Rhythms of Grace (35 page)

He gave my cheek a lingering kiss. “No strings. Just talking. Aren’t we still friends?”

Friendship had never seemed so dangerous until I moved here. “I guess.”

After giving me a satisfied look, Mal left as quickly as he’d come. I stood in the empty cafeteria wringing my hands, trying not to think about the Cincinnati Zoo. The butterfly garden would be long out of bloom by now. After our Sunday picnics, I’d often returned there to clear my mind, get my head on straight, especially during the “hair phase” when Mal continually indicated his displeasure over my new appearance. The blunt and blow-dried style had been born in that garden. If I went with Mal again, I had a feeling that something would die.

My hair.

I stared up at the clock. There were fifty minutes until my next class and I was late for my appointment with the scalp specialist Thelma had recommended to me. She sounded encouraging over the phone. I hoped she was as sweet in person. After this day, I felt like I needed my head examined instead of my scalp.

I looked around the examination room—at the leaning stack of magazines, at the glass container of cotton balls, even the bottle of hand wash at the sink—anywhere but at the bald-headed giant smiling in front of me. This was something the doctor might have mentioned on the phone.

Dr. Stein batted her eyes, which were quite beautiful. “Tell me about your hair.” She spoke steady and calm.

I wanted to respond to the soothing mother-speech oozing from this blue-eyed Amazon, but my words dissolved under my tongue.

The doctor patted my shoulder. “Would you feel better if I put my wig on? I forget how I look to the first-timers.” Sugary laughter chased the bitterness of words.

“You’re fine. You just caught me off guard. My hair? Well, I have my ups and downs. Loss from chemicals, thinning temples from braids, just plain rough, dry hair . . .”

The woman took notes. “Your sample indicates that your diet is fairly nutrient rich. Do you exercise? Do you sleep with your head covered?”

“Yes to all. I lose my cool with food when I’m running around too much or upset, but I do pretty well at home. The water is hard for me, but I’m up to two quarts a day now.”

The doctor examined my scalp once more before scribbling again. “What about moisture? I notice your hair is straight today.”

“It’s pressed. I like to change up sometimes. I make my own hair butter and braid spray. I coat the ends every night.”

A few hairs floated to the floor as the woman raked her fingers through my tresses. She sat back on her stool. “Is there something that you enjoy doing? A hobby?”

“I’ve taken up dancing again. My hair is still coming out, but it seems to help.”

The doctor stopped writing. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Go for it,” I said, not sure if I really meant it.

“The good news is it’s not alopecia, female pattern baldness, or anything like that. The change from chemically processed hair to natural hair is a difficult one for African American women. In your case, doing so probably saved your hair. Though it may seem to shed a lot, this is about right for the stage you’re in. Drugs and chemicals can stay in the hair shaft for years. In time, you and your hair will adjust to each other. The bad news is that there’s more than normal shedding going on. Some of your hair loss is stress related.”

Makes sense. “I did just move and get a new job.”

“I don’t think that’s it.” She paused. “I’m reluctant to say this, but since we discussed our faith on the phone . . .”

I swung my legs over the edge of the table. “Just say it.”

“There is something you’re trying to hide, but instead, it’s hiding you, eating you up, if you will. Until it’s dealt with, your hair will keep coming out, perhaps all of it. When I prayed about your case, that’s what came to my spirit. What I’ve seen here is in line with that.”

No wonder Thelma sent me over here. I get church even at the doctor. Not sure how I feel about it. “No offense, but I don’t think it’s that bad. I’ve got some issues at work, but other than that, my life is going great.” My voice cracked at my audacity.

Yeah, right. Everything is just peachy.

She nodded and handed me a list of directives: hair vitamins, eight hours or more of sleep a night, eight glasses of water a day, five servings of fruits and vegetables. Things I was already doing, except for the sleeping.

I lowered my voice. “Have you ever had a patient with loss like mine?”

Light gleamed off the doctor’s head, accenting her eyes. “I’ve had one case like yours.”

“And what happened?”

The doctor took my hand and placed it on her own smooth skull. Her lips trembled as she spoke. “This.”

49

Brian

It made me crazy every time I thought about it. Grace and Mal? The two of them knowing each other, much less almost getting married, was enough to drive me to my second job at Testimony Social Services. The stack of case files leaning against my sad excuse for a desk would be just the thing to keep my mind off the two of them.

Only it wasn’t working.

“Just leave things to me,” Mal had told me the first time I landed in juvenile hall, picked up because I had the wrong face in the wrong place. He was still at Imani then, though he’d gone on to every private school around. He was the new kid at school, but a veteran of the system. He’d encouraged me to stay calm and stay quiet, ask for books, and obey all the rules. Days later, when we were both released, I’d marveled at his ingenuity. Years later, when he filled the gaping hole left by my nonexistent family, I learned the hard way that Mal Gooden was no friend.

Through the fabric of my shirt, I traced the scar his crew had left me as a reminder. If it weren’t for that girl, Mal’s half sister, if it weren’t for Joyce . . .

If it weren’t for God.

The scar, raised and hard under my fingers, was some of why I didn’t get too close to people. Didn’t trust them. I had tried to ask Mal once, at a symposium, what happened to his little sister or cousin or whoever that girl was who used to hang over there. Mal had laughed in my face and walked away. Ron said that the guy had changed now, that he did amazing things with youth. It might very well be true. From the way he’d looked at me at that assembly, it was adults he still had issues with. Like everyone else, that guy was still trying to get rid of me.

And yet, I was still here.

The sad thing was that Ron and I had never really recovered from all that. Rejected by his white friends—they were horrified to see where we lived, which made me mad since Ron’s own house had looked ten times worse—I had pushed my brother, my closest friend away. I’d lost track of the others too: Zeely, Jerry, and all the Imani grads. By the time I connected again, nothing ever seemed the same. I never felt welcome. Fueled by anger and isolation, I’d studied hard, earning several degrees simultaneously. Only when I saw a girl with brown, frizzy hair and smooth curves did I let my guard down. Though I’d been blessed to meet my late wife that day, I knew now that it was Grace that I thought I saw then, Grace who I’d been searching for all along. Maybe I’d been searching for the rest of them too, especially Ron. The past few months were the closest Ron and I had been in a long time. Too long.

My back arched in the chair as I closed my eyes and the last five years sped under my eyelids: talk shows, book tours, red-eye flights, and then lesson plans and research files like the ones stacked behind me. Where God had once reigned, I placed goal after goal until I settled on the unattainable—finding my birth mother. Though I continued to scour documents for clues, there was no certificate for my birth. I’d been a mama and ’nem adoption, as I called them, family taking family, friends taking friends. I didn’t want to deal with it, but the secret I longed for was lodged between the pews of Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church, and God himself would have to get it out. Still, what I’d learned the other day at school when I wasn’t really trying gave me hope, even though it had nothing to do with my case.

I reached for the next file. For now, my search was stalled—locked like Grace’s file—but I could still help these other people trying to put their families back together. I’d been so angry about Mal, upset about Joyce, that I’d forgotten that Grace, like these people, was hurting too. What was it she’d said in our conversation about having children?
“It’s not always that easy.”
Maybe it wasn’t. God knows I’d simplified my own situation, made the story fit what I could handle. Now I had to accept that perhaps my mother gave me up out of love instead of abandonment. While I thought the idea misguided, I had to consider it.

And I did consider it as I updated case after case, filed the information request forms. From the things Eva had said about my mother, she’d been in her twenties at least, not some teenager with no options. When I’d ranked high on IQ tests, Eva didn’t seem surprised, saying I’d come by it honestly, whatever that meant. From the quirks in my personality, it was hard to tell. She could have been a genius with no time for children or a nutcase who tried to trap a man only to have it blow up in her face. I wasn’t sure that I liked either option.

The agency director, a slight man with straight teeth and a crooked smile, walked in and shook my hand. “There you are. It’s great to have you back. I know you’ve been tied up with school for a while.”

He’d probably be seeing a lot more of me. “It’s good to be back. I should have this pile down some before I leave.”

The man whistled. “I can’t believe the dent you’ve put in it already. Why do you think I missed you? That stack has been on every desk in here. Nobody’s made much progress.”

I nodded, understanding how the documents could be mundane for people who had parents and kids of their own. For me, every entry represented someone like me: misplaced, searching. Perhaps one day the piece of information I filed would be the key I was looking for to unlock all my questions. “It’s no problem. I love it.”

“And we appreciate it. I wish I’d been here when you concluded your own search. We were a little sad you didn’t call, but we understand these things are personal. It’s good to know you’ll still be with us.”

Huh? I tried not to get excited. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I still haven’t found anything.”

“No? What about the lady?”

“What lady?”

He spoke faster now, his homespun Spanish mixing with his on-the-job English, something that only happened when he was excited or worried. “A black lady come here and ask for you. She ask if you find your mother. When I say no, she say, ‘That’s okay. She will find him.’ ”

My body stayed still, but my mind sped away. Would the woman I’d searched so hard for just walk in off the street like that? Maybe. This was Testimony, after all. Sweat trickled down my forehead. “Did she give her name?”

“Let’s see. She had a nametag on her uniform. The sister on
Good
Times
? You know, the TV show?”

“Thelma?”

The director smiled, nodding. “That’s it! Do you know her?”

The folder I’d been holding slipped from my fingers and littered the floor with papers.

“I thought I did.”

The car jerked with my uneven pressure on the gas. I tried to remember the list of questions I’d rehearsed for so many years, but I no longer cared about the reasons. What I wanted was the truth.

I asked myself all kinds of questions as I drove. Had Thelma moved into the neighborhood before us or after? It seemed she’d always been there. Hadn’t she always treated me special growing up—extra cookies on my plate, Easter baskets, Christmas gifts . . . Was she just being neighborly or was it something more?

My old house came into view. I pulled into the drive, glancing over at Thelma’s. Light glowed through her windows. Gospel music vibrated across the street. James Cleveland, I think. I put my car in the garage this time, in case our local stalker decided to visit.

No matter how many times I tried to think of a reasonable way to ask Thelma if she was my mother, my mind was blank. It was jacked up no matter what I said. I reached up and pulled down the garage door. When I felt a hand on my shoulder, I jumped.