Genre: Drama
Length: 7000 words
Tense: past
POV: 3rd
Here's the first revised story.
Length changed from 4400 to 7000 words, and it remains the longest story on the blog. Plotwise, nothing much changed, but I totally rewrote the ending. Unfortunately, it didn't get any less disturbing.
Today's story got very long. It is also very normal. And it's about a range of somewhat uncomfortable topics. Warnings include some very racist moments. I can't help what the characters say, so please, just don't take it personally.
“I’m here.”
The bored woman in the crumpled white coat looked up. “So you are.”
It was a dingy room, with a pasty ceiling, and garish flowery wallpaper, light green linoleum tiles. A retro TV in front of an even older couch. Looked almost like a nursery. Nombewu cringed. Somehow it wasn’t right, didn’t fit her expectations of the Room, the Place. Medieval-style, chainsaws, big, strong men with axes. Nombewu had a flair for the dramatic.
“I’m here.”
The woman nodded, unimpressed. She had three studs along one ear, and a fourth in her lip. “You got an appointment?”
Felt like ice. Nombewu shuffled her feet. She could only manage, “I’m here.”
“You speak English, girl? You—need—ap–point–ment.”
Now Nombewu was crying. “I’m here. I’m— I got here. I’m here and I need to do this— to do— now.” The rest was mostly incoherent. “I’m here. You don’t understand how— no, I’m here…”
Nombewu had hoped sympathy, maybe. At worst indifference. But the woman in the crumpled white coat did understand. That was the worst. Nombewu saw the disgust in her eyes. She saw through those bored eyes the reflection of the millions more, each with the same shaking voice. Echoing her thoughts: Hurry, don’t think or you’ll change your mind, have to deal with it – God, it was still an it, right, until like, sixteen weeks in? Nombewu realized how much she sickened the woman in the crumpled white coat. She sickened herself.
Crisply, coldly, slowly, “Would you like to make an appointment?”
The woman watched Nombewu with almost a morbid fascination. And hesitant, “I… No… I shouldn’t… I can’t—” but quickening, “No, I do. Forget it, I’m leaving. Sign me up!”
The woman took her sweet time leafing through an empty registry book, while Nombewu danced like the pasty green tiles were on fire. At last, like a verdict, “Next Monday the seventeenth, ten in the morning.”
And instantly, “I have school. No! I have— no, I’ll be there. Sign me up! I’ll get detention! I don’t care! I’ll come.”
The woman in the white coat looked at her feet, scribbled something in the notebook, reminded Nombewu, “Monday, at ten,” and gave her a piece of paper.
Which Nombewu dropped as she almost ran out through the swinging glass door.
There were four missed calls on Nombewu’s phone. Jerry, of course. She plodded along, resolutely ignoring the ringing in her ears. She thought up a torture-chamber. D&D style. Roll the wrong numbers and you will suffer eternally.
When the phone shut up Nombewu gave it maybe ten seconds before she checked the voicemail.
“Hey Baby. I ain’t seen you in like, forever. That night, my house, bomb, but after, you like, I ain’t seen you. Look Baby, I wanna see you, like, soon. Baby I—” and his voice broke— “Baby, you know it was bomb, right? You like, I know, I didn’t, you didn’t— Baby I know it’s wrong I, I shouldn’t, I know, like, I don’t mean— Baby, who is he?” Rough until it softened with a choke. “No, I ain’t saying, Baby, I like— you a good girl. It was bomb, weren’t it? Like, Baby, I need to see you, Baby, I need to hear you, I, Baby— please!“
Nombewu hadn’t heard Jerry cry before. It made him sound ten years younger.
She pushed her way through the front door and made a beeline down the hall. Her mother started to say something, but before it was half finished Nombewu was locked safe into her room. Friday afternoon. Only survive three days, and it would all be over.
She texted Jerry, her trembling fingers missing the keys, pressing too late, making the simple message take too long. sry got lot of hw. ill txt u when im free. dont call phones having probs i think its breaking lv u. Her eyes fixed on the screen.
Nombewu read the message, deleted it, typed it in again. She deleted it and tried typing it with her right hand. “Dinner!” came her mom’s heavy voice. Nombewu pressed SEND. Canceled the message. Typed it again. SEND. She sighed.
Before she went downstairs she pressed with all her force against the plastic skeleton. It wouldn’t budge, so she dropped it in the bathroom sink. Poured scalding water over it. The screen flickered and buzzed, but that didn’t stop it from blinking, 1 new message.
“Nombewu, come down here!” Sharp this time.
Nombewu switched off the water, and banged the phone on the countertop, desperation giving her the strength. She pocketed the remains.
“Coming!” she cried.
But as she left her eyes passed the trash can. Caught a glint of pink between used tissues. Her heart skipped a beat. Stupid to throw that away, where anyone could see. Stupid stupid. She tore it out, flushed it down the toilet, and then washed her hands thoroughly. And never mind the dirty tissues.
Nombewu couldn’t find her appetite. Something like a giant tapeworm pressed against her intestines. Living off her body, consuming all her nutrients. She’d read a Sci-Fi novel where a guy got his stomach busted by this parasitic alien bug. It had made him ravenously hungry, and for weird things, like human flesh. But all he ate only helped the monster grow, enlarging it until it ruptured out of him with the force of a hurricane.
The image made her shudder. Better not to give it anything. What sounded so good: Nutella on mealies. Mix it in, swirls of chocolate in the pap. No, ignore it. Be strong. Her own body would survive.
Of course, her mother disagreed. “Nombewu, look at you! You will be a stick like those white girls! Eat!”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Are you ill – you should tell me. You know I hate my daughters to hide things from me.”
“I’m fine, mother.”
“Here, we’ll have to take your temperature. After dinner.”
“Mother, I’m fine.”
Eyes on the ground. Nombewu got up and crossed to the spice cabinet. Of course they had Nutella. Nonyameko was virtually addicted.
The family watched Nombewu return to the table, scoop some out with her finger, and swirl it on a ball of pap. Her sister laughed. Her mother smiled.
Nombewu could feel it smiling as well.
Jerry came by Saturday night. Nombewu was awake, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. Her digital clock shone an eerie blue two past midnight across the room.
When the rock hit the window she knew it was him. She groaned and cursed. But she got up and crossed the room. Better than keeping him on the sidewalk, throwing rocks until it woke her mother.
He was mouthing something she couldn’t hear through the window. Nombewu let her eyes glaze over, and saw him double. It was a bright night, almost a full moon, and his leather jacket glimmered silver. He had a face like an overgrown baby. Nombewu couldn’t see it in the dark, and didn’t try.
He made to throw another rock, so she slid up the window.
A tad too loud, “Hey, Baby!”
“I was sleeping,” she grumbled.
“Really?” but he laughed. “Baby, it’s like what, almost two weeks we don’t see each other like at all, and all you give me, ‘I was sleeping?’ Cold, Baby, cold.”
He was all cool again, the bantering tone covering anything real.
“I haven’t been with anyone,” Nombewu said, more out of anger at herself than at him. “You don’t trust me.”
“Baby I, where you get that, I like never said— you wanna like, come down? I was gonna take you out, Baby, like to a bar. I know a place I could get you in.” He paused a minute, added, awkwardly, “You drink, don’tcha?”
She was about to tell him, no, leave me alone, when a thought occurred to her. You weren’t supposed to drink while pregnant.
“What, because I’m a sophomore? Let me dress— I’ll be out in ten.”
He had his car parked down the block. Mini Cooper, red with black stripes, and he rode with the top down even in the night. He drove right out of town, took the 15 down toward San Diego. He had a firm hand around her head, and she could only see the silhouettes of bushes and the roofs of houses rushing by the side. The wind drowned out all noise, the revving of the engine, Jerry’s raucous conversation, even her own pounding heart.
There was too much time to think, and Nombewu was afraid, so she stalled. Came up with her algebra homework. She tried to remember the one that had stumped her, problem sixteen. Jenny’s mother is 10 times the age of Jenny’s baby. Jenny’s age is ½ of her mother’s age. Couldn’t remember the rest. Then all Nombewu could think was, I shouldn’t be thinking about this right now. Jerry’s knee pressed into her belly. It was warm.
Nombewu had imagined a bright street, popping with mobs of laughing drunk people, music blaring from each door. But the club Jerry chose was tucked away, in the basement of some industrial-looking building. There was a disco ball splashing light across the room, and a lethargic DJ in the corner flipping switches. The dance floor was almost empty.
Not at all like the movies.
Jerry put an arm around her neck, and led her past the doorman with a wink. “You do beer?”
“Shots,” she decided. He looked impressed.
Jerry went straight up to the bar, and Nombewu found a table. She looked all around. The walls were painted a garish pale green. Nombewu looked away, to the bar, where a bored woman in a crumpled white dress was shoving a bottle across the counter. Nombewu looked at her feet.
He came back with some sort of liquor, waving it erratically by the neck. Nombewu poured herself a generous portion.
“Baby you sure—”
“Bottoms up.”
It tasted pretty bad at first, but as she drank she stopped noticing. She waited, but not long enough to start thinking. She poured herself another.
Another. Jerry was saying something, and it was suddenly a riot. She collapsed against him. Another. She felt Jerry’s hand guiding her, and felt stickiness on her fingers. Maybe he said something, “Baby?” She looked up, but the table was a blur. She fumbled for her glass. She took a swig.
Nombewu woke in an unfamiliar room, naked, with Jerry snoring gently beside her.
“What in—” she cried, leaping up. She grabbed the covers to herself, waking Jerry beside her.
“Calm down, Baby, ain’t nothing there I ain’t like seen before.”
“Where are we?”
“Escondido, abouts, we in like the Motel 6. But damn, Baby, you was like so drunk last night! You a fun drunk, Baby.”
“We didn’t—”
But Jerry was already making some stupid sex joke. Nombewu lowered her head.
“What, not like we never like, done it, before! Baby, you ain’t got nothing against me? We done it like, two weeks ago! Baby, I thought—”
Nombewu snapped back to attention. It wasn’t like it mattered, anyway. Not at this point. She let the sheet fall, dangerously. “I’m cool. We can like, do it again, if you want.”
He smiled. “You on the pill? You said, like, our first time. You said again last night, but like I weren’t gonna trust you, you was like so drunk.”
And suddenly Nombewu was angry. “Pill? That all you care about because if so then go ahead it doesn’t matter. You can’t get me pregnant.”
Must’ve been something in her voice. He froze, eyes suddenly suspicious. They probed her, looking her naked body up and down, as though for a sign. “You not like, got AIDS or something?”
“What? How’m I gonna like, get AIDS. Your house, that was my first time.”
“That weren’t what you said.”
“I was— I wanted you to— why would I have AIDS?”
“You black. Black people like, has AIDS, everyone like knows that!”
“I don’t have nothing.”
It was a small voice, and Nombewu felt her throat contract as she agonizingly pushed it out. Jerry looked at her, and then he grabbed her, suddenly, his nails pinching her bare skin. He pressed her into the plaster wall, white dust settling on her skin. “What you got, Baby? What you hiding from me?”
It was too much. “A baby,” Nombewu wailed. “I got a baby!”
It took him a while to understand. Nombewu let her eyes wander from the flowery wallpaper to the old motheaten couch to the retro TV in the corner, dark and hollow. Jerry had let go of her, and she slumped listlessly to the sheets, like a prisoner awaiting execution.
“You got, like, a baby? Like a, like, baby?” She could see Jerry’s mind racing. Hear his stupid thoughts. No, she was fifteen. That don’t happen, not till, like, eighteen at least. But I dunno, maybe black peoples could do it earlier. What now – she think I gonna marry her? I dunno, maybe black peoples— and she saw it hit him.
He grabbed her again, holding her strong and distant, looking her down. “You lied to me. You like told me you was on the pill!”
She was forcing back tears, trying to get him to— but what did she care. “I didn’t, I’m sorry, I wanted you to, I wanted to be cool! It was my first time!” She hid her face in her hands. Not caring, now. “I didn’t mean, I—”
“Shit!” Jerry said. “Shit shit. What we like, gonna do now? What, I like tied to you now, like voodoo, something? Forget it, I ain’t gonna bring up no black orphan-baby, not like—”
“I’ll get rid of it!” Nombewu wailed. Her arms were reaching for his, but they stayed tantalisingly out of reach.
Jerry was trembling. “You not gonna— shit, you ain’t— No, Baby, you done this to youself, you ain’t no one gonna kill my— Shit, Baby, why you go and fuck up my life? No, forget it. I ain’t no black baby-daddy. I ain’t ever like, liked you, you know. You just like, a— you like game to me, Baby. You was like, a charity case.” He was crying, but not like a baby. Serious tears. Rough tears. He kept himself out of her reach, as though her touch would infect him with whatever black magic she had brought into being, and make him stay.
He turned away from her, unable to watch the emotions parade across her face. She heard him as though through a roaring gale. “This like, over, Baby. I gonna drive you home, then you gonna find a black daddy you own age.”
It wasn’t the racism that pissed Nombewu off. The way he’d said “you” – “you own age.” She’d heard it a million times, but now she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t— “Go! Now! You don’t like me then get the fuck out!” It was the first time she’d ever said “fuck” in front of anyone.
“Baby how you like gonna get—”
She screeched something like “Charity case” as she flung the contents of the side table at him. Pens, cups, index-card cases, and a bible cut into his skin.
Jerry didn’t even look at her. He grabbed his clothes, pulled on a shirt and pants, and slammed the door open as he strode out, hiding his stupid baby-face from the world.
Stupid to think she could get home by herself. Stupid stupid. No money for the bus. No idea how many miles it was. She supposed she could beg, but Jerry, “Them black people’s no good, making stuff up to steal you money.” Not like her story was any better. Something out of a black comedy. Like reading it from a distance, out-of-body, almost. Nombewu scanned the empty sidewalk, hearing the traffic roar by from afar.
Best to end the story now. Get back into real life. Back at home – was there a home? – Nombewu’s mother would have called her down for some chore, found out she was missing. Thrown a fit. Odin’s beard, don’t get the police involved! Nombewu wasn’t a bad kid, not really.
Nombewu wanted more than anything to call. Help would be nice, but not the point. She knew how her mother cared for her. Must be worried sick. The thought of it made Nombewu sick, too. It filled her with something like self-loathing that she attributed to regret. She regretted destroying her phone. She regretted not bringing any money. She regretted going to the stupid bar. She regretted ever letting Jerry into her pants. She regretted everything about him.
If only she could call. Confess everything. Jerry, her escapade last night, the baby. Holy mother of God. The baby.
Not right now. She was in enough trouble as it was. Nombewu already saw her mother’s outraged, shame-stricken face, heard the tiny, terrified gasp, saw the lips mouthing, incredulously, “twenty-five,” and another wave of nausea hit her. She couldn’t deal with it. Not now.
Somehow the act of telling her mother would make it real. As if her mother were a mage, conjuring her confessions to life. As though her mother’s words had the power to magically transform the — thing — in her belly, from a clump of timorous cells into a miniature human being. Human being. Nombewu shuddered as she thought the words. A knife in her heart. Don’t think about it. All be over tomorrow.
She ran her hands along the baby-belly. She could feel it, eating her life force, consuming her life. She made herself hate it with a passion she had never felt before.
All over tomorrow.
That was her salvation, her crack of Doom into which the Ring of all her troubles would melt away. She could take her time. It would take a day, surely, to walk from Escondido back into town. She would have to avoid the highway, in case her parents came, or Jerry drove by. She knew the sun rose in the southeast and set in the southwest. She could quest her way by starlight. Navigate through the hills. Sneak into town the next day at the crack of dawn. Creep straight into the clinic, right in time for her appointment, and get it all over with.
If she played the cards right, calculated the equations, mitigated the damage – the worst all over, she could deal with the rest. Not a plan. Like a mad dash of faith. “Think, girl, think!” Just had to get rid of it. Draught of forgetfulness. Time-turner. Alternate dimensions. A baby. Zeus almighty.
She walked through the scrubbrush, feeling thorns catch on her bare ankles. The act itself was calming. Each foot, lift, carry, thunk. Lift again. She breathed deeply.
Nombewu had dressed sparsely, for Jerry and for the club, and she regretted it now. She thought of snakes, and hesitated a moment as she teetered on a ledge. Her bare ankles flashed under the torn hem of her white dress. The dress was ruined. Add that to the scolding list. No matter, anyway. Pales in comparison.
The pain kept Nombewu alert. Easier to use the road, she knew. Foolish, too, maybe not but whatever. The spirit of adventure had her. Distracted her. Made the whole thing less real. Abstracted. Manageable.
She looked around, saw the canyons, red like birth-blood where new rains had washed off the old, faded flakes of mud. A dense bramble had grown out of control, covered most of a fallen chain of barbed wire, a single pole guiding her north. Cows, too, nursing their young. Here it was easy to forget that Nombewu went to school, that she had a biology test Wednesday morning, that she had been worried about getting a B in history. The sun shone bright on the white skeletons of plants. Nombewu stopped a minute and watched the tiny clouds paint trails across the desolate sky.
Nombewu saw the road through a gap in the hills, as though through a magic mirror – it was there one minute and gone in a step. It gave her pause. Somehow she was no longer alone, safe. She could hear the cars now, not a river, rushing down the 15. Don’t look back. She felt a rumbling in her stomach, almost like a kick. She started running.
A wide and open field. As she ran Nombewu heard Jerry’s words in the soft wind. I ain’t ever like, liked you, you know. You just like, a— you like game to me, Baby. You was like, a charity case. Out here, hard to tell what was real. Was it ever?
Nombewu felt her legs stopped. Might have tripped. Eyes found the sun, glazed over.
Rainy day, the street in front of school, another life. Nombewu has to walk home. She’s lost her umbrella. Hunched over her math homework, her Biology books, the novel she’s been reading. Jerry drives up, body mature but a face like a freshman. “Hey, Baby, need like, a lift?” Drives her back. Funny, charming. She’s happy, for the first time in days. Warm, dry. They stay in his car until the sun comes out, smiling. “Am I going to see you again?” He laughs. “How old you, like, anyway?” “I’m eighteen.” And he smiles. “Right, Baby. You eighteen. ’Course you is.”
He had taken her number. Two nights of waiting. He had called.
Under a different sun, Nombewu’s stomach kicked again.
Had he meant it? Was the whole think fake? No – the love, it had been real. The baby, it was real. Getting rid of it, that would make it all back to how it had been.
It was hot, and Nombewu felt Jerry’s big hand blocking the sun from her eyes. She glanced up into it, unflinching. Brain miles off, in a pasty green room.
Get rid of it. Forget everything. Make him forgive her.
Did she want that?
Nombewu found a small cave carved out in a gorge between the hills. It was filthy, and soon mud plastered her body. She stopped to consider how easily she could die, then, if it rained that night and there was a mudslide. She felt it happen, like a hallucination. The sun had burned bright lights into the corners of her vision.
She threw herself, stomach-down, into the gunk. Then she fell into a fitful sleep.
Morning dawned like rebirth. Nombewu became aware of birds’ chirping. She looked over, and saw through the cave-mouth a broad thorny tree with matted bark, and a sideways branch that held a bird’s nest. There were three eggs inside, sky blue, and dotted with white.
Nombewu got up, she looked around, and suddenly remembered where she was, and all the reasons why tagging behind like ducklings following their mother. A great sickness came over her.
Had to do it. Saw the room – like a nursery. No, had to do it. Only one cure. Maybe if Jerry had encouraged her, she would to spite him – god, his face, that voice, she couldn’t, but – she wondered, had she missed the appointment? Panic, a while.
It had had his face. Maybe she had dreamed it in the night, like a prophecy. She heard screaming in her head.
No idea what time it was. She made an educated guess at north. A dangerous roll. Playing with fate – but her own. Just hers. She was alone, and in control.
Nombewu found herself gasping, and clutched her belly. The birds tweeted together. Nombewu got up, upturned the nest, and watched the three eggs splatter on the ground. A thin, cruel smile crossed her face, and she set the nest, delicately, back on the branch.
Nombewu walked into the clinic when the clock on the wall read 8:15. She stopped a moment in the lounge, heaving a sigh of relief. She had made it. Everything would be over, in just two short hours.
She was going to slump on the old couch and imagine it into nonexistence, but the same bored receptionist in the crumpled white coat saw her, and raised her eyebrows. “You again.”
“Me what?”
“Still haven’t changed your mind, eh?”
“What’s your business?”
“Hey, girl, hold it. Not my fault it ain’t every day a girl young as yourself walks into here.”
“I bet there are more than you’d admit,” Nombewu said under her breath.
The woman in the coat sighed. “Look, honey, I ain’t try’n’ a walk all over your business. You’ve thought a lot over this weekend, talked to people, viewed this from different perspectives, I know. Believe me, it ain’t easy. But look, there’s a nice couple I know in Riverside looking for a child – I can put you in touch with them.”
Nombewu almost laughed. It should have daunted her, broken the fantasy, something, she knew – but it was so ironic, so totally absurd. “Wait, seriously? You, work here but you— What in hell, lady? What’s it to you?”
The woman tutted. “Don’tcha give me attitude, now, I’m only try’n’ a help. Look, I’m pro-life myself.” She saw Nombewu’s look, and frowned. “Hey, no need ta tell me off, I know. My life’s all one big irony. Got knocked up at eighteen, senior year. Man I met once, never saw again. Got an abortion, fast, with my dad’s consent. He was freaking out almost as much as I was. Never told Mom. ’Course she found out, just before I graduated, and threw a fit. Reckon I’ll never know if that’s why they got the divorce. Look, what I’m try’n’ a say is this, I get it – it’s hard, feels like it’s the end o’ the world, but it ain’t, and don’tcha let fear guide your life, honey.”
The whole thing started to get a very rehearsed feel to it. Nombewu briefly wondered how much the woman had made up. “I talked with my boyfriend and my parents,” she said. “They’re okay with it. And honestly, if you’re pro-life then don’t work in an abortion clinic. Get yourself a life.”
“Are they paying?” the woman said, with a lightly concealed grin. “Gonna be near a thousand bucks.”
Nombewu froze, and listened to the scuttle of shamed feet. “Pay? I—”
“This ain’t free, honey. Talk with your parents. It’ll be fine, given they’re on your side. You might have coverage. They can figure something out. Call ’em up now.”
Knew she was lying. Somehow it all came back, then, hit her like it never had before. Christ, it was growing. Nombewu could feel it, like a rock. “I’m going now,” she said. The woman smiled.
Panic a moment, but not for long. Nombewu could end it herself. She had to. Somehow the deadline of ten o’clock had become a necessity. Escape before then, or lose to the monster. The magic clock was ticking. The portal to the other world – her world – the world of the Biology student with a test on Wednesday and a B in history – still open until then. The great hourglass turned. Not much, yet there was still time.
She walked at a brisk pace, heading out of town. Her eyes were focused ahead. Heart was cold. The baby flailed with all of Jerry’s protests, her mother, the woman in the crumpled white coat and her scorn.
Then a shriek, loud, angry, and joyous, her name. “Nombewu!”
She turned around, frozen heart pumping overtime to make up for the beat it had skipped. There, between a row of old cars, her mother, striding firmly toward her. Nombewu paled.
“I, mother, listen, I—”
The joy was gone, mostly. Something like furious relief. “Nombewu, I never thought I would see— you are not hurt! You will never run off on me like that again! Your sister and I were all night, searching town. Oh, honey, you well? We thought you had been raped or killed or so many terrible other things! Oh, honey! No, that was very irresponsible, Nombewu. You had us sick. If that kindly gentleman not— I never— No, you are coming home, now. You are staying there a while. I expect better from you, Nombewu. No, you are here, alive, darling. Never again, I know. I am very disappointed. We were so worried.”
Nombewu started crying, first as a farce to disarm her mother, but it did not take long for the forced tears to become real. It hurt, the vacillating, almost indecision. Just stay angry, Nombewu wanted to scream. She could deal with angry.
“I won’t, mother, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean, I was— I—”
“Here, calm down. You are not hurt? No, the man said he took care of you. He told me, look in this intersection. Oh, darling, you do not know how— Here, your sister’s at home. You need to come home. I think you owe us both an explanation.”
So that had been Jerry’s final comeback. Suddenly Nombewu was real angry at him, more then before. She wondered how much he had told her mother. Please, nothing! That was her other life, her away-from-home life. She felt winded, like Harry when the dementors came to the Dursleys’. Not supposed to mix. Jerry – mother – no! No, not supposed—
Maybe not the baby. Please, Horus above, not the baby. Leave me that to myself. Give me a few more minutes to reverse lost time.
Distract her mother. Partial confession, lesser of two evils. Wasn’t a complete thought, only panicked emotion.
Fast, “That ‘gentleman’ you said you saw while I know him see I know I’ve been dating him like for over two months now and yeah that’s right he’s ten years older than I am but I knew him and we’ve been dating and he was my boyfriend.”
Nombewu’s mother was in quite a tiff for a while. She was grounded. She was scoured for every detail, and she gave them, willingly. All except the big one, the one that still caused her heart to tremble. The one that grew within her flesh.
“You are not to see this man again!” Nombewu’s mother said in her rough voice, just before she closed and locked the door. Nombewu thought, Fine. It had appalled her mother, how old he was, and how rough and stupid. “Stupid,” her mother had said. “No good.” Then, in one of the calmer phases of the tirade, “He’s been a problem for you, darling. I’m going to help you through this problem.”
It made Nombewu feel better. All of the yelling, directed toward the past, a man who had already given her up. Made it easier to forget the real problem.
It was night, and the moon was even fuller than before. It shone through Nombewu’s light curtains, glimmering on the bedpost. She waited until her mother had gone to bed, on a mattress just outside her bedroom door. For the moment, all trust had been lost between them.
It would pass, Nombewu knew. Slowly, she would regain her good girl status. She could once again be the A student, the girl who obeyed her mother’s every word, and the child who shook adorably every time she tried to tell a lie. “Honey, you know you can’t fudge it,” her mother had said once, with a laugh. “Your knees give you away.” Two months ago – that had been only two months ago.
It would all pass, as long as they could forget. As long as nothing permanent came of it. Like a baby. Like becoming a mother herself. Even knowing that somewhere out there, in another’s arms, was a child grown in her womb, born of her body. Nombewu figured she was an accident herself, probably. Her mother could’ve been more than a janitor. “Never had the time for vocational training,” she told them. Big words – “vocational training.” Nonyameko too. Never asked. Nombewu’s mother was fiercely pro-life. No discussion.
Nombewu stood up. She let the sheets fall, fluttering to the ground in a silver flurry, their shadow falling like a veil, like a plague. Her shadow rose across the baby-blue covers. She clutched her pyjamas to her stomach, as if the child might burst from her any moment. She held her breath.
Somewhere in another life, a clock stroke, once.
“Leave no traces,” Nombewu whispered to the air.
The first fall caught her breath, and knocked the cry of pain right from her lungs. Tears formed in her eyes. Forget. Let time wash away the traces of a life wrongly lived. Up, again, fall, again. Wounds to the stomach, the ribs, the flesh, they will heal in time. They should not leave scars.
The thin curtain scarcely blocked the moonlight, and the room was bathed in blue. Everything was lit – the parts still cast in shadow were illuminated by the cold blue clock, shining some minutes past one. The posters on the walls glimmered. The roses on the baby-blue sheet glowed black. The wallpaper was faint, the swirls of white leaves indistinguishable against the blue. There was but a single, long shadow, crawling across the bedspread, wavering in gasps. The mirror on the closet door revealed a dark silhouette, arms limp, now lying halfheartedly against the wall, now falling toward its reflection.
Nombewu was sobbing, the cries of pain escaping through the holes of her master plan. Still up, down against the bedpost. There was a surface sting, but beneath it, a great and deeper throbbing hurt. The pain burned the moment into her mind. You do not forget, it said. This was once a part of you, and it will be, always.
Nombewu collapsed onto the bed. She remembered no more of that night, only the last image that burned into her eyes with a blue light like the digits of her clock. Jerry, waiting for her after school let out, discreetly, down the corner, holding in his pale hands a bundle of flowers.
“You didn’t have to get these,” she says with a laugh. “You know I’m all over you.”
He’s laughing, too, a little embarrassed, maybe. “Baby, this is what I like, wanna do, you get it. I dunno, it was like, right. They had your name, like, written somewhere.”
Nombewu takes them, and sure enough, he’s scrawled her name in wide kindergarten-style letters, spelled Noam Bay Woo. She laughs again, and cries a little. He’s taken her hand in his.
“Anything wrong, Baby?”
“It’s just, I never—”
She lets it hang. He walks her to the block just before her house, and kisses her gently on the lips. Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to. It hangs between them, and they know it, like a secret.
He grins at her in that wide, innocent way. “Love you, Baby, more ’n all the atoms in you little multiverse.”
It makes her smile, like always. “Love you back more.”
Nombewu awoke in the hospital. Blurry shape leaning over her. She was groggy. “Mama?”
“Shhh, Baby, your mama in the room outside.”
“Jerry?”
“Right here, Baby.”
Took a minute to process. And then Nombewu started sobbing, like a big blubbering baby, right into his arms.
“You really there?”
“Like, right here as I ever gonna be. It’s okay. You’s safe.”
Nombewu got up, and dizziness came over her. Memories flashed back briefly, dancing in her mind. You like, a charity case. Never like, liked you.
Wiped her eyes. Tone a little defensive, “Why’d you come back?” she asked.
“Don’t you believe nothing I say, Baby.”
“You never—”
“You was like, hurt, Baby. Your mother told me. I knew I’d o’ said like, some pretty nasty things, and like, I wanted to like, apologize. I didn’t like, mean it.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“I was mad, Baby, like, scared. I didn’t mean it.”
And then he started crying too, right there, into the linen hospital sheets, right on her shoulder. Nombewu held back her own tears, put an arm around him, felt the warmth she had forgotten. “There, it’s fine. We’re still together, let’s just forget. I’ll deal with my mother. She doesn’t have to know. It can be back like it was.”
He choked on tears. “No it ain’t, Baby. I was thinking, like, at home, when it got dark, like, we could have a family, but like, you was too young, and I was like, selfish, and I like, realised, it ain’t you that was the charity case, Baby, you in school and you gettin’ you A, and I like, I never passed no tenth grade. In a year you’s, like, gonna be more educated than I ever was, gonna be like, farther in life, you like, headed for success, and I ain’t gonna drag you down with none of my baby talk. I your charity case, Baby. You too good for me.”
It was then, that all the images flew through her, all the hypotheticals and the lost opportunities. Like her mother’s tone, “Don’t you talk that way, now. Jerry, you aren’t no high-school dropout. You come to class with me, now on. I’ll work it out with my mother. I’ll tell her, now, you aren’t so old. You’re nothing but a big teenager, and I love it, and when you stop pretending to be all that, that’s when I see it. Like now. Be that big boy.”
Jerry smiled weakly, and she saw the mask rising, but he shrugged it off. “Anything for you, Baby.” And he was smiling. “High school. I always told myself, you’s gonna finish high school.” He laughed. “Baby, I gonna look so silly in a classroom!”
Nombewu laughed too, because suddenly she could see it, and suddenly it didn’t seem all that ridiculous. “We’ll have lunch together in the cafeteria. We’re going to do our math homework together, in my room. I’ll help you, but you’re gonna have to work it through yourself.” She laughed at the pained look on his face. “We’ll graduate together, and go on to college. Jerry, I’ll get you into college. Harvard, Dartmouth, wherever you want! You, in my school! Hey, you aren’t all so big as you think. You’d pass for eighteen, nineteen. That isn’t so bad.”
He considered it. “No, Baby, guess you right. That ain’t so bad.”
The baby didn’t make it. Nombewu didn’t have to hear it from the white-coated old doctor. Somehow she’d known. By the edge in Jerry’s voice. By the way her mother had come in afterward, lain an arm, gently, on her head, and said nothing. By the emptiness she felt inside of her.
She brought her family and Jerry to the abortion clinic, the day after she got out of the hospital. For some reason, she needed to show them.
“Ain’t a nice place,” Jerry said.
“It’s your big day, tomorrow,” Nombewu reminded him.
“I got it all worked out with the principal. He was like, ‘I proud o’ you,’ that’s what he said.” Jerry smiled in a way Nombewu hadn’t seen before – a way she liked. “No, that ain’t what he was like. ‘I’m proud of you,’ that’s how he said it. He was like, ‘It’s never too late for a fresh start.’”
Nombewu said, “I bet I’m prouder.” And Jerry gripped her hand tighter.
When he got up to use the bathroom her mother laid a hand on her thigh, lightly. “You will take good care of him, won’t you, darling.” Nombewu felt her eyes water, and she gave her mother a hug. It was the way she’d said it.
The clinic was empty, and the receptionist got up and walked over to Nombewu, unsuccessfully trying to straighten her coat with her hands. Last person Nombewu wanted to talk to right now. The woman looked surprised. “So, you’re folks actually gonna go through with this.”
“Wish I hadn’t,” Nombewu muttered.
The woman paused a minute, looked around, and seemed to understand. And like that, the coldness vanished. “Oh, baby!”
“She wants to be alone,” Nombewu’s mother said. At once the receptionist nodded, apologetically.
“Wait!” Nombewu cried.
Both her mother and the woman looked at her in surprise. The woman’s face had lost the bored mask – now it was compassionate, feeling, sympathetic. She was a new person.
“Wait, you said you— you had— I know you must know— look, I want to talk. I need to talk about it. Do you know anyone I could see, just to— talk.”
The woman smoothed out her coat, best she could “Well, that you ask— I’m a doctor myself, actually. Got an office on— here’s my card. Look, I know it’s rough, believe me, I said— if you ever need anyone, you and your mother, both, you can come, and I’ll— free of charge, one session, you can see—”
She was looking at the ground, and her voice sounded genuine, excited, for the first time. Nombewu took the card. “We’ll call you up,” she said.
Her mother held her hand.
“You walked, all the way from Escondido?” Nonyameko asked, incredulous.
“All the way.”
Everything was open between them.
“Your grandmother walked,” her mother said. “From her village in the eastern Transkei, all the way to Cape Town, where she boarded a ship to America. It was 1948, the year the National Party came into power.”
Nombewu knew the story. Her grandmother had been living in the homelands. Nombewu’s grandfather had been a migratory miner, wounded in the Miners’ Strike, fired from work, who had died in his homeland two years later. Weary, malnourished, Nombewu’s grandmother had fled, making her way across a dangerous country, stowing on board a ship, all carrying the seed of Nombewu’s mother. As if by miracle, the baby had survived.
Jerry came back into the room, and he was uncontainable, like a little child. “I’m going to school! I’m going to school! Baby I’m going to school!” Nombewu thumbed the business card. Her mother gripped her shoulder. Jerry came over, almost throwing himself at her, with a final yell of joy. He was going to school.
The woman in the white coat looked at her across the room – just a glance – and flashed the tiniest of grins.
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