Tempest Rising (28 page)

Ramona moved in closer and began unwinding the rubber bands. “I don’t like that bush, no, I don’t like it at all. And I want you to know that I’ve been keeping a good press in your daughters’ hair, hot-curling their bangs every morning and giving them
two thick plaits down the back. Except that Bliss has a softer grade, more like yours.” She had the first rubber band out and smoothed through Clarise’s thick, soft hair to get to the next one.

Clarise smiled and sighed. “She does, she really does. My baby Bliss.” She nestled her head against Ramona’s shoulder. Ramona’s fingers through her hair reminded her of how Shern used to love to play in her hair, smooth through it to get to her scalp. Ramona had unwound the second rubber band now and was massaging Clarise’s scalp. The car was warm, and the seat was soft and drawing her in. Ramona’s fingers whooshing through her hair was affecting her; she actually was beginning to relax. What a powerfully intimate thing to do, she thought, the press of fingers against someone’s scalp. She realized now why women told their hairdressers their deepest soul secrets, why mothers and daughters bonded so over the act of combing hair, why best friends always styled each other’s hair. Why she suddenly felt so close to Ramona, even trusted her.

“Please tell me that you and your mother were good to my girls,” she said in a voice that wanted to fall asleep. “Please tell me that they didn’t run away because they were being mistreated. Please tell me, why do you think they left?”

Ramona took in a deep breath and picked up an end of the purple shawl. Her voice shook as she started to speak. “Because I couldn’t act like you, you know, a real mother; because my mother
couldn’t either. Because we didn’t even know how to be mother and daughter to each other. Because sometimes things happen to people that in an instant change who they are and they spend a lifetime trying to get back to who they used to be—” Ramona was crying again. She was pulling the sobs from her stomach, and her entire body convulsed, and she rocked back and forth and made choking sounds.

Clarise opened her blanket shawl, stretched it out for Ramona to lean into. “Or trying
not
to get back to who they were,” Clarise said. “That institute I just left is teeming with people trying not to be who they really are.” They nestled on each other’s shoulders under the tight knit and purl cross-stitch that didn’t let any cold in as Tyrone maneuvered through the ice along Lincoln Drive bound for West Philly and Mae’s house.

M
ae’s block was crowded as Tyrone eased up Addison Street in Perry’s deuce and a quarter, Clarise sleeping against Ramona’s shoulder under the purple shawl. Anybody not already at Mae’s over the girls missing had surely run out of their houses and into the street to watch Mae and Clara Jane curse at each other and get ready to fight. They never really exchanged slaps. Clara Jane held on to the coconut cake knife; Mae broke a wine bottle against her concrete porch for effect. Said she’d cut Clara Jane right in her lying mouth. But people like Beanie and
Hettie separated them, said the newspeople were likely to show up to do a story about the girls, and why we always got to be acting like heathens when the newspeople show, Beanie said. So Clara Jane walked on down the street, Mae went back into her house, and the tide of people separated to let the car through.

Tyrone stopped in front of the door, told Ramona he’d let them out, then go park. He got out of the car and walked around to the back passenger side and was just about to open the door for Ramona and Clarise when he was met by Addison barreling down the street, legs and arms moving in big circles he was running so fast.

He was holding up the mitten that he’d snatched from Mister’s pocket. “Look, look at what I have.” He waved the mitten in Tyrone’s face and then pulled it back. “You think this is worth a reward. I’mma show my aunts, ask her to hook it up for me.”

Tyrone grabbed Addison by the collar. “Is that—?”

“Shern’s, yepper,” he said.

Tyrone glanced into the car, saw Ramona gently nudging Clarise awake. “Where?” he demanded. “Where did you find the glove?”

“Hey, man, get off of me or I ain’t telling you jack.”

Tyrone tightened his grip around Addison’s collar. “Where’d you find the glove, you little shit? Tell me. Tell me right now.” He centered one hand under Addison’s collar and balled his other, reared
back, and was just about to bring his hand down on Addison’s mouth.

“All right,” Addison cried. “I found it on Mister. It was sticking from his coat pocket, and I snatched it out.”

Ramona was tapping on the window, telling Tyrone to open the door, they were ready to get out of the car. Tyrone stuffed the glove in his pocket, didn’t want Clarise to go hysterical when she saw it, Ramona, either, for that matter.

“Hey, man, I’mma tell my aunt Mae on your righteous ass.” He bounded up the steps into Mae’s.

Tyrone opened the door, and Ramona stepped out, and they both helped the elegant, poised Clarise. She just stood on the sidewalk once out of the car, covered her head loosely with her shawl, looked up at Mae’s house, and then started her glide up the steps.

T
he cries of “Mommie!” “Mommie!” “Mommie!” floated through the gray air, turned it pink, warm. These cries were like a song filled with hope and promise that Mommie would hear, that she would stop midway into her climb onto Mae’s porch, that she would turn, as if in slow motion her turn would be so deliberate; that she would raise her arms like a gospel choir belting out Hallelujah, not even noticing that her purple hand-knitted blanket-shawl had fallen to the ground; that she would make an arc of her arms, leaving her hands unclasped so
her girls could spill into the arc, just seep into their mother’s arms like circles of water frantically searching for larger parts of themselves: a lake, a stream, a river. These girls found an ocean in their mother’s arms, as they all fell down on the blanket shawl covering the pavement in front of Mae’s and cried and kissed and tasted one another’s salt.

They were so absorbed in their mother, she in them, that they didn’t even hear the aunts’ and uncles’ shouts reverberating all around them as they ran onto the porch, down the steps and added their own salt to the ocean Clarise and the girls made.

Ramona hadn’t realized that she too was crying as she watched those girls in their high-quality plaid wool coats zoom up Addison Street, Victoria in Mister’s arms as he panted and kept up with Shern and Bliss. Ramona couldn’t see what everybody else saw as they were drawn from Mae’s house by the commotion out front. She didn’t know that she was jumping up and down and kicking and shouting unintelligible words like a baby who doesn’t yet have words. She couldn’t even feel Tyrone trying to pin her arms down, to still her, couldn’t hear him whispering, “Mona, baby doll, what is it?”

Nor did she hear Clarise yelling from the ground, where she sat with her girls and now the aunts and uncles, “Young man, let her be. It’s not you she needs right now, just let her be.” Now Ramona’s unintelligible shouts turned into a word, just one word over and over: “Mommie” was the word. It sifted up onto the porch, into the house, the
kitchen, where Mae had just cut herself a slice of coconut cake and sat down to a new game of cards. Ramona’s word fell on Mae’s ear, went straight to her heart, hearing it over and over like that, as if her child were being pushed too high on a swing and taunted by a good-for-nothing. Mae got up from the table, moved with force and determination through the house, out onto the porch, saw the crowd circling her daughter, then parting as Mae walked down the steps, poker cards a fan in her hands. Now it was Mae who moved in slow motion, raising her arms like a gospel choir, letting the cards fall from her hands and drift into the pink and gray air.

“It’s all right, lil darling. Mommie’s with you. I’m right with you,” Mae said as she covered Ramona with her own ocean. This Ramona did hear as she fell into the waves that lifted her up, up, up, into her mother’s arms.