Leaving Atlanta (2 page)

And true enough, they hadn’t been smiling like Tayari’s parents. Mama held Daddy’s hand tight so that her knuckles stood out
and her face had worn a sorry, stretched look, like her chin was too heavy and was pulling her round face into a sad oval.

But Tasha figured this was an appropriate precursor to news about an impending baby. Where in the world were they going to
put it? In the guest room? It didn’t seem fair that a baby should have a room to itself while she had to share with DeShaun.
And if the guest room was to be full of baby, then where would Nana stay when she came to visit from Birmingham? She knew
Mama and Daddy weren’t going to suggest putting it in here with her and DeShaun. There was not enough room for their two canopy
beds and a crib.

“What?” Tasha said, looking at Mama’s abdomen.

Daddy pulled his hand from Mama’s and touched Tasha’s face. “Wait till DeShaun gets here.”

Tasha climbed onto her bed and hugged her knees. This was serious. Twins? Oh, Jesus. (She could take the Lord’s name in vain
all she wanted to as long as she didn’t do it out loud.) One little sister was more than enough, really. She could imagine
twins in identical prams. People would be saying how precious they were and how cute. It would be like being the only regular
girl in a class full of pretty people. She got enough of that feeling at school already; having it at home would be unbearable.

Tasha wished she had X-ray vision so she could look right in Mama’s stomach and see what was going on under the brown blouse
tucked into the waistband of her tan slacks. Her stomach poked out a little bit, but not any more than anyone else’s mother’s
did. Or did it? Mama ran her hand across her front, flattening the pleats.

There was the sound of a toilet flushing and DeShaun came in.

“What?” the little girl said, looking from her parents to her older sister and back.

“We been waiting for you so we can find out,” Tasha said.

“I was using the bathroom,” DeShaun whined.

“Tasha,” Mama said, “don’t snap at her like that.”

“All I said was—”

Daddy cleared his throat. “Delores.” He took Mama’s hand again, but she didn’t wrap her fingers around his. He let go to touch
the sisters on the crown of their heads. His fingernails were neat rectangles against their dark hair.

“Girls,” he said, “I love you very much.”

Especially DeShaun, Tasha thought. She could remember the time before DeShaun was born. Mama said she couldn’t possibly since
they were only twenty-three months apart, but Tasha did remember and she knew that people used to love her more back then.
What would life be like after the twins? She turned her face toward the wall and Daddy gently twisted her head so she had
to look at his sober and unhappy brown face.

“And I love your mother too.” He turned toward Mama, who seemed to be studying her knees. “But your mother and I think that
it is best if we live apart right now.”

Tasha looked up at him quickly. There was no baby?

“For a while,” he said, looking at Tasha before turning to look at Mama.

“For a while,” Mama echoed. “Just to see how things work.”

“Okay,” Tasha said fast. Relieved.

Her little sister DeShaun pulled a piece of loose skin from her wobbly bottom lip.

Now, Tasha felt stupid. Monica was right. Tasha was
immature
. And Daddy was in the wrong too. He should have said,
Tasha, DeShaun, your mother and I have been playing with matches and your whole life is on fire.

After school that first day, Tasha did not wipe her feet before coming into the house. After leaving her wet umbrella on the
carpet, she tramped into the kitchen leaving mad, muddy, size-six prints on the floors. She drank juice from three different
glasses and didn’t rinse a single one out. Frustrated, she flopped onto the couch and put her feet up on it.

“You’re not supposed to put your feet up on that sofa,” DeShaun reminded her.

Ignoring her little sister, Tasha placed her glass on the coffee table without a coaster. “Did you know Mama and Daddy were
separated?” she asked.

DeShaun bit down on a carrot stick. “What’s that?”

Tasha searched her mind. “It’s the same thing as divorce.”

“I don’t know what that is either.”

“Divorce is when the parents aren’t together anymore. When the dad lives someplace else.”

“I already know that Daddy is living someplace else.” DeShaun looked confused. “You know that too, right?”

“Yeah, I know that much.” Tasha was insulted. “I’m asking you if you knew they were
separated.
”

“And I said
what’s that,”
DeShaun protested.

Separated was kids who only had a mother to come and hear them say a poem on Black History Day. Or the ones who had stepfathers
that they called by their first names. Ayana McWhorter, Tasha’s best friend, had one named Rex who didn’t like Ayana or any
of her friends. He was young, according to Mama, clicking her tongue against the back of her teeth, but Tasha couldn’t see
it. Rex was tall and thin with a narrow scar on the side of his face, which he tried to hide with a thick beard. (Unkempt,
according to Mama.) Tasha wouldn’t have noticed the scar at all if Ayana hadn’t pointed it out:
That’s where someone tried to kill him.
After that, Ayana always came over to Tasha’s house to play because Tasha didn’t like going over to her house and Mama didn’t
think much of the idea either. Last June, when Ayana had spent the afternoon, Mama had pulled them out from in front of the
TV and spread construction paper out on the kitchen table.

“You girls need to do something productive,” Mama said, putting down newspaper to protect the floor. “Since Father’s Day is
right around the corner, you all can make cards.”

Tasha thought that it was a good idea. She loved arts and crafts.

“I’m not making a card for Rex,” Ayana said, loud as back talk.

Tasha looked at Mama, expecting her to be mad, but Mama only touched the girl softly on the back of her neck.

“You can make a card for anyone. Your granddaddy, or an uncle.”

“I don’t want to make a card for anyone,” Ayana murmured.

“Okay, you can just draw a picture.”

Ayana didn’t draw a picture. Instead she ate paste and then threw up all over the table, ruining the paper Tasha had neatly
folded and glittered.

Mama had put a cold towel on Ayana’s forehead and made soft clicks with her tongue.

Separated
was regurgitated glue and sour spangles.

Tasha went to her room to wait for Mama to come home.

“LaTasha Renee Baxter,” Mama bellowed. “Come down here right now.”

When Tasha got down to the kitchen, DeShaun was pleading innocent.

“I had some juice, but I rinsed out my cup and put it right here in the dishwasher. And those aren’t my footprints neither.
My feet are littler than that; see?” She put her foot beside one of the dirty marks.

Mama, satisfied with the evidence, waved DeShaun into the other room.

“You are really trying my patience today,” she started. She had taken off her high-heeled shoes and was gesturing with them.
“What is your problem, Miss Lady?” She aimed the pointed toe of her pump at the empty juice glasses and the dirty floor. “I
just mopped this floor last night. There is a mat—” She realized that Tasha was not paying attention. “Look at me when I talk
to you.”

Tasha raised her eyes to her mother’s face. She tried to talk with her teeth closed like grown ladies did when they were really
mad. “You didn’t tell me you were separated.”

Mama was caught off guard. Tasha could tell. “What?”

“Monica said that her mother told her that you were separated. You didn’t tell that to me.”

Mama sat down heavily in one of the wooden kitchen chairs and patted the one beside her.

“I don’t want to sit down.” She could hear her heart beating in the sides of her head.

“Tasha, Daddy and I told you and Shaun both that we would be living apart.”

“But you didn’t say
separated!
” Tasha had never raised her voice at an adult before.

Mama’s face changed and Tasha ran, frightened, to her room and shut the door.

Half an hour later, Mama’s voice climbed the stairs. “Dinner’s on the table!” Tasha didn’t answer and no one came upstairs
to see about her.

The sounds of silverware clicking against plates she could endure, but the whirring of the blender made her put her face into
her pillow and scream; Mama and DeShaun were downstairs enjoying milkshakes. Last week, DeShaun had refused her cabbage and
Mama had coaxed her into eating it.
Just one little bite.
It was such a big deal that DeShaun might not get all her vitamins but no one cared if Tasha went to bed without any dinner
at all.

She dug around in her closet until she came up with a small package of peanuts that Nana had given her from the airplane and
a stale marshmallow egg left over from last year’s Easter basket. She swallowed with great difficulty, choking on salty sadness
and thirst.

I will not eat with them again, she promised herself. They can have milkshakes from now until kingdom come and I will not
even eat one bite.

For two days Tasha kept her word. She ate ravenously at lunchtime and spirited away granola bars under her bed to tide her
through the evenings. She chewed each bite slowly, trying to make it last.

“Tasha will eat when she gets hungry,” Mama said into the telephone. “She’s not going to sit up in that room and starve to
death.” She was quiet. “That’s easy for you to say … Um-hum. Hold on.” She hollered up the stairs. “Tasha, pick up the phone.”

She went into her parents’ room. “Hello.”

“Hey, Ladybug.” Daddy’s voice was dark and smooth like a melted crayon.

She wanted to cry. “Hey, Daddy,” she whispered.

“Your mother says you don’t have much of an appetite.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“She’s really worried about you. Why don’t you just eat a little something so she won’t have to worry.”

“She’s not worried about me.”

“Don’t say that,” he said. “Your mother loves you.”

“She don’t act like it.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“So are you going to eat?” The timbre of his voice masked an undercurrent of pleading, as if her refusal to eat dinner made
an adult difference.

“Yeah,” Tasha said. She couldn’t bring herself to disappoint or disobey him.

But she couldn’t bring herself to eat dinner at the table set for only three.

The next day, Mama stopped ignoring her.

“Tasha, come down here and eat.” She accented each angry syllable with a tap on the banister with a spatula.

“I’m not hungry,” Tasha yelled through her closed door.

“Well just come down and sit at the table.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“You looked pretty healthy ten minutes ago.”

Tasha didn’t answer. At the sound of Mama’s feet tiredly coming up the stairs, she kicked off her shoes without undoing the
buckles and sprawled across the bed, hoping to appear at least a little queasy. Mama came in, disregarding the handmade signs
ordering
PLEASE KNOCK
and
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
.

“Tasha,” Mama said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m tired. Come down and eat. I know you miss your daddy, but a hunger
strike is not going to solve anything.” She searched Tasha’s face for a smile. “Come on, Tash, get up. I fixed cheese-dreams
just for you.”

Tasha sat up on her elbows, looking at her mother with a quizzical half turn of her head. Mama was blinking her eyes about
a million miles an hour, like DeShaun did when she was about to cry. Tasha lowered her brows and pursed her lips. What was
going on here? Was all of this an elaborate ploy just to get her to eat?

“Don’t you want cheese-dreams?” Mama put her elbows on her thighs and leaned her face against her hand. The softness of her
cheek bulged brown and gentle through the cracks between her fingers. Shutting her eyes, she said, “Don’t you want cheese-dreams?”

Tasha heard it, a subtle change in pitch, the precursor to tears. She wanted to put her shoulder against whatever door was
threatening to open and press hard. She wished she could put her finger in the hole like the Little Dutch Boy and save what
was left of her life from the flood.

“I didn’t know you made cheese-dreams,” Tasha said, hoping to make it seem like her refusal to eat had been a standoff over
menu. She started toward the door, more spry than she felt, refusing to look at her overtired mother still sitting on the
bed in her work-crumpled blouse and skirt.

“Come here,” Mama said softly.

Tasha stopped walking but she didn’t turn around; she didn’t want to see.

“Give me a hug,” Mama said.

Tasha could hear her exhausted misery. Turning on the balls of her feet, she moved toward her mother’s unsteady voice. Mama’s
hug held a desperate fierceness that Tasha had not felt since she had narrowly missed being hit by a car four years earlier.
Mama had gripped Tasha then in a melting embrace until she had felt herself disappear. She had been aware of the heavy pressure
of Mama’s lips on the part between her braids, her forehead, each of her cheeks, and her quivering lips; then she knew nothing
but the outdoor smell of pine and Mama’s neck.

Mama squeezed Tasha today with the same famished affection. She felt, this time, the intensity of grown folks’ emotion and
gasped with the heat of it. The hug lasted several unendurable moments more before Mama released her.

“Let’s eat,” she said.

Tasha and DeShaun sat at the table, staring at each other with curiosity. Having cheese-dreams itself was odd enough. Mama
had declared more than once that grilled cheese sandwiches made with French toast and smothered in raspberry syrup was
not
a balanced meal. On the rare occasion that she would consent to serving this treat, the girls were forced to eat a green
salad first. But today, not only were they not required to choke down anything leafy, but they evidently were going to be
allowed to ration their own syrup. Tasha poured a generous dollop on the center of the sandwich. It rolled down the sides
of the bread. No response from Mama. She squeezed the bottle, releasing another raspberry globule. No response. She squeezed
a little more. Then she realized that she had no idea how much raspberry syrup was enough. She didn’t stop pouring until the
design on the plate was concealed and DeShaun was begging, “Give me it!”