. I ain't saying Imani knew, but that kind of scared me. After she let out a good burp, I laid Imani out on the floor and finished up the routine. I changed her diaper, wiped her off with one of them moist towelettes, and greased and powdered her butt. She got real pretty skin. She ain't had no diaper rash or nothing yet, and I'm going see to it she don't.

Imani act like she still ain't want to go to sleep that night. She wasn't fussing or nothing, but I guess she wasn't ready to go on off to sleep. So I laid down on the floor and put her up on my chest.

Mrs. Poole say that can calm a baby down. The baby hear your heart beating like when they was inside you. So I put her on my heart and sung her this song me and Eboni used to sing when we was girls. It's a hand-clapping song, but Imani can't do the clapping part yet, so I ain't do the clapping part. I don't know why I sung it, but it just come to my mind, and I sung it real soft. I sung it like a whisper.