But she doesn’t say anything. She just closes the door behind her.
She’ll be sleeping when I go to school tomorrow. She’ll be gone when I get home. She’s gonna eat the chicken too, and then we won’t have nothin’ for dinner.
Anything.
I think she’s a junkie. Like the man in the blue house with the saggy roof up the block that Grandpa says I gotta stay away from. He got nasty scabs on his face, like the ones on Mama’s arms.
I think she’s like the people who visit the boys on the corner up from Boo’s, late at night when I’m supposed to be asleep.
Junkies.
Like Erica’s mom. We seen her once, last spring, outside Sun Moon Chinese after school. Just standing there on the corner, her hair all crazy, her stomach spilling out of her too-small shorts. She called to us. Erica! Hold up, baby! But Erica grabbed my hand and we ran. I never seen Erica run in all my life, but that day we ran so fast I thought my chest was gonna explode when we finally stopped, like, ten blocks away.
“Why we runnin’, E?” I panted. But she just shook her head and looked away from me, her eyes all wet like she was gonna cry, which was even crazier than seeing her run, ’cause Erica doesn’t cry. Not ever. But that day, she almost did.
Erica got a new family now. A foster family with a mom and a dad and a couple other kids too. I told her it was good because she’s my friend and I love her and maybe her new mom will do her hair up like the other girls at school. But it’s been six months and Erica don’t look any different. Except her eyes. They got hard, like cement.
“I got a door on my room,” she said when I asked her what her new house was like. Then she folded her arms up like she does now, like she wished they could make her disappear.
“I don’t like it there,” she whispered.
“How come?”
“I just don’t.” She shrugged and stared at the cold cafeteria floor.
I grab my yellow bunny and curl up tiny and tight beneath my blanket.
I am in a cave.
Morning.
I don’t wanna go to school.
I tell Grandpa I don’t feel good, but he puts his giant hand on my forehead.
“You don’t have a fever, Punks. You gotta go.”
I don’t say another word, just grab my backpack and pretend to walk to school before circling back to the house. I check to make sure Grandpa’s gone, and then I let myself in.
I climb the stairs, dump my bag on the floor. Then I start in the bathroom. Bucket, Pine-Sol, hot water, and the towel we keep just for cleaning. I wipe everything, even the floor, then go downstairs and wipe down the kitchen again, even though we do that every morning anyway. I make a peanut butter sandwich, wrap it up tight in plastic wrap, and leave it on the counter with a note that says, For you, Mama. Love, Michelle.
I lie on my bed and wait for her. Wait to hear the door open till I can’t help it and my eyes close.
When I wake up, someone’s in the shower. The TV’s on downstairs.
Mom is on the couch in panties and a tank top. She’s lying down sort of sideways, her head arched back on her skinny neck like she’s frozen in place. Her fingers are curled, her hands out in front of her like they’re floating. I go over and cover her with a blanket.
Her eyes. I don’t know what she’s looking at. The ceiling?
What’s wrong with her?
Who’s in the shower?
“Mom?” The sandwich is still on the kitchen table.
She drags her eyes toward me. “’Chelle?” she murmurs—slow, sloppy—and her mouth turns up into a smile. “Baby? How’d you get here? C’mere and sit with your mama.”
She lies all the way down, her arms open like paper-thin curtains. I go to her. I climb right beside her and let them close behind me, smushed together on the couch, my nose in her neck.
“Are you okay?”
“Mmm-hmmm . . . ,” she murmurs.
“I cleaned the house. I made you a sandwich,” I say.
Her breath is deep, long and hard like she’s sleeping, but her eyes are still sort of open. She’s so warm. I try not to look down at her bare legs, scabby and marked and grayish. My beautiful mama, all torn up.
“You my baby,” she says, over and over, and she hugs me like I’m yellow bunny. “My baby. My baby.” I squeeze her so hard, I bury my face so hard into her, I want to climb inside so she can see. So she can see that I am good and so is Grandpa and she can stay with us and she don’t need to be so dirty like those other people. She ain’t like that, my mom. Not mine. Not you, Mama.
“Don’t go away no more,” I say.
“Mmmm,” she says.
The shower turns off upstairs.
“Who’s here?” I ask.
Her arms go soft at her sides. She’s asleep.
A man walks down the stairs with one of Grandpa’s towels wrapped around his waist. He is tall with wide shoulders and a long, thin face. I don’t know who he is. He looks at us, his face sort of split in half, his mouth smiling, his eyes not.
“What’chu doin’ home, little girl?” he says.
“Mama,” I whisper, nudging her.
The man steps closer. “You Corinna’s kid?” I nod. I want to get under the blanket. “Yeah. You look like her. How old are you?”
I do not answer. He stares at me. I stare back.
“Don’t be scared,” he says, laughing. “I’m your mama’s friend.”
“I don’t know you,” I say.
He strolls into the kitchen and looks at the sandwich I made. He reads the card too.
“That’s sweet,” he says. Then he strolls back and puts his hand on my face. On my cheek.
I pull away. What do you do if you’re in trouble?
Find a lady.
“Mom!” I say, but loud. Really loud. Right in her face. I push her chest a little. She jiggles, then jerks, her eyes slide open for a second, then roll back into sleep.
“She’s gonna wake up and make you leave,” I say to him.
“Oh yeah? Stand up.”
“No,” I say.
“Stand up.” And I do. I stand. Because Mama won’t get up and Grandpa’s not here and I’m supposed to be in school but I didn’t go and I’ve never done that before and what if I scream and the cops come and Grandpa gets mad and makes her leave forever.
He leans over, the towel dangling in front of him, and puts his face right up to mine.
“Wake up, Corinna,” he whispers in a little girl’s voice. “Wake up.”
He grabs my bottom, his fingers dig in hard, almost lifting me off the floor. He lets go and I stagger back into Mama, whose limp arm dangles. Useless. Then he walks to the kitchen and bites into the peanut butter sandwich.
“Go upstairs,” he says. “And keep your mouth shut or I’ll tell your grandpa you been skippin’ school.”
I run to the stairs. Go. Go. Get to your room. Close the door.
But even in here, it feels like his hand is still on me.
5
CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL
Coney Island, New York
You ask me if I’m all right, but I won’t answer. My room stinks like puke, even though they changed my sheets and cleaned the floor. The cops are still here, outside in the hall, waiting for me.
“Michelle?”
I glare at you as best I can from my one working eye.
“You’re angry,” you say.
You’re right.
“What did you tell them?” I ask.
“I told them what I knew.”
You pause, like you’re picking your words real careful. “I told them the truth: that your name is Michelle. You were beaten and we don’t know more than that. I didn’t tell them anything else. I’m not going to. Not until we talk, you and me, okay?”
“I can’t see right.”
“Your eyes are still swollen. They’ll get better with time. So, what are we gonna do here, Michelle? You found me. I’m here. So, let’s figure out our next move. The so
oner you talk, the sooner we can do that, okay? Let’s start with your mom. Did she really pass away?”
I shrug and turn away from you. Please. Just let me sleep.
“Michelle? Is your mother dead?”
I want to say yes. I want it to be true. I want to say she’s the one who died on the couch last year, who got wheeled out on a stretcher and never came back. I want it to be her.
But the wrong people die. The dead people are the good ones, the bad ones get to walk around like nothing. Like they got a right to keep breathing while the ones you need just leave their skin, waste away till there ain’t nothing left but a stupid dirty T-shirt and what you can barely remember.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s dead.”
Quiet. Your eyes settle on me. “Who else, then? Who else can we call?”
Grandpa. That’s who you should call. He’d tell all of you to stay the hell away from me.
C’mon, Punks. Let’s go home.
“What happens if there ain’t nobody else?” I ask.
But I already know the answer.
Nothing good. Not for me. Not for any of us.
6
STRAWBERRY MANSION
North Philadelphia
I’m fourteen.
“Hey, Punky.”
The words rattle out of Grandpa’s mouth, more air than sound.
“Hey,” I say, pulling up the blanket to his chin, over the empty space where his belly used to be. It’s gone now. So is the fat in his cheeks. Like someone let the air out.
That’s what tumors do. Like the one he’s got in his stomach.
He stays on the couch all day now.
Tonight, Mama sits me on the floor and works hard on my hair, combing and pulling till it’s tight in a ponytail. She pulls too hard, but I don’t complain because Grandpa’s eyes shimmer a little, like maybe this will all be okay. Like maybe he can leave and we’ll be fine.
His hands. His hands are still big. Grandpa’s bear paws.
Scoop me up, Grandpa. Pretend you are a bear. Throw me over your shoulder, carry me up the stairs, because it’s late and I should be in bed. I still need somebody to take care of me.
Time for bed, Punks. School tomorrow. Remember.
I stay up late and watch him breathe, watch the up and down of his chest till I fall asleep on the floor next to him.
In the morning, he’s still.
I go outside and sit on the step till I hear my mother shout. Then I know it’s true.
Erica once told me there’s pain so bad, your body won’t let you feel it. Like if your leg gets cut off. Or if you’re burned alive.
He’s gone.
My grandpa.
Now it’s just me and her.
Springtime.
I open the door to my room. Calvin is sprawled on my bed. His dirty fingers touch my red bear blanket.
The room is dark except for a dim yellow light from the window. I drop my book bag and turn to leave, but where? Suddenly he’s up and in my face.
“Hey, girl,” he whispers. “Where you been?”
Keep still. Don’t move. Stop shaking.
His lips pull back into a smile. Yellow teeth and stinking breath and milky eyes pour over me. He touches my face with his fingers.
I pull away, but he just moves closer.
“What do you want?”
“I wanna see how you doing. I know it’s been hard on you lately. With your grandpa gone.”
I don’t say anything.
“You know, my daddy died when I was your age. I know it ain’t easy.” He touches my face again, looks down toward my hips. “You ever wanna talk about it, maybe I can help, you know?”
“I’m good,” I say.
He moves closer, his lips skid against my mouth. I clench my teeth and my legs turn to water. He holds my head still. His tongue on my lips.
Downstairs, people are talking and walking around. Someone passes my door, peers in, and keeps going.
I shake my head away. “Stop,” I whimper. Please.
Calvin pushes up against me. “You miss your grandpa?”
He scratches his grimy black hair. Flecks of white fall on his shoulders. He’s not wearing a shirt.
“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “I’m gonna look out for y’all. Understand?” Then his mouth’s on me again, but harder this time, pushing past my teeth. I try to bite it, bite his tongue like a slug in my mouth. I push hard against his sticky skin, and it feels like I’m drowning and nothing works. My legs, my hands, my teeth, it’s all sinking away from me and I can’t stop him digging into my face. Stop it. Please.
“Yo, Calvin!” someone yells from the hall. “Corinna lookin’ for you!”
He lets me go and wipes his mouth. I gasp, my heart punching at my chest bone, and I picture Grandpa busting through the door, Calvin slamming to the ground as Grandpa growls in his face. Grandpa, gathering me up into his arms. Me, curling myself into his lap.
Then I see my mother in the doorway, her thin body like a shadow in the flimsy yellow light. She stares at us and scratches at her arm, her eyes all glassy and slow. She looks confused.
“What the fuck?” she murmurs.
Calvin wipes his mouth again. He glares at her, his eyes challenging and angry, as if he’s daring her to speak. She lowers her head and looks at the floor. Then he chuckles, pats her bottom, and disappears into the hallway.
“Mama,” I whisper.
She points her finger at the dark. “You tryin’ to take him away from me? I see the way you been walkin’ around here, all cute and shit.”
She sways, wipes her nose. “Stay away from him. Hear me?”
Deep inside my chest, my heart jams up for a second and all the air goes out of me. Empty. Like Grandpa on the couch the night he died.
She turns away and shuts my door and then she’s gone.
I push my bed against the door and crawl into the corner of my room. Through the floorboards, her words to Calvin slice the dark.
“C’mere, baby,” she says, her voice soft and young. Like a little girl’s. Calvin laughs again. I grab my book bag and hug it to my chest, Grandpa’s words echoing in my head.
What do you do if you’re in trouble?
Chuck tries to watch me. He sits in his chair outside Boo’s and watches the house till he’s too drunk to see it. He drinks more now that Grandpa’s gone. I think I make him sad. After school he asks me questions like, who’s coming over and do we have enough money? I smile and lie and say it’s not that bad, because I don’t want him calling the cops.
Find a cop.
They’ll send me to a group home. Like that place on Broad and Olney where Erica went. The place she wouldn’t talk about, even when she showed up at my house with a busted lip. I tried to ask her questions, to find out what it’s like there, but she’d only shake her head and fold her arms tight across her chest. Then one night she showed up all bouncy, her eyes bright and secretive.
I’m leavin’, ’Chelle. I’m goin’ to New York. Me and my roommate. She got a cousin there.
Then she slipped me a crumpled piece of paper with an address scrawled in sloppy handwriting, like whoever wrote it didn’t have much time.
Pink Houses
Crescent Street
New York
Pink houses. Were they really pink?
You should come visit, ’Chelle. Once I get all set up.
How you know it’ll be better in New York? I’d asked.
Erica shrugged, her shoulders falling slightly.
Can’t nothin’ be worse than here, she’d said. A few days later, I tried to call her cell phone, but all I heard was the three long beeps you get when you don’t have no more time left on your prepaid.
Find a lady.
There is no magic lady. No one’s gonna bring me home to Grandpa.
I pull up the carpet in the corner of my room and count the money from Grandpa’s stash. Fifty-one dollars left. I used to have eighty-four dollars, but I gotta spend more now that s
chool’s out. It’s June. By August, I won’t have anything left.
I tuck the bills back under the rug and carefully push the carpet back into place. Then I curl up on the floor below the window.
For a long time I lay in the dark until my eyes grow heavy and I drift off into a fitful sleep. I think I hear someone calling me. Shouting, a siren squealing past, the thump thump thump of music. Something shatters.
Then I hear the sound of heavy footsteps. The doorknob turns slightly.
Tap. Tap. Tap. “I know you in there.”
Calvin’s voice grabs at me through the door. I crawl into my closet and wait until his shadow walks away. He can’t get in—not tonight, not with the bed against the door. But someday he will. I know it.
What do you do if you’re in trouble?
I wait for the answer to come to me. But there’s only darkness and Calvin’s voice and my own heart, pounding like feet on the pavement, running away, running away, running away.
Morning.
My mother’s sitting in the kitchen. She’s smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee, a crumpled paper bag on the table before her.
“You can’t stay here no more,” she says. “I’m sorry, ’Chelle, but you can’t.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Don’t play dumb.”
“It ain’t my fault,” I say. “He was there when I got home.”
“I know. It don’t matter.”
Mom drops her cigarette into her coffee. It hisses as it hits the brown liquid, a trail of smoke rising in the still air.
“I know I ain’t right,” she continues. Her voice wobbles as she stares at the table, her eyes like liquid, like they’re about to spill out onto the floor. “I know I ain’t. But me and Calvin . . .” For a moment, she looks like the girl in the photo from when I was a baby, her eyes far away and sad.
“You got friends, Michelle? Good friends?”
I shiver.
Mom slides the bag across the table to me. “There’s forty dollars in there, and the WIC card for this month so you can get food. You go stay with one of your friends. Someone good. You let me know when you all set up, okay?”